^^ ^^^-^

•V.A-V

,\^'

-' a\^

:.^^

^^^^'<^.

(\ '

* •>

0^

.0*

<^..

^^^

^^.

* i

1 »

^' \^^

%

.^^^'

r -r,

■0 s

aV

\0 ■/,

^-iiU/-

,/'

\^^^^'

-J

0^

.-^''

■O- X

.0

S:'-y

N» ■'•,.

, '^ '"- 0

•<'V

cP^V.

? .

V o.^^

^^- ^X

x° -Co

. ^. ^^'

3 ^.

-■'^^. "^"^

^V-^-,

* .A

.-^' . " ^ '- .

^A ^v

^.S^'

-i

.c' <i

n-^ ^

.-^^^

^"^^.

.\^^

o-^

0'

.^

r* .C,

•V'

''K

:■ <^'
<^"'>..

\X-

o V

-^^

.O'

< 1 fi „ V.

'/■ ,-x\-

,0 ..

•\" -u

J o.

^- ' S 1 >

0' •/:..

. -^^

c^^'.V

^^- 0^

•\^ -A

\^

K-^'

.^^^■^

o >

N'-rl

cf-.

0-

'S.

"-^ 0^

x^-

oN

vv

x'^'

%.x^^

v

~^. f

■■^'

<^''

■■^o^'

-o V^'

^^

^'-%

o>'

,A^

A-^-

^'^i^'r

), Cu^v(<jLc

//z^^A^.u/^j/'/tf'^t^''.

•^Va

CRITICAL

MIS

\J

N E O U S

I

!{■■

f

BY THOMAS CARLYLE,

JlvTBOB of the EISTORr 0? THE FKENCH XBTOHm^*-

BOSTON:
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY.

1859.

'V .i

^^

APR a 194Q

547

17

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Publishers introduce the present edition of Mr. Carlyle's Essays
with the following note from the American Editor of tne First Edition.

Messrs. Carey & Hart,

Gentlemen : — I have to signify to his American readers, Mr. Carlyle's con-
currence in this new edition of his Essays, and his expressed satisfaction in the
author's share of pecuniary benefit which your justice and liberality have secured
to him in anticipation of the sale. With every hope for the success of your
enterprise, I am your obedient M.TOit,

K. "W. Emerson.

Concord, June, 1845.

CONTENTS.

Faga

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter ------------- 7

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCl. 1827.

Sta^te of German Literature -------------- 15

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCII. 1827.

Life and Writings of Werner -------------35

Foreign Review. — No. I. 1828.

Goethe's Helena ------------------56

Foreign Review.— No. II. 1828.

Goethe ---------------------73

Foreign Review.— No. III. 1828.

Burns ------------95

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCVI. 1828.

The Life of Heyne ----------------- 115

Foreign Review.— No. IV. 1828.

German Playwrights --------------- - 128

Foreign Review.— No. V. 1829.

Voltaire ------------------- - 142

Foreign Review.— No. VI. 1829.

NovALis -•' --------- 167

Foreign Review,— No. VII. 1829.

Signs of the Times ----------------- 187

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCVIII. 1829.

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter again -------- -- 196

Foreign Review. — No. IX. 1830.

On History -------------------- 219

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. II. No X. 1830.
Luther's Psalm ------------------ 224

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. II. No. XII. 1831.

Schiller --------------------- 225

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. III. No. XIV. 1831.

The Nibelugen Lied ------------ 243

Westminster Review.— No. XXIX. 1831.

German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 262

Foreign Quarterly Review.— No. XVI. 1831.

Taylor's Historic Survey of German Poetry -------- 282

Edinburgh Review.— No. CV. 1831.

Tragedy of the Night-Moth -------------- 295

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. IV. No. XIX. 1831.

Characteristics- ------------------ 296

Edinburgh Review.— No. CVIII. 1831.

Goethe's Portrait ----------------- 310

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. V. No. XXVI. 1832.

Biography -----... 311

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. V. No. XXVII. 1832.

Boswell's Life of Johnson -------------- 317

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. V. No. XXVIII. 1832.

!• 6

« CONTENTS.

Pag*

Death of Goethe --------------.-. 341

New Monthly Magazine.— Vol. XXXIV. No. CXXXVIII. 1832.

Goethe's Works ---------.-----... 345

Foreign Quarterly Review. — No. XIX.. 1832.

Corn-Law Rhymes ---------.-------. 365

Edinburgh Review.— No. CX. 1832.

Novelle : Translated from Goethe -------...._ 375

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VI. No. XXXIV. 1832.

The Tale: By Goethe 383

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VI. No. XXXIII. 1832.

Diderot ------------------.-. 399

Foreign Quarterly Review.— No. XXII. 1833.

On History Again --: -------_. 422

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VII. No. XLI. 1833.

Count Cagliostro : Flight First ------------- 426

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VIII. No. XLIII. 1833.

Count Cagliostro : Flight Last .-----.. 433

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VIII. No. XLIV. 1833,

Death of the Rev. Edward Irving ----------- 45X

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. XI. No. LXI. 1835.

The Diamond Necklace ---------------- 453

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. XV. Nos. LXXXV. and LXXXVI. 1837.

Memoirs of Mirabeau --.------------. 478

London and Westminster Review. — Nos. VIII. and LI. 1837.

Parliamentary History of the French Revolution ------ 504

London and Westminster Review. — Nos. IX. and LII. 1837.

Memoirs of the Life of Scott -------------511

London and Westminster Review. — Nos. XII. and LV. 1838.

Varnhagen Von Ense's Memoirs ------------ 535

London and Westminster Review. — No. LXII. 1838.

Petition on the Copy-Right Bill --------- -. 546

The Examiner.— April 7, 1839.

Dr. Francia ----- . 547

Foreign Quarterly Review. — No. LXII. 1843.

CAELYLE'S
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH EICHTER.

[Edinburgh Review, 1827.]

Dh. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard
of Boswell's intention to write a life of him,
announced, with decision enough, that, if he
thought Boswell really meant to ivrite his life,
he would prevent it by taking BoswelVs! That
great authors should actually employ this pre-
ventive against bad biographers is a thing we
would by no means recommend ; but the truth
is, that, rich as we are in biography, a well-
written life is almost as rare as a well-spent
one ; and there are certainly many more men
•whose history deserves to be recorded than
persons willing and able to furnish the record.
But great men, like the old Egyptian kings,
must all be tried after death, before they
can be embalmed : and what, in truth, are
these "Sketches," "Anas," "Conversations,"
"Voices," and the like, but the votes and plead-
ings of the ill-informed advocates, and jurors,
and judges, from whose contlict, however, we
shall in the end have a true verdict 1 The worst
of it is at the first ; for weak eyes are precisely
the fondest of glittering objects. And, accord-
ingly, no sooner does a great man depart, and
leave his character as public property, than a
crowd of little men rushes towards it. There
they are gathered together, blinking up to it with
such vision as they have, scanning it from afar,
hovering round it this way and that, each cun-
ningly endeavouring, by all arts, to catch some
reflex of it in the little mirror of himself;
though, many times, this mirror is so twisted
•with convexities and concavities, and, indeed,
so extremely small in size, that to expect any
true image, or any image whatever from it, is
out of the question.

Richter was much better-natured than John-
son ; and took many provoking things with the
spirit of a humorist and philosopher; nor can
•we think that so good a man, even had he fore-
seen this work of Doering's, would have gone
the length of assassinating him for it. Doer-
ing is a person we have known for several
years, as a compiler, and translator, and ballad-

• Jean Paul Friedrick liichter's Leben, ncbst Cliarac-
teristik seiner JVerke ; von Heinrich Doeriv^. (Jean Paul
Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works ;
by Heinrich Doering.) Gotha. Ueniiings, 1826. l'2ni<>.
pp. 2U8.

monger, whose grand enterprise, however, is
his Gallery of Weimar Authors; a series of
strange little biographies, beginning with Schil-
ler, and already extending over Wieland and
Herder, — now comprehending, probably by
conquest, Klopstock also, and lastly, by a sort
oi droit d'aubaine, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter,
neither of whom belonged to Weimar. Au-
thors, it must be admitted, are happier than the
old painter with his cocks : for they write, na-
turally and without fear of ridicule or offence,
the name and description of their work on the
title-page ; and thenceforth the purport and
tendency of each volume remains indi^putable.
Doering is sometimes lucky in this privilege;
for his manner of composition, being so pecu-
liar, might now and then occasion difficulty,
but for this precaution. His biographies he
works up simply enough. He first ascertains,
from the Leipzig Convcrsationslexicon or Jor-
den's Poetical Lexicon, Flogel, or Koch, or other
such Compendium or Handbook, the aate and
place of the proposed individual's birth, his
parentage, trade, appointments, and the titles
of his works; (the date of his death yr a al-
ready know from the newspapers ;) this Serves
as a foundation for the edifice. He then goes
through his writings, and all other writings
where he or his pursuits are treated of, and
whenever he finds a passage with his name in
it, he cuts it out, and carries it away. In this
manner a mass of materials Is collected, and
the building now proceeds apace. Stone is
laid on the top of stone, just as it comes to
hand ; a trowel or two of biographic mortar, if
perfectly convenient, being perhaps spread in
here and there, by M^ay of cement; and so the
strangest pile suddenly arises ; amorphous,
pointing every way but to the zenith, — here a
block of granite, there a mass of pipe-clay;
till the whole finishes, when the materials are
finished, — and you leave it standing to poste-
rity, like some miniature Stonehenge, a perfect
architectural enigma.

To speak without figure, this mode of life-
writing has its disadvantages. For one thing,
the composition cannot well be what the critics
call harmonious; and, indeed, Herr Doering's
transitions are often abrupt enough. His hero

7

8

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

changes his object and occupation from page
to page, often from sentence to sentence, in the
most unaccountable way ; a pleasure journey,
and a sickness of fifteen years, are despatched
with equal brevity; in a moment you find him
married, and the father of three fine children.
He dies no less suddenly; — he is studying as
usual, writing poetry, receiving visits, full of
life and business, when instantly some para-
graph opens under him, like one of the trap-
doors in the Vision of Mirza, and he drops,
without note of preparation, into the shades
below. Perhaps, indeed, not for ever : we have
instances of his rising after the funeral, and
winding up his affairs. The time has been,
that when the brains were out the man would
die; but Doering orders these matters dif-
ferently.

We beg leave to say, however, that we really
have no private pique against Doering: on the
contrary, we are regular purchasers of his
ware ; and it gives us true pleasure to see his
spirits so much improved since we first met
him. In the Life of Schiller, his state did seem
rather unprosperous : he wore a timorous, sub-
missive, and downcast aspect, as if like Sterne's
Ass, he were saying, " Don't thrash me ; — but
if you will, you may !" Now, however, com-
forted by considerable sale, and praise from
this and the other Liter aturhlatt, which has
commended his diligence, his fidelity, and,
strange to say, his method, he advances with
erect countenance and firm hoof, and even re-
calcitrates contemptuously against such as do
him offence. Gliick auf dem Weg ! is the worst
we wish him.

Of his Life of Richter, these preliminary ob-
servations may be our excuse for saying but
little. He brags much, in his preface, that it
is all true and genuine ; for Richter's widow,
it seems, had, by public advertisement, cau-
tioned the world against it; another biography,
partly by the illustrious deceased himself, part-
ly by Otto, his oldest friend and the appointed
editor of his works, being actually in prepara-
tion. This rouses the indignant spirit of Doer-
ing, and he stoutly asseverates, that, his docu-
ments being altogether authentic, this biogra-
phy is mo pseudo-biography. With greater truth
he might have asseverated that it was no bio-
graphy at all. Well are he and Hennings of
Gotha aware that this thing of shreds and
patches has been vamped together for sale
only. Except a few letters to Kunz, the Bam-
berg bookseller, which turn mainly on the pur-
chase of spectacles, and the journeyings and
freightage of two boxes that used to pass and
repass between Richter and Kunz's circulating
library; with three or four notes of similar im-
portance, and chiefly to other booksellers, there
are no biographical documents here, which
were not open to all Europe as well as to Hein-
rich Doering. Indeed, very nearly one-half of
the Life is occupied with a description of the
funeral and its appendages, — how the " sixty
torches, with a number of lanterns and pilch-
pans," were arranged ; how this patrician or pro-
fessor followed that, through Friedrich-street,
Chancery-street, and other sVeets of Bayreuth •
and how at last the torches all went out, as
Doctor Gabler and Doctor Spatzier were pero-

rating (decidedly in bombast) over the grave.
Then, it seems, there were meetings held in
various parts of Germany, to solemnize the
memory of Richter ; among the rest, one in the
Museum of Frankfort on the Maine ; where a
Doctor Borne speaks another long speech, if
possible in still more decided bombast. Next
come threnodies from all the four winds, mostly
on very splay-footed metre. Thewhole of which
is here snatched from the kind oblivion of the
newspapers, and " lives in Settle's numbers one
day more."

We have too much reverence for the name
of Richter to think of laughing over these un-
happy threnodies and panegyrists ; some of
whom far exceed any thing we English can ex-
hibit in the epicedial style. They rather tes-
tify, however maladroitly, that the Germans
have felt their loss, — which, indeed, is one to
Europe at large; they even affect us with a
certain melancholy feeling, when we consider
how a heavenly voice must become mute, and
nothing be heard in its stead but the whoop of
quite earthly voices, lamenting, or pretending
to lament. Far from us be all remembrance
of Doering and Company, while we speak of
Richter! But his own works give us some
glimpses into his singular and noble nature;
and to our readers a few words on this man,
certainly one of the most remarkable of his
age, will not seem thrown away.

Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Rich-
ter is little known out of Germany. The only
thing connected with him, we think, that has
reached this country, is his saying, imported
by Madame de Stael, and thankfully pocketed
by most newspaper critics : " Providence has
given to the French the empire of the land, to
the English that of the sea, to the Germans that
of — the air !" Of this last element, indeed, his
own genius might easily seem to have been a
denizen : so fantastic, many-coloured, far-grasp-
ing, every way perplexed and extraordinary in
his mode of writing, that to translate him is next
to impossible; nay, a dictionary of his works
has actually been in part published for the use
of German readers ! These things have re-
stricted his sphere of action, and may long re-
strict it to his own counay: but there, in re-
turn, he is a favourite of the first class ; studied
through all his intricacies with trustful admi-
ration, and a love which tolerates much. Dur-
ing the last forty years, he has been continually
before the public, in various capacities, and
growing generally in esteem with all ranks of
critics; till, at length, his gainsayers have
been either silenced or convinced ; and Jean
Paul, at first reckoned haif-mad, has long ago
vindicated his singularities to nearly universal
satisfaction, and noiv combines popularity with
real depth of endowment, in perhaps a greater
degree than any other writer; being second in
the latter point to scarcely more fhan one of
his contemporaries, and in the former second
to none.

The biography of so distinguished a person
could scarcely fail to be interesting, especial-
ly his autobiography; which, accordingly, we
wait for, andmay in time submit to our readers,
if it seem worthy: meanwhile, the history of
his life, so far as outward events characterize

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

9

it, may be stated in fi w -words. He was born
at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, in March, 1763.
His father was a subaltern teacher in the Gym-
nasium of the place, and was afterwards pro-
moted to be clergyman at Schwarzbach on the
Saale. Richter's early education was of the
scantiest sort ; but his fine faculties and un-
wearied diligence supplied every defect. Un-
able to purchase books, he borrowed what he
could come at, and transcribed from them, often
great part of their contents, — a habit of ex-
cerpting, which continued with him through
life, and influenced, in more than one way, his
mode of writing and study. To the last, he
was an insatiable and universal reader; so
that his extracts accumulated on his hands,
•'till they filled whole chests." In 1780, he
went to the University of Leipzig ; with the
highest character, in spite of the impediments
which he had struggled with, for talent and ac-
quirement. Like his father, he was destined
for Theology ; from which, however, his va-
grant genius soon diverged into Poetry and Phi-
losophy, to the neglect, and, ere long, to the
final abandonment, of his appointed profession.
Not well knowing what to do, he now accepted
a tutorship in some family of rank ; then he
had pupils in his own house, — which, how-
ever, like his way of life, he often changed; for
by this time he had become an author, and, in
his wanderings over Germany, was putting
forth, — now here, now there, — the strangest
books, with the strangest titles : For instance, —
Greenland Lawsuits ; — Biographical Recreations
under the Cranium of a Giantess; — Selection from
the Papers of the Devil; — and the like. In these
indescribable performances, the splendid fa-
culties of the writer, luxuriating as they seemed
in utter riot, could not be disputed ; nor, with
all its extravagance, the fundamental strength,
honesty, and tenderness of his nature. Genius
will reconcile men to much. By degrees, Jean
Paul began to be considered not a strange,
crackbrained mixture of enthusiast and buf-
foon, but a man of infinite humour, sensibility,
force, and penetration. His writings procured
him friends and fame ; and at length a wife
and a settled provision. With Caroline Mayer,
his good spouse, and a pension (in 1802) from
the King of Bavaria, he settled in Bayreuth,
the capital of his native province ; where he
lived thenceforth, diligent and celebrated in
many new departments of literature; and died
on the 14th of November, 1825, loved as well
as admired by all his countrymen, and most by
those who had known him most intimately.

A huge, irregular man, both in mind and
person, (for his portrait is quite a physiogno-
mical study,) full of fire, strength, and impe-
tuosity, Richter seems, at the same time, to
have been, in the highest degree, mild, simple-
hearted, humane. He was fond of conversation,
and might well shine in it: he talked, as he
wrote, in a style of his own, full of wild strength
and charms, to which his natural Bayreuth ac-
cent often gave additional effect. Yet he loved
retirement, the country, and all natural things ;
from his youth upwards, he himself tells us,
he may almost be said to have lived in the
open air ; it was among groves and meadows
that he studied, — often that he wrote. Even in
2

the streets of Bayreuth, we have heard, he was
seldom seen without a flower in his breast. A
man of quiet tastes, and warm, compassionate
affections ! His friends he must have loved
as few do. Of his poor and humble mother
he often speaks by allusion, and never without
reverence and overflowing tenderness. " Un-
happy is the man," says he, " for whom his own
mother has not made all other mothers vener-
able !" and elsewhere : — " O thou who hast
still a father and a mother, thank God for it in
the day when thy soul is full of joyful tears,
and needs a bosom wherein to shed them !" —
We quote the following sentences from Doer-
ing, almost the only memorable thing he has
written in this volume: —

" Richter's studying or sitting apartment of-
fered, about this time, (1793,) a true and beau-
tiful emblem of his simple and noble way of
thought, which comprehended at once the high
and the low. Whilst his mother, who then
lived with him, busily pursued her household
work, occupying herself about stove and dres-
ser, Jean Paul was sitting in a corner of the
same room, at a simple writing-desk, with few
or no books about him, but merely with one
or two drawers containing excerpts and manu-
scripts. The jingle of the household operations
seemed not at all to disturb him, any more than
did the cooing of the pigeons, which fluttered
to and fro in .the chamber, — a place, indeed, of
considerable size." — P. 8.

Our venerable Hooker, we remember, also
enjoyed " the jingle of household operations,"
and the more questionable jingle of shrewd
tongues to boot, while he wrote ; but the good
thrifty mother, and the cooing pigeons, were
wanting. Richter came afterwards to live in
finer mansions, and had the great and learned
for associates ; but the gentle feelings of those
days abode with him: through life he was the
same substantial, determinate, yet meek and
tolerating man. It is seldom that so much
rugged energy can be so blandly attempered;
— that so much vehemence and so much soft-
ness will go together.

The expected edition of Richter's works is
to be in sixty volumes: and they are no less
multifarious than extensive; embracing sub-
jects of all sorts, from the highest problems
of transcendental philosophy, and the most
passionate poetical delineations, to Golden Rules
for the Weather-Prophct, and instructions in the
Art of Falling Asleep. His chief productions
are novels : the Unsichtbare Loge (Invisible
Lodge); Flcgcljahre (Wild-Oats); Life of Fix-
lein ; the Jubelsenior (Parson in Jubilee);
Schmelzlc^s Journey to Fldtz ; Katzenberger^s
Journey to the Bath; Life of Fibel ; with r:.«any
lighter pieces ; and two works of a higher
order, Hesperus and Titan, the largest and the
best of his novels. It was the former that first
(in 1795) introduced him into decisive and
universal estimation with his countrymen : the
latter he himself, with the most judicious of
his critics, regarded as his master-piece. But
the name Novelist, as we in England must
understand it, would ill describe so vast and
discursive a genius : for, with all his grotesque,
tumultuous pleasantry, Richter is a man of a
truly earnest, nay, high and solemn character

10

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and seldom writes -without a meaning far be-
yond the sphere of common romancers. Hes-
perus and Titan themselves, though in form
nothing more than "novels of real life," as the
Minerva Press would sa^', have solid metal
enough in them to furnish whole circulating
libaries, were it beaten into the usual filigree ;
and much which, attenuate it as we might, no
quarterly subscriber could well carry with him.
Amusement is often, in part almost always, a
mean with Richter; rarely or never his high-
est end. His thoughts, his feelings, the creations
of his spirit, walk before us imbodied under
rrondrous shapes, in motley and ever-fluctuat-
'ng groups ; but his essential character, how-
ever he disguise it, is that of a Philosopher and
moral Poet, whose study has been human
nature, whose delight and best endeavour are
with all that is beautiful, and tender, and m)'s-
teriously sublime, in the fate or history of man.
This is the purport of his writings, whether
their form be that of fiction or of truth; the spirit
that pervades and ennobles his delineations of
common life, his wild wayward dreams, allego-
ries, and shadowy imaginings, no less than his
disquisitions of a nature directly scientific.

But in this latter province also, Richter has
accomplished much. His Vorschuk der Aesthetik
(Introduction to Esthetics*) is a work on po-
etic art, based on principles of no ordinary
depth and compass, abounding in noble views,
and, notwithstanding its frolicsome exuberance,
in sound and subtile criticism ; esteemed even
in Germany, where criticism has long been
treated of as a science, and by such persons as
Winkelmann, Kant, Herder, and the Schlegels.
Of this work we could speak long, did our limits
allow. We fear it might astonish many an
honest brother of our craft, were he to read it;
and altogether perplex and dash his maturest
counsels, if he chanced to understand it. —
Richter has also written on education, a work
entitled Levana ; distinguished by keen prac-
tical sagacity, as well as generous sentiment,
andacertain sobermagnificence of speculation ;
the whole presented in that singular style which
characterizes the man. Germany is rich in
works on Education ; richer at present than
any other country: it is there only that some
echo of the Lockes and Miltons, speaking of
this high matter, may still be heard ; and speak-
ing of it in the language of our own time, with
insight into the actual wants, advantages,
perils, and prospects of this age. Among
writers on this subject, Richter holds a high
place ; if we look chiefly at his tendency and
aims, perhaps the highest. — The Clavis Fichti-
ana is a ludicrous pertbrmance, known to us
only by report; but Richter is said to possess
the merit, while he laughs at Fichte, of under-
standing him; a merit among Fichte's critics,
which seems to be one of the rarest. Report
also, we regret to say, is all that we know of
the Campaner Thai, a Discourse on the Immor-
tality of the Soul ; one of Richter's beloved
topics, or rather the life of his whole philosophy,

♦ From aiVSai/o/xai, to feel. A word invented by
Baumgarten, (some eighty years ago,) to express gener-
ally the Science of the Fine Mrtf ; and now in universal
use among the Germans. Perhaps we also might as
well adopt it ; at least if any such science should ever
arise among us.

glimpses of which look forth on us from almost
every one of his writings. He died while en
gaged, under recent and almost total blindness,
in enlarging and remodelling this Campaner
Thai : the unfinished manuscript was borne
upon his coffin to the burial vault; and Klop-
stock's hymn, Auferstehen wirst du, " Thou shall
arise, my soul," can seldom have been sung
with more appropriate application than over
the grave of Jean Paul.

We defy the most careless or prejudiced
reader to peruse these works without an im-
pression of something splendid, wonderful, and
daring. But they require to be studied as well
as read, and this with no ordinary patience, if
the reader, especially the foreign reader, wishes
to comprehend rightly either their truth or their
want of truth. Tried by many an accepted
standard, Richter would be speedily enough
disposed of; pronounced a mystic, a German
dreamer, a rash and presumptuous innovator;
and so consigned, with equanimity, perhaps
with a certain jubilee, to the Limbo appointed
for all such wind-bags and deceptions. Ori-
ginality is a thing we constantly clamour for,
and constantly quarrel with ; as if, observes
our author himself, any originality but our
own could be expected to content us ! In fact,
all strange things are apt, withoutfaultof theirs,
to estrange us at first view, and unhappily
scarcely any thing is perfectly plain, but what
is also perfectly common. The current coin
of the realm passes into all hands ; and be it
gold, silver, copper, is acceptable and of known
value: but with new ingots, with foreign bars,
and medals of Corinthian brass, the case is
widely different.

There are few writers with whom delibera-
tion and careful distrust of first impressions
are more necessary than with Richter. He
is a phenomenon from the very surface ; he
presents himself with a professed and deter-
mined singularity: his language itself is a stone
of stumbling to the critic; to critics of the
grammarian species, an unpardonable, often
an insuperable, rock of offence. Not that he
isignorant of grammar, or disdains the sciences
of spelling and parsing ; but he exercises both
in a certain lalitudinarian spirit; deals with
astonishing liberality in parentheses, dashes,
and subsidiary clauses ; invents hundreds of
new words, alters old ones, or by hyphen,
chains, pairs, and packs them together into
most jarring combination ; in short, produces
sentences of the most heterogeneous, lun^ber-
mg, interminable kind. Figures without limit
indeed the whole is one tissue of metaphors,
and similes, and allusions to all the provinces
of Earth, Sea, and Air, interlaced with epi-
grammatic breaks, vehement bursts, or sar-
donic turns, interjections, quips, puns, and
even oaths ! A perfect Indian jungle it seems;
a boundless, unparalleled imbroglio; nothing
on all sides but darkness, dissonance, confusion
worse confounded ! Then the style of the
whole corresponds, in perplexity and extrava-
gance, with that of the parts. Every work, be it
in fiction or serious treatise, is embaled in some
fantastic wrappage, some mad narrative ac-
counting for its appearance, and connecting it
with the author, who generally becomes a per

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRTCH RICHTER.

11

son of the drama himself, before all is over.
He has a whole imaginary geography of Europe
in his novels ; the cities of Flachsenfingen,
Haarhaar, Scheerau, and so forth, with their
princes, and privy-councillors, and serene
highnesses; most of whom, odd enough fel-
lows every way, are Richter's private acquaint-
ances, talk with him of state matters, (in the
purest Tory dialect,) and often incite him to get
on with his writing. No story proceeds without
the mjst erratic digressions, and voluminous
tagrags rolling after it in many a snaky twine.
Ever and anon there occurs some "Extra-leaf,"
with its satirical petition, programme, or other
wonderful intercalation, no mortal can foresee
on what. It is, indeed, a mighty maze; and
often the panting reader toils after him in vain,
or, baffled and spent, indignantly stops short,
and retires perhaps for ever.

All this, we must admit, is true of Richter;
but much more is true also. Let us not turn
from him after the first cursory glance, and
imagine we have settled his account by the
words Rhapsody and Affectation. They are
cheap words we allow, and of sovereign po-
tency ; we should see, therefore, that they be
not rashly applied. Many things in Richter
accord ill with such a theory. There are rays
of the keenest truth, nay, steady pillars of
scientific light rising through this chaos: Is it
in fact a chaos, or may it be that our eyes are
not of infinite vision, and have only missed the
plan 1 Few rhapsodists are men of science,
of solid learning, of rigorous study, and ac-
curate, extensive, nay, universal knowledge ;
as he is. With regard to affectation, also, there
is much to be said. The essence of afl^ecta-
tion is that it be assumed: the character is, as
it were, forcibly crushed into some foreign
mould, in the hope of being thereby reshaped
and beautified ; the unhappy man persuades
himself that he is in truth a new and wonder-
fully engaging creature, and so he moves about
with a conscious air, though every movement
betrays not symmetry, but dislocation. This it is
to be affected, to walk in a vain show. But the
•Strangeness alone is no proof of the vanity.
Many men that move smoothly in the old es-
tablished railways of custom will be found
to have their affectation ; and perhaps here
and there some divergent genius be accused
of it unjustly. The show, though common, may
not cease to be vain; nor become so for being
uncommon. Before we censure a man for
seeming what he is not, we should be sure that
we know what he is. As to Richter in parti-
cular, wj think it but fair to observe, that
strange and tumultuous as he is, there is a
certain benign composure visible in his
writings; a mercy, a gladness, a reverence,
united in such harmony, as we cannot but
think tespeaks not a false, but a genuine state
of mind; not a feverish and morbid, but a
healthy and robust state.

The secret of the matter, perhaps, is that
Richter requires more study than most readers
care to give ; for, as we approach more closely,
many things grow clearer. In the man's own
sphere there is c insistency; the farther we ad-
vance into it, we see confusion more and more
nnfold itself intJ order till at last, viewed

from its proper centre, his intellectual universe,
no longer a distorted, incoherent series of air-
landscapes, coalesces into compact expansion ;
a vast, magnificent, and variegated scene ; full,
indeed, of wondrous products, and rude, it
may be, and irregular; but gorgeous, and
varied, and ample ; gay with the richest ver-
dure and foliage, and glittering in the brightest
and kindest sun.

Richter has been called an intellectual Co-
lossus ; and in truth it is still somewhat in this
light that we view him. His faculties are all
of gigantic mould; cumbrous, awkward in their
movements ; large and splendid rather than
harmonious or beautiful ; yet joined in living
union, and of force and compass altogether
extraordinary. He has an intellect vehement,
rugged, irresistible ; crushing in pieces the
hardest problems; piercing into the most hid-
den combinations of things, and grasping the
most distant: an imagination vague, sombre,
splendid, or appalling; brooding over the
abysses of Being; wandering through Infini-
tude, and summoning before us, in its dim re-
ligious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity,
or terror: a fancy of exuberance literally un-
exampled; for it pours its treasures with a
lavishness which knows no limit, hanging, like
the sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, and
sowing the earth at large with orient pearl. But
deeper than all these lies Humour, the ruling
quality with Richter; as it were the central fire
that pervades and vivifies his whole being. He
is a humorist from his inmost soul; he thinks
as a humorist, he feels, imagines, acts as a
humorist : Sport is the element in which his
nature lives and works. A tumultuous element
for such a nature, and wild work he makes in
il ! A Titan in his sport as in his earnestness,
he oversteps all bound, and riots without law
or measure. He heaps Pelion upon Ossa, and
hurls the universe together and asunder hke a
case of playthings. The Moon "bombards"
the Earth, being a rebellious satellite; Mars
" preaches" to the other planets very singular
doctrine ; nay, we have Time and Space them-
selves playing fantastic tricks : it is an infinite
masquerade; all Nature is gone forth mum-
ming in the strangest guises.

Yet the anarchy is not without its purpose;
these vizards are not mere hollow masks; but
there are living faces beneath them, and this
mumming has its significance, Richter is a man
of mirth, but he seldom or never conucscf r.d? to
be a merry-andrew. Nay, in spite of its extrava-
gance, we should say that his humour is of all
his gifts intrinsically the finest and most genu-
ine. It has such witching turns ; there is some-
thing in it so capricious, so quaint, so heartfelt.
From his Cyclopean workshop, and its fuligi-
nous limbecs, and huge unwieldy machinery,
the little shrivelled, twisted figure comes forth
at last, so perfect and so living, to be for ever
laughed at and for ever loved I Wayward as
he seems, he works not without forethought;
like Rubens, by a single stroke, he can change
a laughing face into a sad one. But in his
smile itself, a touching pathos may lie hidden,
a pity loo deep for tears. He is a man of feel-
ing, in the noblest sense of that word ; for he
loves all living with the heart of a brother; his

12

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

st*il rusTies forth, in sympathy with gladness
and sorrow, with goodness or grandeur, over
all creation. Every gentle and generous affec-
tion, every thrill of mercy, every glow of
nobleness, awakens in his bosom a response,
nay, strikes his spirit into harmony ; a wild
music as of wind-harps, floating round us in
fitful swells, but soft sometimes, and pure and
soul-entrancing as the song of angels ! Aver-
sion itself with him is not hatred; he despises
much, but justly, with tolerance also, with
placidity, and even a sort of love. Love, in
fact, is the atmosphere he breathes in, the me-
dium through which he looks. His is the
spirit which gives life and beauty to whatever
it embraces. Inanimate Nature itself is no
longer an insensible assemblage of colours
and perfumes, but a mysterious Presence, with
which he communes in unutterable sympathies.
We might call him, as he once called Herder, "a
Priest of Nature, a mild Bramin," wandering
amid spicy groves, and under benignant skies.
The infinite Night with her solemn aspects.
Day, and the sweet approach of Even and
Morn, are full of meaning for him. He loves
the green Earth with her streams and forests,
her flowery leas and eternal skies; loves her
with a sort of passion, in all her vicissitudes
of light and shade ; his spirit revels in her
grandeur and charms ; expands like the breeze
over wood and lawn, over glade and dingle,
stealing and giving odours.

It has sometimes been made a wonder that
things so discordant should go together; that
men of humour are often likewise men of sen-
sibility. But the wonder should rather be to
see them divided; to find true genial humour
dwelling in a mind that was coarse or callous.
The essence of humour is sensibility; warm,
tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence.
Nay, we may say that unless seasoned and
purified by humour, sensibility is apt to run
wild ; will readily corrupt into disease, false-
hood, or, in one word, sentimentality. Wit-
ness Rousseau, Zimmermann, in some points
also St. Pierre : to say nothing of living in-
stances ; or of the Kotzebues, and other pale
hosts of wobegone mourners, whose wailings,
like the howl of an Irish wake, from time to
time cleft the general ear. The last perfection
of our faculties, says Schiller with a truth far
deeper than it seems, is that their activity, with-
out ceasing to be sure and earnest, become sport.
True humour is sensibility, in the mostcatholic
and deepest sense ; but it is this sport of sensi-
bility ; wholesome and perfect therefore ; as it
were, the playful teasing fondness of a moth:/
to her child.

That faculty of irony, of caricature, which
often passes by the name of humour, but con-
sists chiefly in a certain superficial distortion
or reversal of objects, and ends at best in
laughter, bears no resemblance to the humour
of Richtcr. A shallow endowment this ; and
often more a habit than an endowment. It is
but a poor fraction of humour; or rather, it is
the body to which the soul is wanting ; any
life it has being false, artificial, and irrational.
True numour springs not more from the head
♦han from the heart; it is not contempt, its
r?sence is love ; it issues not in laughter,

but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. It
is a sort of inverse sublimity; exalting, as it
were, into our affections what is below us,
while sublimity draws down into our affections
what is above us. The former is scarcely less '
precious or heart-affecting than the latter; per-
haps it is still rarer, and, as a test of genius, still
more decisive. It is, in fact, the bloom and
perfume, the purest effluence of a deep, fine,
and loving nature; a nature in harmony with
itself, reconciled to the world and its stinted-
ness and contradiction, nay, finding in this
very contradiction new elements of beauty as
well as goodness. Among our own writers,
Shakspeare in this as in all other provinces,
must have his place: yet not the first; his
humour is heartfelt, exuberant, warm, but sel-
dom the tenderest or most subtile. Swift in-
clines more to simple irony; yet he had genu-
ine humour too, and of no unloving sort, though
cased, like Ben Jonson's, in a most bitter and
caustic rind. Sterne follows next; our last
specimen of humour, and, with all his faults,
our best; our finest, if not our strongest, for
Yoricl\ and Corporal Trim, and Uncle Toby, have
yet no brother but in Don Quixote, far as he lies
above them. Cervantes is indeed the purest
of all humourists ; so gentle and genial, so full
yet so ethereal, is his humour, and in such ac-
cordance with itself and his whole noble na-
ture. The Italian mind is said to abound in
humour; yet their classics seem to give us
no right emblem of it : except, perhaps, in
Ariosto, there appears little in their current
poetry that reaches the region of true humour.
In France, since the days of Montaigne, it seems
to be nearly extinct. Voltaire, much as he dealt
in ridicule, never rises into humour; and even
with Moliere, it is far more an affair of the un-
derstanding than of the character.

That in this point, Richter excels all German
authors, is saying much for him, and may be
said truly. Lessing has humour, — of a sharp,
rigid, substantial, and on the whole, genial sort :
yet the ruling bias of his mind is to logic. So
likewise has Wieland, though much diluted by
the general loquacity of his mature, and impo-
verished still farther by the influences of a
cold, meagre, French skepticism. Among the
Ramlers, Gellerts, Hagedorns, of Frederick the
Second's time, we find abundance, and delicate
in kind too, of that light matter which the
French call pleasantry; bui little or nothing
that deserves the name of humour. In the
present age, however, there is Goethe, with a
rich true vein ; and this sublimated, as it were,
to an essence, and blended in still union with
his whole mind. Tieck also, among his many
fine susceptibilities, is not without a vt^arm keen
sense for the ridiculous ; and a humour rising,
though by short fits, and from a much lower
atmosphere, to be poetic. But of all these men,
there is none that, in depth, copiottsness, and
intensity of humour, can be compared with
Jean Paul. He alone exists in humour; lives,
moves, and has his being in it. With him it
is not so much united to his other .'^.jalities, of
intellect, fancy, imagination, mora, feeling, as
these are united to it; or rather unite them-
selves to it, and grow under its warmth, as in
their proper temperature and climate. Not aa

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

It

if we meant to assert that his humour is in all
cases perfectly natural and pure ; nay, that it
is not often extravagant, untrue, or even ab-
surd: but still, on the whole, the core and life of
it are genuine, subtile, spiritual. Not without
reason have his panegyrists named him Jean
Paul der Einzige, — " Jean Paul the Only :" in
one sense or the other, either as praise or cen-
sure, his critics also must adopt this epithet ;
for surely, in the whole circle of literature,
we look in vain for his parallel. Unite the
sportfulness of Rabellais, and the best sensibi-
lity of Sterne, with the earnestness, and, even
in slight portions, the sublimity of Milton ; and
and let the mosaic brain of old Burton give
forth the workings of this strange union, with
the pen of Jeremy Bentham !

To say how, with so peculiar a natural en-
dowment, Richter should have shaped his
ind by culture, is much harder than to say
•»at he has shaped it wrong. Of affectation
■ie will neither altogether clear him, nor very
oudly pronounce him guilty. That his man-
ter of writing is singular, nay, in fact, a wild
U)mplicated Arabesque, no one can deny. But
the n^uft question is, — how nearly does this
manner of writing represent his real manner
of thinking and existing ? With what degree
of freedom does it allow this particular form
of being to manifest itself; or what fetters and
perversions does it lay on such manifestation 1
For the great law of culture is : Let each be-
come all that he was created capable of being ;
expand, if possible, to his full growth; resist-
ing all impediments, casting off all foreign,
especially all noxious adhesions ; and show
himself at length in his own shape and stature,
be these what they may. There is no uniform
of excellence, either in physical or spiritual
nature : all genuine things are what they ought
to be. The reindeer is good and beautiful, so
likewise is the elephant. In literature it is the
same: "every man," says Lessing, "has his
own style, like his own nose." True, there
are noses of wonderful dimensions; but no
nose can justly be amputated by the public, —
not even the nose of Slawkenbergius himself:
so it be a real nose, and no wooden one, put on
for deception's sake and mere show.

To speak in grave language, Lessing means,
and we agree with him, that the outward style
is to be judged of by the inward qualities of
the spirit which it is employed to body forth ;
that, without prejudice to critical propriety,
well understood, the former may vary into
many shapes as the latter varies; that, in
short, the grand point for a writer is not to be
of this or that external make and fashion, but,
in every fashion, to be genuine, vigorous, alive,
—alive with his whole being, consciously, and
for beneficent results.

Tried by this test, we imagine Richter's wild
manner will be found less imperfect than many
a very tame one. To the man it may not be
unsuitable. In that singular form, there is a
fire, a splendour, a benign energy, which per-
suades us into tolerance, nay into love, of much
that might otherwise offend. Above all, this
man, alloyed with imperfections as he may be,
IS consistent and coherent: he is at one with
himself; lie knows his aims, and pursues them

iU' sincerity of heart, joyfully, and with undi-
vided will. Aharmoniousdevelopmentof being,
the first and last object of all true culture, has
therefore been attained ; if not completely, at
least more completely than in one of a thousand
ordinary men. Nor let us forget, that in such a
nature, it was not of easy attainment; that
where much was to be developed, some imper-
fection should be forgiven. It is true, the
beaten paths of literature lead the safeliest to
the goal ; and the talent pleases us most, which
submits to shine with new gracefulness through
old forms. Nor is the noblest and most pecu-
liar mind too noble or peculiar for working by
prescribed laws : Sophocles, Shakspeare, Cer-
vantes, and in Richter's own age, Goethe, how
little did they innovate on the given forms of
composition, how much in the spirit they
breathed into them ! All this is true ; and
Richter must lose of our esteem in proportion.
Much, however, will remain ; and why should
we quarrel with the high, because it is not the
highest 1 Richter's worst faults are nearly al-
lied to his best merits ; being chiefly exuber-
ance of good, irregular squandering of wealth,
a dazzling with excess of true light. These
things may be pardoned the more readily, as
they are little likely to be imitated.

On the whole. Genius has privileges of its
own ; it selects an orbit for itself; and be this
never so eccentric, if it is indeed a celestial
orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last com-
pose ourselves ; must cease to cavil at it, and
begin to observe it, and calculate its laws.
That Richter is a new planet in the intellec-
tual heavens, we dare not affirm ; an atmo-
spheric meteor he is not wholly; perhaps a
comet, that, though with long aberrations, and
shrouded in a nebulous veil, has yet its place
in the empyrean.

Of Richter's individual works, of his opinions,
his general philosophy of life, we have no room
left us to speak. Regarding his novels, we may
say, that, except in some few instances, and
those chiefly of the shorter class, they are not
what, in strict language, we can term unities :
with much callida junctura of parts, it is rare
that any of them leaves on us the impression
of a perfect, homogeneous, indivisible whole
A true work of art requires to he fused in the
mind of its creator, and as it were, poured forth
(from his imagination, though not from his
pen) at one simultaneous gush. Richter's
works do not always bear sufficient marks of
having been in fusion; yet neither are they
merely riveted together : to say the least, they
have been ivelded. A similar remark applies
to many of his characters ; indeed, more or
less, to all of them, except such as are entirely
humourous, or have a large dash of humour. In
this latter province, certainly he is at home ; a
true poet, a maker : his Siebenkds, his Schmelzle,
even his Fibel and Fixlein are living figures.
But in heroic personages, passionate, massive,
overpowering as he is, we have scarcely ever
a complete ideal ; art has not attained to the
concealment of itself. With his heroines agaia
he is more successful ; they are often true he-
roines, though perhaps with too little variety
of character; bustling, buxom mothers and
housewives, with all the caprices, perversities,
B

14

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and warm, gen jrous helpfulness of women ;
or white, half-angelic creatures, meek, still,
long-suffering, high-minded, of tenderest affec-
tions, and hearts crushed yet uncomplaining.
Supernatural figures he has not attempted ;
and wisely, for he cannot write without belief.
Yet many times he exhibits an imagination of
a singularity, nay, on the whole, of a truth and
grandeur,unexampled elsewhere. In his dreams
there is a mystic complexity, a gloom, and amid
the dim, gigantic, half-ghastly shadows, gleam-
ings of a wizard splendour, which almost recall
to us the visions of Ezekiel. By readers who
have studied the Dream in the New-year's Eve
we shall not be mistaken.

Richter's Philosophy, a matter of no ordinary
interest, both as it agrees with the common
philosophy of Germany, and disagrees with it,
must not be touched on for the present. One
only observation we shall make : it is not me-
chanical, or skeptical ; it springs not from the
forum or the laboratory, but from the depths
of the human spirit; and yields as its fairest
product a noble system of morality, and the
firmest conviction of religion. In this latter
point we reckon him peculiarly worthy of
study. To a careless reader he might seem
the wildest of infidels ; for nothing can exceed
the freedom with which he bandies to and fro the
dogmas of religion, nay, sometimes, the highest
objects of Christian reverence. There are pas-
sages of this sort, which will occur to every
reader of Richter ; but which, not to fall into the
error we have already blamed in Madame de
Stael, we shall refrain from quoting. More light
is in the following: "Or," inquires he, in his
usual abrupt way, (Note to SchmelzWi Journey,')
" Or are all your Mosques, Episcopal Churches,
Pagodas, Chapels of Ease, Tabernacles, and
Pantheons, any thing else but the Ethnic Fore-
court of the Invisible Temple and its Holy of
Holies ?" Yet, independently of all dogmas,
nay, perhaps in spite of many, Richter is, in
the highest sense of the word, religious. A
reverence, not a self-interested fear, but a noble
reverence for the spirit of all goodness, forms
the crown and glory of his culture. The fiery
elements of his nature have been purified
under holy influences, and chastened by a
principle of mercy and humility into peace
and well-doing. An intense and continual
faith in man's immortality and native grandeur
accompanies him ; from amid the vortices of
life he looks up to a heavenly loadstar; the
solution of what is visible and transient, he
finds in what is invisible and eternal. He has
doubted, he denies, yet he believes. " When,
in your last hour," says he, (Levana, p. 251,)
" when, in your last hour, (think of this,) all
faculty in the broken spirit shall fade away
and die into inanity, — imagination, thought,
effort, enjoyment, — then at last will the night-
flower of Belief alone continue blooming, and
refresh with its perfumes in the last darkness."

To reconcile these seeming contradictions,
to explain the grounds, the manner, the con-
gruity of Richter's belief, cannot be attempted
here. We recommend him to the study, the
tolerance, and even the praise, of all men who
have inquired into this highest of questions
with a right spirit; inquired with the martyr

fearlessness, but also with the martyr reve-
rence, of men that love Truth, and will not ac-
cept a lie. A frank, fearless, honest, yet truly
spiritual faith is of all things the rarest in our
time.

Of writings which, though with many reser-
vations, we have praised so much, our hesitat-
ing readers may demand some specimen. To
unbelievers, unhappily, we have none of a
convincing sort to give. Ask us not to repre-
sent the Peruvian forests by three twigs pluck-
ed from them ; or the cataracts of the Nile by
a handful of its water ! To those, meanwhile,
who will look on twigs as mere dissevered
twigs, and a handful of water as only so many
drops, we present the following. It is a sum-
mer Sunday night ; Jean Paul is taking leave
of the Hukelum Parson and his wife ; like him
we have long laughed at them or wept for them ;
like him, also, we are sad to part from them.

" We were all of us too deeply moved. We
at last tore ourselves asunder from repeated
embraces ; my friend retired with the soul
whom he lov^. I remained alone behind
with the Night.

"And I walked without aim through woods,
through valleys, and over brooks, and through
sleeping villages, to enjoy the great Night, like
a Day. I walked, and still looked, like the
magnet, to the region of midnight, to strength-
en my heart at the gleaming twilight, at this
upstretching aurora of a morning beneath our
feet. White night-butterflies flitted, while blos-
soms fluttered, white stars fell, and the white
snow-powder hung silvery in the high Shadow
of the Earth, which reaches beyond the Moon,
and which is our Night. Then began the
iEolian Harp of the Creation to tremble and tc
sound, blown on from above ; and my immor-
tal Soul was a string in this harp. — The heart
of a brother, everlasting Man, swelled under
the everlasting heaven, as the seas swell under
the sun and under the moon. — The distaivt
village clocks struck midnight, mingling, as it
were, with the ever-pealing tone of ancient
Eternity. — The limbs of my buried ones
touched cold on my soul, and drove away its
blots, as dead hands heal eruptions of the skin.
— I walked silently through little hamlets, and
close by their outer church-yards, where crum-
bled upcast coffin-boards were glimmering,
while the once bright eyes that had lain in
them were mouldered into gray ashes. Cold
thought I clutch not like a cold spectre at my
heart : I look up to the starry sky, and an ever-
lasting chain stretches thither, and over, and
below ; and all is Life and Warmth, and Light,
and all is Godlike or God. . .

"Towards morning, I described thy late
lights, little city of my dwelling, which I be-
long to on this side the grave ; I returned to
the Earth ; and in thy steeples, behind the by-
advanced great midnight, it struck half-pavSt
two : about this hour, in 1794, Mars went down
in the west, and the Moon rose in the east; and
my soul desired, in grief for the noble warlike
blood which is still streaming on the blossoms
of spring : * Ah, retire, bloody War, like red
Mars : and thou, still Peace, come forth like
the mild divided Moon !' " — End of Quintvs
Fixlein.

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

16

Such, seen through no uncoloured medium,
t It in dim remoteness, and sketched in hurried,
transitory outline, are some features of Jean
Paul Friedrich Richter and his works. Ger-
many has long loved him; to England also
he must one day become known ; for a man
of this magnitude belongs not to one people,
but to the world. What our countrymen may
decide of him, still more what may be his for-
tune with posterity, we will not try to foretell.
Time has a contracting influence on many a
wide-spread fame ; yet of Richter we will say,
that he may survive much. There is in him that
which does not die ; that Beauty and Earnest-
ness of soul, that spirit of Humanity, of Love
and mild Wisdom, over which the vicissitudes
of mode have no sway. This is that excellence
of the inmost nature which alone confers

immortality on writings ; that charm which
still, under every defacement, binds us to the
pages of our own Hookers, and Taylors, and
Brownes, when their way of thought has long
ceased to be ours, and the most valued of their
merely intellectual opinions have passed away,
as ours too must do, with the circumstances
and events in which they took their shape or
rise. To men of a right mind, there may
long be in Richter much that has attraction
and value. In the moral desert of vulgar Lite-
rature, with its sandy wastes, and parched,
bitter, and too often poisonous shrubs, the
writings of this man will rise in their irregular
luxuriance, like a cluster of date-trees, with
its greensward and well of water, to refresh
the pilgrim, in the sultry solitude, with nou-
rishment and shade.

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.*

[Edinburgh Review, 1827.]

These two books, notwithstanding their di-
versity of title, are properly parts of one and
the same ; the " Outlines," though of prior date
in regard to publication, having now assumed
the character of sequel and conclusion to the
larger work, — of fourth volume to the other
three. It is designed, of course, for the home
market ; yet the foreign student also will find
in it a safe and valuable help, and, in spite of
its imperfections, should receive it with thank-
fulness and good-will. Doubtless we might
have wished for a keener discriminative and
descriptive talent, and perhaps for a somewhat
more catholic spirit, in the writer of such a
history: but in their absence we have still
much to praise. Horn's literary creed would,
on the whole, we believe, be acknowledged by
his countryman as the true one ; and this,
though it is chiefly from one immovable station
that he can survey his subject, he seems
heartily anxious to apply with candour and
tolerance. Another improvement might have
been a deeper principle of arrangement, a
firmer grouping into periods and schools; for,
as it stands, the work is more a critical sketch
of German Poets, than a history of German
Poetry.

Let us not quarrel, however, with our au-
tiior; his merits as a literary historian are plain,
and by no means inconsiderable. Without
rivalling the almost frightful laboriousness of
Bouterwek or Eichhorn, he gives creditable
proofs of research and general information, and
possesses a lightness in composition, to which
neither of these erudite persons can well pre-
tend. Undoubtedly he has a flowing pen, and

• 1. Die Poesie und Beredsavikeit der Deutsclien, von Lu-
thers Zeit bis lur Oegtnwart. Dargestellt von Franz Horn.
(The Poetry and Oratory of the Germans, from Luther's
Time to the Present. Exhibited by Franz Horn.) Berlin,
1822—1824. 3 vols. 8vo.

2. Umrisse txr Oeschichte und Kritik der schonen
Literatur Deutschlanda wdhrend der Jahn:, 1790 — 1818.
(Outlines for the History and Critirism of Polite Litera-
ure in Germany, during the years 1790—18 i8.) By Franz
Born. Berlin, 1819, 8vo.

is at home in this province ; not only a speak-
er of the word, fndeed, but a doer of the work;
having written, besides his great variety of
tracts and treatises, biographical, philosophi-
cal, and critical, several very deserving works
of a poetic sort. He is not, it must be owned,
a very strong man, but he is nimble and or-
derly, and goes through his work with a cer-
tain gayety of heart; nay, at times, with a
frolicsome alacrity which might even require
to be pardoned. His character seems full of
susceptibility; perhaps too much so for its
natural vigour. His novels, accordingly, to
judge from the few we have read of them,
verge towards the sentimental. In the present
work, in like manner, he has adoptee' nearly
all the best ideas of his contemporaries, but
with something of an undue vehemence; and
he advocates the cause of religion, integrity,
and true poetic taste with great heartiness and
vivacity, were it not that too often his zeal
outruns his prudence and insight. Thus, for
instance, he declares repeatedly, in so many ■
words, that no mortal can be a poet unless he
is a Christian. The meaning here is very good;
but why this phraseology 1 Is it not inviting
the simple-minded (not to speak of scoflers,
whom Horn very justly contemns,) to ask,
when Homer subscribed the Thirty-nine Ar
tides 1 or whether Sadi and Hafiz were really
of the Bishop of Peterborough's opinion?
^Again, he talks too often of " representing the
Infinite in the Finite," of expressing the un
speakable, and such high matters. In fact,
Horn's style, though extremely readable, has
one great fault; it is, to speak it in a :ingle
word, an aflfected style. His stream of mean-
ing, uniformly clear and wholesome in itself,
will not flow quietly along its channel ; but is
ever and anon spurting up into epigram and
antithetic jets. Playful he is, and kindly, and
we do believe, honest-hearted ; but there is a
certain snappishness in him, a frisking abrupt
ness ; and then his sport is more a perpetuai

1«

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

giggle, than any dignified smile, or even any-
sufficient laugh with gravity succeeding it.
This sentence is among the best we recollect
of him, and will partly illustrate what we mean.
We submit it, for the sake of its import
likewise, to all superfine speculators on the
Reformation, in their future contrasts of Luther
and Erasmus. "Erasmus," says Horn, "be-
longs to that species of writers who have all
the desire in the world to build God Almighty
a magnificent church, — at the same time, how-
ever, not giving the Devil any offence ; to whom,
accordingly, they set up a neat little chapel
close by, where you can offer him some touch
of sacrifice at a time, and practise a quiet
household devotion for him without disturb-
ance." In this style of " witty and conceited
mirth," considerable part of the book is written.

But our chief business at present is not with
Franz Horn, or his book ; of whom accordingly,
recommending his labours to all inquisitive
students of German, and himself to good esti-
mation with all good men, we must here take
leave. We have a word or two to say on that
strange literature itself; concerning which our
readers piobably feel more curious to learn
what it is, than with what skill it has been
judged of.

Above a century ago, the Pere Bouhours
propounded to himself the pregnant question :
Si un AUemand pent avoir de Vesprit? Had the
Pere Bouhours bethought him of what country
Kepler and Leibnitz were, or who it was that
gave to mankind the three great elements
of modern civilization. Gunpowder, Printing,
and the Protestant Religion, it might have
thrown light on his inquiry. Had he known
the Nibelungen Lied; and where Reimcke Fuchs,
and Faust, and the Ship of Fools, and four-fifths
of all the popular mythology, humour, and
romance, to be found in Europe in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, took its
rise ; had he read a page or two of Ulrich
Hutten, Opitz, Paul Flemming, Logau, or even
Lohenstein and Hoffmanns-waldau, all of whom
had already lived and written in his day ; had
the Pere Bouhours taken this trouble, who
knows but he might have found, with what-
ever amazement, that a German could actually
have a little esprit, or perhaps even something
better 1 No such trouble was requisite for the
Pere Bouhours. Motion in vacuo is well known
to be speedier and surer than through a re-
sisting medium, especially to imponderous
feodies ; and so the light Jesuit, unimpeded by
facts or principles of any kind, failed not to
reach his conclusion ; and, in a comfortable
frame of mind, to decide negatively, that a Ger-
man could not have any literary talent.

Thus did the Pere Bouhours evince that he
had " a pleasant wit;" but in the end he has
paid dear for it. The French, themselves, have
long since begun to know something of the Ger-
mans, and something also of their own critical
Daniel ; and now it is by this one M?uimely
joke that the hapless Jesuit is doomed to live ;
for the blessing of full oblivion is denied him,
and so he hangs suspended in his own noose,
over the dusky pool which he struggles toward,
but for a great while will not reach. Might
his fate but serve as a warning to kindred men

of wit, in regard to this and so many other
subjects ! For surely the pleasure of despising,
at all times and in itself a dangerous luxury,
is much safer after the toil of examining than
before it.

We differ from the Pere Bouhours in this
matter, and must endeavour to discuss it dif-
ferently. There is, in fact, much in the present
aspect of German Literature, not onjydeserving
notice but deep consideration from all thinking
men, and far too complex for being handled in
the way of epigram. It is always advantageous
to think justly of our neighbours ; nay, in mere
common honesty, it is a duty; and, like every
other duty, brings its own reward. Perhaps at
the present era this duty is more essential than
ever; an era of such promise and such threat-
ening, when so many elements of good and evil
are everywhere in conflict, and human society
is, as it were, struggling to body itself forth
anew, and so many coloured rays are springing
up in this quarter and in that, which only by
their union can produce pure light. Happily,
too, though still a difficult, it is no longer an
impossible duty; for the commerce in material
things has paved roads for commerce in things
spiritual, and a true thought, or a noble crea-
tion, passes lightly to us from the remotest
countries, provided only our minds be open to
receive it. This, indeed, is a rigorous proviso,
and a great obstacle lies in it ; one which to
many must be insurmountable, yet which it
is the chief glory of social culture to surmount.
For if a man who mistakes his own contract-
ed individuality for the type of human nature,
and deals with whatever contradicts him, as if
it contradicted this, is but a pedant, and with-
out true wisdom, be he furnished with partial
equipments as he may, — what better shall we
think of a nation that, in like manner, isolates
itself from foreign influence, regards its own
modes as so many laws of nature, and rejects
all that is different as Unworthy even of ex-
amination!

Of this narrow and pei verted condition, the
French, down almost to our own times, have
afforded a remarkable and instructive example ;
as indeed of late they have been often enough
upbraidingly reminded, and are now them-
selves, in a manlier spirit, beginning to admit.
That our countrymen have at any time erred
much in this point, cannot, we think, truly be
alleged against them. Neither shall we say,
with some passionate admirers of Germany,
that to the Germans in particular they have
been unjust. It is true, the literature and cha-
racter of that country, which, within the last
half century, have been more worthy perhaps
than any other of our study and regard, are
still very generally unknown to us, or, what is
worse, misknown : but for this there are not
wanting less offensive reasons. That the false
and tawdry ware, which was in all hands,
should reach us before the chaste and truly
excellent, which it required some excellence
to recognise; that Kotzebue's insanity should
have spread faster, by some fifty years, than
Lessing's wisdom ; that Kant's Philosophy
should stand in the back-ground as a dreary
and abortive dream, and Gall's Cranicbgy bo
held out to us from every booth as a reality;-

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

17 y

all this lay in the nature of the case. That
many readers should draw conclusions from
imperfect premises, and by the imports judge
too hastily of the stock imported from, was like-
wise natural. No unfair bias, no unwise in-
disposition, that we are aware of, has ever been
at work in the matter; perhaps, at worst, a
degree of indolence, a blamable incuriosity to
all products of foreign genius : for what more
do we know of recent Spanish or Italian lite-
rature than of German ; of Grossi and Man-
zoni, of Campomanes or Jovellanos, than of
Tieck and Richter] Wherever German art,
in those forms of it which need no interpreter,
has addressed us immediately, our recognition
of it has been prompt and hearty; from Diirer
to Mengs, from Handel to Weber and Beetho-
ven, we have welcomed the painters and mu-
sicians of Germany, not only to our praise, but
to our aflections and beneficence. Nor, if in
their literature we have been more backward,
is the literature itself without blame. Two
centuries ago, translations from the German
were comparatively frequent in England :
Luther's Tubk-Talk is still a venerable classic
in our language; nay Jacob Boehme has found
a place among us, and this not as a dead letter,
but as a living apostle to a still living sect of
our religionists. In the next century, indeed,
translation ceased; but then it was, in a great
measure, because there was little worth trans-
lating. The horrors of the Thirty Years' War,
followed by the conquests and conflagrations of
Louis the Fourteenth, had desolated the country ;
French influence, extending from the courts
of princes to the closets of the learned, lay like
a baleful incubus over the far nobler mind of
Germany; and all true nationality vanished
from its literature, or was heard only in faint
tones, which lived in the hearts of the people,
but could not reach with any effect to the ears
of foreigners.* And now that the genius of the

♦ Not that tlie Germans were idle ; or altosrether en-
gaeeii. as we too loosely suppose, in the work of coni-
mcritary anil lexicography. On the contrary, they
rhymed and romanced with due vi'-'onr as lo quantity ;
only the quality was had. Two facts on this head may
deserve menliiin : In the year 1719, there were found, in
the lilirary of one virtuoso, no fewer than 300 volumes
of di'VdIional poetry, contaiiiinsr, says Horn, "a treasure
of :!.'i712 German hymns ;" and, much aliout the same
period, one of Gottsclied's scholars had amassed as many
as 1500 German novels, all of the ITlh century. The
hymns we understand to be much better than the novels,
or rather, perhaps, the novels to be much worse than the
hynuis. Neither was critical study neclected, nor in-
deed honest endeavour on all hand's to attain improve-
ment : witness the strange books from time to time put
forth, anil the still sirancer institutions established for
this |)urpose. Amonir the former we have the "Poeti-
cal V\\\\M'\," (^PoeliFche Trichter.) manufactured at Niirn-
U-T'i in 16.)0, and professing, within si.x hours, to pour in
the whole essence of this ditlicult art into the most un-
furnished head. Niirnhersalso was the chief seat of the
famous Mt'isterslbirrcr and their Silvaeriuvfte, or Singer-
guilds, in which poetry was tauu'ht and practised like
any other handicraft, and this by sober and well-niean-
hiii men, chiellv artisans, who could not understand why
labour, which nianufactiired so many thinfrs, should not
also manufacture another. Of these tuneful <;uild-
hrethren, Hans Sachs, by trade a shoemaker, is greatly
the most noted and most notable. His father was a
tailor; he himself learned the mystery of sons; under one
Nunuebeck, a weaver. He was an adherent of his srreat
coniem|)orary Ijilher, who has even deigned to acknow-
ledge his services in the cause of Reformaliou : how
dili'.'ent a Inbourer Sachs must have been, will appear
from the fact, that, in his 74th year, (1568.) on examin-
ing his stock for publication, he found that he had writ-

cpuntry has awaked in its old strength, our at-
tention to it has certainly awakened also ; and
if we yet know little or nothing of the Ger-
mans, it is not because we wilfully do them
wrong, but, in good part, because they are
soinewhat diihcult to know.

In fact prepossessions of all sorts naturally
enough find their place here. A country which
has no national literature, or literature too in-
significant to force its way abroad, must always
be, to its neighbours, at least in every important
spiritual respect, an unknown and misestimated
country. Its towns may figure on our maps;
its revenues, population, manufacture,s, poli-
tical connections, may be recorded in statistical
books; but the character of the people has no
symbol and no voice; we cannot know thenn
by speech and discourse, but only mere sight
and outward observation of their manners and
procedure. Now, if both sight and speech, if
both travellers and native literature, are found
but ineflectual in this respect, how incalcu-
lably more so the former alone ! To seize
a character, even that of one man, in its life
and secret mechanism, requires a philospher;
to delineate it with truth and impressiveness,
is a work for a poet. How then shall one or
two sleek clerical tutors, with here and there
a tedium-stricken esquire, or speculative half-
pay captain, give us views on such a subject]
How shall a man, to whom all characters of
individual men are like sealed books, of which
he sees only the title and the covers, decipher
from his four-wheeled vehicle, and depict to
us, the character of a nation ] He courage-
ously depicts his own optical delusions; notes
this to be incomprehensible, that other to be
insignificant; much to be good, much to be
bad, and most of all indifferent ; and so, with
a few flowing strokes,' completes a picture
which, though it may not even resemble any
possible object, his countrymen are to take for
a national portrait. Nor is the fraud so readily
detected: for the character of a people has
such complexity of aspect, that even the honest
observer knows not always, not perhaps after
long inspection, what to determine regarding
it. From his, only accidental, point of view,
the figure stands before him like the tracings
on veined marble, — a mass of mere random
lines, and tints, and entangled strokes, out of
which a lively fancy may .shape almost any
image. But the image he brings along with
him is always the readiest; this is tried, it
answers as well as another; and a second
voucher now testifies its correctness. Thus
each, in confident tones, though it may be with
a secret misgiving, repeats his precursor; the
hundred times repeated comes in the end to be

ten 6048 poetical pieces, amons which were 208 trasredies
and comedies ; and this, besides having all alons kepi
house, like an honest Niiriiherg burgher, by assiduous
and sufficient shoemakiiiL' I Hans is not without gehiu.s,
and a shrewd irony ; anil above all, the most gay, child-
like, yet devout and solid character. A man neither to
be despised nor patronized, hut left standing on his own
basis, as a singular product, and a still legible symbol,
and clear mirror, of the lime and country where he lived
His best piece known to us, and many are well wortli
perusing, is the Fastnaclitgspiel (fSlirovetide Farce) of thu
JVarrensclnieiden, where the Doctor cures a bloated and
lethargic patient by cutting out half a dozen Fools from
his interior!

18

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

believed; the foreign nation is now once for
all understood, decided on, and registered ac-
cordingly; and dunce the thousandth writes
of it like dunce tlie first.

With the aid of literary and intellectual in-
tercourse, much of this falsehood may, no
doubt, be corrected : yet even here, sound
judgment is far from easy ; and most national
characters are still, as Hume long ago com-
plained, the product rather of popular preju-
dice than of philosophic insight. That the
Germans, in particular, have by no means
escaped such misrepresentation, nay, perhaps,
have had more than the common share of it,
cannot, in their circumstances, surprise us.
From the time of Optiz and Flemming, to those
of Klopstock and Lessing, — that is, from the
early part of the seventeenth to the middle of
the eighteenth century, — they had scarcely any
literature known abrt^ad, or deserving to be
known: their political condition, during this
same period, was oppressive and every way un-
fortunate externally ; and at home, the nation,
split into so many factions and petty stales,
had lost all feeling of itself as of a nation ; and
its energies in arts as in arms were manifested
only in detail, too often in collision, and always
under foreign influence. The French, at once
their plunderers and their scoffers, described
them to the rest of Europe as a semi-barbarous
people ; which comfortable fact the rest of
Europe was willing enough to take on their
word. During the greater part of the last cen-
tury, the Germans, in our \ntellectual survey
of the world, were quietly omitted; a vague
contemptuous ignorance prevailed respecting
them; it Avas a Cimmerian land, where, if a
few sparks did glimmer, it was but so as to
testify their own existence, too feebly to en-
lighten lis* The Germans passed for appren-
tices in all provinces of art ; and many foreign
craftsmen scarcely allowed them so much.

Madame d'; Stael's book has done away with
this; all Europe is now aware that the Ger-
mans are something; something independent
and apart from others; nay, someihing deep,
imposing, and, if not admirable, wonderful.
What that something is, indeed, is still unde-
cided ; for this gifted lady's Jlllvm(is:>ie, in doing
much to excite curiosity, has still done little to
satisfy or even direct it. We can no longer
make ignorance a boast, but we are yet far
from having acquired right knowledge; and
cavillers, excluded from contemptuous nega-
tion, have found a resource in almost as con-
temptuous assertion. Translators are the same
t'aithless and stolid race that they have ever
been : the particle of gold they bring us over
is hidden from all but the most patient eye,

* So late as the year 1811, we find, from Piyikertnn's
Oeography, the sole, representative of German literature
to be Gottshed, (with his name wron? spelt,) " who first
introduc(Hi a more refined style." — Gottsched has heen
dead tlie greater part of the century ; and, for the last
fifty years, ranks aniont; the Germans soniewliat as
Prynne or Alexander I'oss does anion;: ourselves A man
of a cold, risjid, perseveranl character, who mistook
himself for a poet and the perfeclion of critics, and hail
skill to pass current durinc; the greater part of his lite-
rary life for such. On the strength of his Boilcnti and
Batteux, he long reiciied supreme: bin it was like
Night, in rayless majesty, and over a sliimberins people.
They awoke, before his death, and hurled hiiu, perhaps
too ill lignantly, into his native Abyss

among shiploads of yellow sand and sulphur.
GentleDulnesstoo,in this as in all otherthings,
still loves her joke. The Germans, though
much more attended to, are perhaps not less
mistaken than before.

Doubtless, however, there is in this mcreased
attention a progress towards the truth; which
it is only investigation and discussion that can
help us to find. The study of Germar litera-
ture has already taken such firm root among
us. and its spreading so visibly, that by and by,
as we believe, the true character of it must and
will becoiue known. A result, which is to
bring us into closer and friendlier union with
forty millions of civilized men, cannot surely
be otherwise than desirable. If they have pre-
cious truth to impart, we shall receive it as the
highest of all gifts ; iferror, we shall not only re-
ject it, but explain it and trace out its origin,
and so help our brethren also to reject it. In
either point of view, and for all profitable pur-
poses of national intercourse, correct know-
ledge is the first and indispensable preliminary.

Meanwhile, errors of all sorts prevail on this
subject: even among men of sense and liber-
ality we have found so much hallucination, so
many groundless or half-grounded objections
to Geriuan literature, that the tone in which a
multitude of other men speak of it cannot ap-
pear extraordinary. To much of this, even a
slight knowledge of the Germans would furnish
a sufficient answer. But we have thought it
might be useful were the chief of these objec-
tions marshalled in distinct order, and ex-
amined with what degree of light and fairness
is at our disposal. In attempting this, we are
vain enough, for reasons already stated, to
fancy ourselves discharging what is in some
sort a national duty. It is unworthy of one
great people to think falsely of another; it is
unjust, and therefore unworthy. Of the injury
it does to ourselves we do not speak, for that
is an inferior consideration: yet surely if the
grand principle of free intercourse is so pro-
fitable in material commerce, much more must
it be in the commerce of the mind, the pro-
ducts of which are thereby not so much trans-
ported out of one country into another, as mul-
tiplied over all, for the benefit of all, and
without loss to any. If that man is a bene-
factor to the world who causes two ears of corn
to grow where only one grew before, much
more is he a benefactor who causes two truths
to grow up together in hannony and mutual con-
firmation, where before only one stood solitary,
and, on that side at least, intolerant and hostile.

In dealing with the host of objections which
front us on this subject, we think it may be
convenient to range them under two principal
heads. Thefirst, as respects chiefly unsoundness
or imperfection of sentiment; an error which
may in general be denominated Ikul Taste. The
second, as respects chiefly a wrong condition
of intellect; an error which may be designated
by the general title of /liystr-ts???. Both of these,
no doubt, are partly connected ; and each, in
some degree, springs from and returns into the
other: yet, for present purposes, the divisions
maybe precise enough.

First, then, of the first: It is objected thai
the Germans have a radically bad taUe. Thia

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

19

is a deep-rooted objection, which assumes
many forms, and extends through many rami-
fications. Among men of less acquaintance
with the subject of German taste, or of taste in
general, the spirit of the accusation seems to
be somewhat as follows : That the Germans,
with much natural susceptibility, are still in a
rather coarse and uncultivated state of mind;
displaying, with the energy and other virtues
of a rude people, many of their vices also ; in
particular, a certain wild and headlong temper,
which seizes on all things too hastily and im-
petuously; weeps, storms, loves, hates, too
fiercely and vociferously; delighting in coarse
excitements, such as flaring contrasts, vulgar
horrors, and all sorts of show}' exaggeration.
Their literature, in particular, is thought to
dwell with peculiar complacency among wiz-
ards and ruined towers, with mailed knights,
secret tribunals, monks, spectres, and banditti ;
on the other hand, there is an undue love of
moonlight, and mossy fountains, and the moral
sublime: then we have descriptions of things
which should not be described ; a general want
of tact ; nay, often hollowness, and want of
sense. In short, the German Muse comports
herself, it is said, like a passionate, and rather
fascinating, but tumultuous, uninstructed, and
but half-civilized Muse. A belle sauvage at
best, we can onl}'^ love her with a sort of su-
percilious tolerance; often she tears a pas-
sion to rags ; and, in her tumid vehemence,
struts without meaning, and to the offence of
all literary decorum.

Now, in all this there is a certain degree of
truth. If any man will insist upon taking
Heinse's Ardlns:hcllo, and Miller's Siegwart, and
the works of Veil Weber the younger, and,
above all, the ei'erlasting Kotzebue, as his
specimens of German literature, he may es-
tablish many things. Black Forests, and the
glories of Lubberland; sensuality and horror,
the spectre nun, and the charmed moonshine,
shall not be wanting. Boisterous outlaws, also,
with huge whiskers, and the most cat-o'-moun-
tain aspect; tear-stained sentimentalists, the
grimmest man-haters, ghosts, and the like sus-
picious characters, will be found in abundance.
We are little read in this bowl-and-dagger de-
partment; but we do understand it to have
been at one time rather diligently cultivated ;
though at present it seems to be mostly relin-
quished as unproductive. Other forms of Un-
reason have taken its place; which in their
turn must yield to still other fi^rms ; tor it is
the nature of this goddess to descend in frequent
avntars among men. Perhaps not less than
five hundred volumes of such stuffcould still
be collected from the book-stalls of Germany.
By which truly we may learn that there is in
that country a class of unwise men and unwise
women ; that many readers there labourundera
degree of ignorance and mental vacancy, and
read not actively but passively, not to learn
but to be amused. But is this fact so very
new to us 1 Or what should we think of a
German critic that selected his specimens of
British literature from the Caatlc ^pciirc, Mr.
Lewis's Mviik, or even the Mysffvies of Udalpho,
and Frankenstein or the jloikrn Frnniclhctis'r Or
Would he judge rightly of our dramatic taste,

if he took his extracts from Mr. Egan's Ton:
and Jerry ; and told his readers, as he might
truly do, that no play had ever enjoyed such
currency on the English stage as this most
classic performance 1 We think not. In like
manner, till some author of acknowledged
merit shall so write among the Germans, and
be approved of by critics of acknowledged
merit among them, or at least secure for him-
self some permanency of favour among the
million, we can prove nothing by such in-
stances. That there is so perverse an author,
or so blind a critic, in the whole compass of
German literature, we have no hesitation in
denying.

But farther: among men of deeper views,
and with regard to works of really standard
character, we find, though not the same, a simi-
lar objection repeated. Goethe's Wilhchn Meis-
ter. it is said, and Favst, are full of bad taste also.
With respect to the taste in which they are
written, we shall have occasion to say some-
what hereafter : meanwhile, we may be per-
mitted to remark that the objection would have
more force, did it seem to originate from a more
mature consideration of the subject. We have
heard few English criticisms of such works,
in which the first condition of an approach to
accuracy was complied with ; — a transposition
of the critic into the author's point of vision,
a survey of the author's means and objects as
they lay before himself, and a just trial of these
by rules of universal application. Faust, for
instance, passes with many of us for a mere
tale of sorcery and art-magic : but it would
scarcely be more unwise to consider Hamlet
as depending for its main interest on the ghost
that walks in it, than to regard Fausi as a pro-
duction of this sort. For the present, therefore,
this objection may be set aside ; or at least
may be considered not as an assertion, but an
inquiry, the answer to which may turn out
rather that the German taste is different from
ours, than that it is worse. Nay, with regard
even to difference, we should scarcely reckon
it to be of great moment. Two nations that
agree in estimating Shakspeare as the highest
of all poets, can difl"er in no essential principle,
if they understood one another, that relates to
poetry.

Nevertheless, this opinion of our opponents
has attained a certain degree of consistency
with itself; one thing is thought to throw light
on another; nay, a quiet little theory has been
propounded to explain the whole phenomenon.
The cause of this bad taste, we are assured,
lies in the condition of the German authors.
These, it seems, are generally very ))oor; the
ceremonial law of the country excludes them
from all society with the great ; they cannot
acquire the polish of drawing-rooms, but must
live in mean houses, and therefore write an<\
think in a mean style. .

Apart from the truth of these assumptions,
and in respect of the theory itself, we confess
there is something in the face of it that afflicis
us. Is it then so certain that taste and richfts
are dissolubly connected 1 that truth of feeling
must ever be preceded by weight of purse, and
the eyes be dim for universal and eternal
Beauty, till they have long rested on gilt walls

20

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and cosily furniture? To the great body of
mankind this were heavy news; for, of the
thousand, scarcely one is rich, or connected
with the rich; nine hundred and ninety-nine
have always been poor, and must always be
so. We take the liberty of questioning the
whole postulate. We think that, for acquiring
true poetic tasle, riches, or association with the
rich, are distinctly among the minor requisites ;
that, in fact, they have little or no concern with
the matter. This we shall now endeavour to
make probable.

Tasle, if it mean any thing but a paltry con-
noisseurship, must mean a general susceptibi-
lity to truth and nobleness ; a sense to discern,
and a heart to love and reverence, all beauty,
order, goodness, wheresoever, or in whatsoever
forms and accompaniments they are to be seen.
This surely implies, as its chief condition, not
any given external rankorsiluatjon,but a finely
gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself,
into keenness and justness of vision ; above all,
kindled into love and generous admiration. Is
culture of this sort found exclusively among
the higher ranks 1 We believe it proceeds less
frorn without than within, in every rank. The
charms of Nature, the majesty of Man. the in-
finite loveliness of Truth and Virtue, are not
hidden from the eye of the poor; but from the
eye of the vain, the corrupted, and self-seeking,
be he poor or rich. In all ages, the humble
Minstrel, a mendicant, and lord of nothing but
his harp and his own free soul, had intimations
of those glories, while to the proud Baron in
tiis barbaiic halls they were unknown. Nor
is there still any aristocratic monopoly of judg-
ment more than of genius: And as to that
Science of Negiilion. which is taught peculiarly
by men of professed elegance, we confess
we hold it rather cheap. It is a necessary,
but decidedly a subordinate accomplishment:
nay, if it be rated as the highest, it becomes a
ruinous vice. This is an old truth; yet ever
needing new application and enforcement. Let
us know what to love, and we shall know also
what to reject; what to affirm, and we shall
know also what to deny : but it is dangerous to
begin with denial, and fatal to end with it. To
deny is easy; nothing is sooner learnt or more
generally practised: as matters go, wp need
no man of polish to teach it; but rather, if
possible, a hundred men of wisdom to show us
its limits, and teach us its reverse.

Such is our hypothesis of the case: But how
stands it with the fncts? Are the fineness and
truth of sense manifested by the artist found, in
mo: . nsfances,tobeproporti(mate to his wealth
and jievation of acquaintance 7 Are they fnind
to have any perceptible relation either with the
one or the other? We imagine not. Whose
taste in painting, for instance, is truer and finer
than Claude Lorraine's? And was not he a
poor colour-grinder; outwardly, the meanest
cf menials? Where, again, we might ask,
"ny Shak'speare's rent-roll; and what generous
peer took him by the hand and unfolded to him
the "open secret" of the Universe; teaching
him that this was beautiful, and that not so?
Was he not a peasant by birth, and by fortune
something lower; and was it not thought much,
"ven in the height of his reputation, that South-

ampton allowed him equal patronage with Ihe
zanies, jugglers, and bearwards of the time!
Yet compare his taste, even as it respects the
negative side of things; for in regard to the
positive, and far higher side, it admits no com-
parison with any other mortal's, — compare it,
for instance, with the taste of Beaumont and
Fletcher, his contemporaries, men of rank and
education, and of fine genius like himself. Tried
even by the nice, fastidious, and in great part
false, and artificial delicacy of modern times,
how stands it with the two parties : with the
gay triumphant men of fashion, and the poor
vagrant link-boy ? Does the latter sin against,
we shall not say taste, but etiquette, as the
farmer do? For one line, for one word, which
some Chesterfield might wish blotted from the
first, are there not in the others whole pages
and scenes which, with palpitating heart, he
would hurry into deepest night? This, too, ob-
serve, respects not their genius, but their cul-
ture; not their appropriation of beauties, but
their rejection of deformities, by supposition,
the grand and peculiar result of high breeding!
Surely, in such instances, even that humble
supposition is ill borne out.

The truth of the matter seems to be, that
with the culture of a genuine poet, thinker, or
other aspirant to fame, the influence of rank
has no exclusive or even special concern. For
men of action, for senators, public speakers,
political writers, the case may be different; but
of such we speak not at present. Neither do
we speak of imitator*;, and the crowd of me-
diocre men, to whom fashionable life sometimes
gives an external inoflensiveness, often com-
pensated by a frigid malignity of character.
We speak of men, who, from amid the per-
plexed and conflicting elements of their every-
day existence, are to form themselves into
harmony and wisdom, and show forth the same
wisdom to others that exist along with them.
To such a man. high life, as it is called, will
be a province of human life certainly, but no-
thing more. He will study to deal with it as
he deals with all forms of mortal being; to do
it justice, and to draw instruction from it: bu
his light will come from a loftier region, or he
wanders for ever in darkness; dwindles inta
a man of vers dc soricte, or attains at best to be
a Walpole or a Caylus. Still less can we think
that he is to be viewed as a hireling; that his
excellence will be regulated by his pay. " Suffi-
ciently })rovided for from within, he has need
of little from without:" food and raiment, and
an unviolated home, will be given him in the
rudest land; and with these, while the kind
earlh is round him, and the everlasting heaven
is over him, the world has little more that it
can give. Is he poor? So also were Homer
and Socrates; so was Samuel Johnson ; so was
John Milton. Shall we reproach him with his
poverty, and infer that, because he is poor, he
must likewise be worthless? God forbid that
the time should ever come when he too shall
esteem riches the synonyme of good ! The
spirit of Mammon has a wide empire; but it
cannot, and must not, be worshipped in the
Holy of Holies. Nay, does not the heart of
every genuine disciple of literature, however
mean his sphere, instinctively deny this prin»

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

21

eiple, as applicable either to himself or ano-
ther? Is it not rather true, as D'Alembert has
said, that for every man of letters, who de-
serves that name, the motto and the watchword
will be FiiEKDOM, Truth, and even this same
PovEUTT ] and that if he fear the last, the two
first can never be made sure to him 1

We have stated these things, to bring the
question somewhat nearer its real basis ; not
for the sake of the Germans, who nowise need
the admission of them. The German authors
are not poor; neither are they excluded from
association with the wealth)'^ and well-born.
On the contrary, we scruple not to say, that, in
both these respects, they are considerably better
situated than our own. Their booksellers, it is
true, cannot pay as oars do; yet, there as here,
a man lives by his writings; and, to compare
Jordcn with Johmon and Ifhyacli, somewhat
better there than here. No case like our own
noble Otway's has met us in their biographies ;
Boyces and Chattertons are much rarer in Ger-
man, than in English history. But farther, and
what is far more important: From the num-
ber of universities, libraries, collections of art,
museums, and other literary or scientific in-
stitutions of a public or private nature, we
question whether the chance, which a merito-
rious man of letters has before him, of obtaining
some permanent appointment, some independ-
ent civic existence, is not a hundred to one in
favour of the German, compared with the
Englishman. This is a weighty item, and
indeed the weightiest ofall ; for it will be grant-
ed, that, for the votary of literature, the rela-
tion of entire dependence on the merchants
of literature, is, at best, and however liberal
the terms, a highly questionable one. It tempts
him daily and hourly to sink from an artist into
a manufacturer; nay, so precarious, fluctuating,
and every way unsatisfactory must his civic
and economic concerns become, that too many
of his class cannot even attain the praise of
common honesty as manufiicturers. There is,
no doubt, a spirit of martyrdom, as we have
asserted, which can sustain this too : but few
indeed have the spirit of martyrs; and that
state of matters is the safest which requires it
least. The German authors, moreover, to their
credit be it spoken, seem to set less store by
wealth than many of ours. There have been
prudent, quiet men among them, who actually
appeared not to want more wealth, — whom
wealth could not tempt, either to this hand or
that, from their pre-appointed aims. Neither
must we think so hardly of the German nobi-
lity as to believe them insensible to genius, or
of opinion that a patent from the Lion King is
so superior to " a patent direct from Almighty
God." A fair proportion of the German au-
thors are themselves men of rank : we mention
only, as of our own time, and notable in other
respects, the two Stolbergs and Novalis. Let
us not be unjust to this class orperso' s. It is
a poor error to figure them as wrapt up in
ceremonial stateliness, avoiding the most gift-
ed man of a lower station ; and, for their own
supercilious triviality, themselves avoided by
all truly gifted men. On the whole, we should
change our notion of the German nobleman :
'Jiat ancient, thirsty, thickheaded, sixteen-quar-

tered Baron, who still hovers in our minds,
never did exist in such perfection, and is now
as extinct as our own Squire Western. His
descendant is a man of other culture, other
aims, and other habits. We question whether
there is an aristocracy in Europe, which, taken
as a whole, both in a public and private capa-
city, more honours art and literature, and does
more both in public and private to encourage
them. Excluded from society ! What, we
would ask, was Wieland's, Schiller's, Herder's,
Johannes Miiller's society 1 Has not Goethe, by
birth a Frankfort burgher,been,since his twenty-
sixth year, the companion, not of nobles but of
princes, and for half his life a minister of state 1
And is not this man, unrivalled in so many far
deeper qualities, known also and felt to be un-
rivalled in nobleness of breeding and bearing;
fit not to learn of princes, in this respect, but
by the example of his daily life to teach thenil

We hear much of the munificent spirit dis-
played among the better classes in England;
their high estimation of the arts, and generous
patronage of the artist. We rejoice to hear it;
we hope it is true, and will become truer and
truer. We hope that a great change has taken
place among these classes, since the time when
Bishop Burnet could write of them, — "They
.are for the most part the uwst instructed, and
the least knowing, of any of their rank I ever
went among!" Nevertheless, let us arrogate
to ourselves no exclusive praise in this par-
ticular. Other nations can appreciate the arts,
and cherish their cultivators, as well as we.
Nay, while learning from us in many other
matters, we suspect the Germans might even
teach us somewhat in regard to this. At all
events, the pity, which certain of our authors
express for the civil condition of their brethren
in that country, is, from such a quarter, a super-
fluous feeling. Nowhere, let us rest assured,
is genius more devoutly honoured than there,
by all ranks of men, from peasants and burgh-
ers up to legislators and kings. It was but
last year that the Diet of the Empire passed an
act in favour of one individual poet: the final
edition of Goethe's works was guarantied to be
protected against commercial injury in every
state of Germany; and special assurances to
that efl^ecl were sent him, in the kindest terms,
from all the Authorities there assembled, some
of them the highest in his country or in Europe.
Nay, even while we write, are not the news-
papers recording a visit from the Sovereign of
Bavaria in person, to the same venerable man;
a mere ceremony, perhaps, but one which al-
most recalls to us the era of the antique Sages
and the Grecian Kings?

This hypothesis, therefore, it would seem, is
not supported by facts, and so returns to its
original elements. The causes it alleges are
impossible : but, what is still more fatal, the
effect it proposes to account for has, in reality,
no existence. We venture to deny that the
Germans are defective in taste; e.-en as a
nation, as a public, taking one thing with ano-
ther, we imagine they may stand comparison
with any of their neighbours; as writers, as
critics, they may decidedly court it. True, there
is a mass of dulness, awkwardness, and false
susceptibility in the lower regions of their U:e«

28

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

rature : but is no) bad taste endemical in such
tcgionsof every literature under the sunl Pure
Stupidity, indeed, is of a quiet nature, and con-
tent to be merely stupid. But seldom do we
find it pure; seldom unadulterated with some
tincture of ambition, which drives it into new
and strange metamorphoses. Here it has as-
sumed a contemptuous trenchant air, intended
to represent superior tact, and a sort of all-
wisdom ; there a truculent atrabilious scowl,
which is to stand for passionate strength: now
we have an outpouring of tumid fervour; now
a fruitless, asthmatic hunting after wit and
humour. Grave or gay, enthusiastic or de-
risive, admiring or despising, the dull man
would be something which he is not and can-
not be. Shall we confess, that, of these too
common extremes, we reckon the German
error considerably the more harmless, and, in
our day, by far the more curable ? Of unwise
admiration much may be hoped, for much good
is really in it: but unwise contempt is itself a
negation ; nothing comes of it, for it is nothing.
To judge of a national taste, however, we
must raise our view from its transitory modes
to its perennial models ; from the mass of vul-
gar writers, who blaze out and are extinguished
with the popular delusion which they flatter, to
those few who are admitted to shine with a
pure and lasting lustre ; to whom, by common
consent, the eyes of the people are turned, as
to its lodestar and celestial luminaries. Among
German writers of this stamp, we would ask
any candid reader of them, let him be of what
country or what creed he might, whether bad
taste struck him as a prevailing characteristic.
Was Wieland's taste uncultivated? Taste, we
should say, and taste of the very species which
a disciple of the Negative School would call
the highest, formed the great object of his life;
the perfection he unweariedly endeavoured
after, and, more than any other perfection, has
attained. The most fastidious Frenchman might
read him, with admiration of his merely French
qualities. And is not Klopstock, with his clear
enthusiasm, his azure purity, and heavenly, if
still somewhat cold and lunar light, a man of
taste 1 His 3Iessias reminds us oftener of no
other poets than of Virgil and Racine. But it
is to Lessing that an Englishman would
turn with the readiest affection. We cannot
but wonder that more of this man is not known
among us ; or that the knowledge of him has
not done more to remove such misconceptions.
Among all the writers of the eighteenth cen-
tury, we will not except even Diderot and
David Hume, there is not one of a more com-
pact and rigid intellectual structure; who
more distinctly knows what he is aiming at,
or with more gracefulness, vigour, and pre-
cision sets it forth to his readers. He thinks
with the clearness and piercing sharpness of
the most expert logician : but a genial fire
pervades him, a wit, a heartiness, a general
richness and fineness of nature, to which most
logicians are strangers. He is a skeptic in
many thmgs, but the noblest of skeptics ; a
mild, manly, half-careless enthusiasm strug-
gles through his indignant unbelief : he stands
";efore us like a toilworn, but unwearied and
neroic champion, earning not the conquest

but the battle; as indeed himself admits to vs,
that " it is not the finding of truth, but the hon-
est search for it, that profits." We confess,
we should be entirely at a loss for the literary
creed of that man who reckoned Lessing other
than a thoroughly cultivated writer; nay en-
titled to rank, in this particular, with the most
distinguished writers of any existing nation.
As a poet, as a critic, philosopher, or contro-
versialist, his style will be found precisely
such as we of England are accustomed to
admire most; brief, nervous, vivid; yet quiet,
without glitter or antithesis; idiomatic, pure
without purism, transparent, yet full of cha-
racter and reflex hues of meaning. "Every
sentence," says Horn, and justly, "is like a
phalanx ;" not a word wrong placed, not a
word that could be spared ; and it forms itself
so calmy and lightly, and stands in its com-
pleteness, so gay, yet so impregnable ! As a
poet he contemptuously denied himself all
merit; but his readers have not taken him at
his word: here, too, a similar felicity of style
attends him ; his plays, his Minna von Burn-
hihu, his Emilie Galutii, his Nathan der Wcise,
have a genuine and graceful poetic life ; yet no
works known to us in any language are purer
from exaggeration, or any appearance of false-
hood. They are pictures, we might say paint-
ed not in colours, but in crayons; yet a strange
attraction lies in them ; for the figures are
grouped into the finest attitudes, and 'rue
and spirit-speaking in every line. It is ■w th
his style chiefly that we have to do here; yet
we must add, that the matter of his works is
not less meritorious. His Criticism and phi-
losophic or religious Skepticism were of a
higher mood than had yet been heard in Eu-
rope, still more in Germany ; his Dramaiurgie
first exploded the pretensions of the French
theatre, and, with irresistible conviction, made
Shakspeare known to his countrymen ; pre-
paring the way for a brighter era in their lite-
rature, the chief men of which still thankfully
look back to Lessing as their patriarch. His
Laocoon, with its deep glances into the philo-
sophy of Art, his Dialogues of Free-rnaaons, a
work of far higher import than its title in-
dicates, may yet teach many things to most of
us, which we know not, and ought to know.

With Lessing and Klopstock might be join-
ed, in this respect, nearly, every one, we do
not say of their distinguished, but even of their
tolerated contemporaries. The two Jacobis,
known more or less in all countries, aie little
known here, if they are accused of wanting
literary taste These are men, whether as
thinkers or poets, to be regarded and admired
for their mild and lofty wisdom, the devoutness,
the benignity and calm grandeur of their phi-
losophical views. In such, it were strange if
among so many high merits, this lower one of a
just and elegant style, which is indeed their
natural and even necessary product, had been
wanting. We recommend the elder Jacobi no
less for his clearness than for his depth ; of the
younger, it may be enough in this point of
view to say, that the chief praisers of his earlier
poetry were the French. Neither are Hamann
and Mendelsohn, who could meditate deep
thoughts, defective in the power of uttering

STATE OF GERMAIS LITERATURE.

23

them with propriety. Tiie Phcedon of the latter,
in its chaste precision and simplicity of style,
may almost remind us of Xenophon : Socrates,
to our mind, has spoken in no modern language
so like Socrates, as here, by the lips of this wise
and cultivated Jew.*

Among the poels and more popular writers
of the time, the case is the same : Utz, Gellert,
Cramer, Ramler, Kleist, Hagedorn, Rabener,
Gleim, and a multitude of lesser men, whatever
excellences they might want, certainly are not
chargeable with bad taste. Nay, perhaps of
all writers they are the least chargeable with
it : a certain clear, light, unaffected elegance,
of a higher nature than French elegance,
it might be, yet to the exclusion of all very
deep or genial qualities, was the excellence
they strove after, and, for the most part, in a
fair measure attained. They resemble Eng-
lish writers of the same, or perhaps an earlier
period, more than any other foreigners : apart
from Pope, whose influence is visible enough,
Beattie, Logan, Wilkie, Glover, unknown per-
haps to any of them, might otherwise have al-
most seemed their models. Goldsmith also
would rank among them ; perhaps, in regard to
true poetic genius, at their head, for none of
them has left us a I'icnr of Wakefield; though,
in regard to judgment, knowledge, general ta-
lent, his place would scarcely be so high.

The same thing holds, in general, and with
fewer drawbacks, of the somewhat later and
more energetic race, denominated the GoUingcn
SchonI, in contradistinction from the Saxon, to
which Rabener, Cramer, and Gellert directly
belonged, and most of those others indirectly.
Holty, Biirger, the two Stolbergs, are men whom
Bossu mijrht measure with his scale and com-
passes as strictly as he pleased. Of Herder,
Schiller, Goethe, we speak not here : they are
men of another stature and form of movement,
whom Bossu's scale and compasses could not
measure without difficulty, or rather not at all.
To say that such men wrote with taste of this
sort, were saying little ; for this forms not the
apex, but the basis, in their conception of style ;
a quality not to be paraded as an excellence,
but to be understood as indispensable, as there
by necessity, and like a thing of course.

In truth, for it must be spoken out, our op-
ponents are so widely astray in this matter,

* TtiR history of Mendplsnhii is interesting in itself, and
full of encoiirnseineiit to all lovers of self-improvement.
At thirteen he was a wanderiiis: Jewisli bepgar, without
health, without home, almost without a language, for the
jargon of broken Hebrew and provincial German which
he spoke could scarcely be called one. At middle age,
lie could wrile this Phadon ; was a man of wealth and
breeding, and ranked among the teachers of his age.
Like Pope, he abode by his original creed, though often
solicited to change it : indeed, the grand problem of his
life was to better the inward and outward condition of
his own' ill-fated people ; for whom he actually accom-
plished much benefit. He was a mild, shrewd, and
worthy man ; and might well love PlKTAlon and Socrates,
for his own character was Socratic He was a friend
of I.essing's : indeed a pupil ; for Lessing having acci-
dentally met him at chess, recognised the spirit that lay
6triigi;ling under such incumbrances, and generously un-
dertook to help him. Uy teaching the poor Jew a little
Greek he disenchanted him from the Talmud and the
Rabbins. The two were afterwards co-labourers in
Nicolai's Deutsche Bibliotheic, the first German llcvicw
of any character ; which, however, in the hands of
Nicolai himself, it suhp.'quently lost. Mendelsohn's
Works have mostly been translated into French.

that their views of it are not only dim and per-
plexed, but altogether imaginary and delusive.
It is proposed to School the Germans in the
Alphabet of taste ; and the Germans are al-
ready busied with their Accidence ! Far from
being behind other nations in the practice or
science of Criticism, it is a fact, for which we
fearlessly refer to all competent judges, that
they are distinctly, and even considerably, in
advance. We state what is already known to
a great part of Europe to be true. Criticism
has assumed a new form in Germany; it pro-
ceeds on other principles, and proposes to itself
a higher aim. The grand question is not now a
question concerning the qualities of diction, the
coherence of metaphors, the fitness of senti-
ments, the general logical truth, in a work of
art, as it was some half century ago among
most critics. Neither is it a question mainly of
a psychological sort, to be answered by discover-
ing and delineating the peculiar nature of the
poet from his poeliy, as is usual with the best
of our own critics at present; but it is, not in-
deed exclusively, but inclusively of those two
other questions, properly and ultimately a
question on the essence and peculiar life of
the poetry itself. The first of these questions,
as we see it answered, for instance, in the
criticisms of Johnson and Kames, relates,
strictly speaking, to the garment of poetry; the
second, indeed, to its body and material exist-
ence, a much higher point; but only the last
to its soul and spiritual existence, by which
alone can the body, in its movements and
phases, be informed with significance and
rational life. The problem is not now to
determine by what mechanism Addison com-
posed sentences, and struck out similitudes,
but by what far finer and more mysterious
mechanism Shakspeare organized his dramas,
and gave life and individuality to his Ariel and
his Hamlet. Wherein lies that life ; how have
they attained that shape and individuality'!
Whence comes that empyrean fire, which ir-
radiates their whole being, and pierces, at
least in starry gleams, like a liviner thing,
into all hearts 1 Are these dramas of his not
verisimilar only, but true; nay, truer than
reality itself, since the essence of unmixed
reality is bodied forth in them under more ex-
pressive symbols 1 What is this unity of theirs ;
and can our deeper inspection discern it to be
indivisible, and existing by necessity, because
each work springs, as it were, from the general
elements of all Thought, and grows up there-
from, into form and expansion, by its own
growth? Not only who was the poet, and
how did he compose; but what and how was
the poem, and why was it a poem and not
rhymed eloquence, creation and not figured
passion ? These are the questions for the
critic. Criticism stands like an interpreter
between the inspired and the uninspired; bi;
tween the prophet and those who hear the
melody of his words, and catch stmie glimpse
of their material meaning, but understand not
their deeper import. She pretends to open for
us this deeper import; to clear our sense that
it may discern the pure brightness of ihis etc
nal Beauty, and recognise it as heavenly, under
all forms where it looks forth, and rejeci, a.i

S4

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of the earth earthy, all forms, be their mate-
rial splendour what il may, where no gleaming
of that other shines through.

This is the task of Criticism, as the Germans
understand it. And how do they accomplish
this task 1 By a vague declamation clothed in
gorgeous mystic phraseology 1 By vehement
tumultuous anthems to the poet and his poetry ;
by epithets and laudatory similitudes drawn
from Tartarus and Elysium, and all intermedi-
ate terrors and glories ; whereby, in truth, it is
rendered clear both that the poet is an ex-
tremely great poet, and also that the critic's
allotment of understanding, overflowed by these
Pythian raptures, has unhappily melted intode-
liquium? Nowise in this manner do the Ger-
mans proceed: but by rigorous scientific in-
quiry ; by appeal to principles which, whether
correct or not, have been deduced patiently,
and by long investigation, from the highest and
calmest regions of Philosophy. For this finer
portion of their Criticism is now also embo-
died in systems; and standing, so far as these
reach, coherent, distinct, and methodical, no
less than, on their much shallower foundation,
the systems of Boileau and Blair. That this
new Criticism is a complete, much more a cer-
tain science, we are far from meaning to afiirm :
the (ss'ltdic theories of Kant, Herder, Schiller,
Goethe, Richter, vary in external aspect, ac-
cording to the varied habits of the individual ;
and can at best only be regarded as approximar
tions to the truth, or modifications of it; each
critic representing it as it harmonizes more or
less perfectly with the other intellectual per-
suasions of his own mind, and of different
classes of minds that resemble his. Nor can
we here undertake to inquire what degree of
such approximation to the truth there is in
each or all of these writers; or in Tieck and
the two Schlegels, who, especially the latter,
have laboured so meritoriously in reconciling
these various opinions ; and so successfully in
impressing and diff"using the best spirit of them,
first in their own country, and now also in
several others. Thus much, however, we will
say : That we reckon the mere circumstance
of such a science being in existence, a ground
of the highest consideration, and worthy the
best attention of all inquiring men. For we
should err widely, if we thought that this new
tendency of critical science pertains to Ger-
many alone. It is a European tendency, and
springs from the general condition of intellect
in Europe. We ourselves have all, for the last
thirty years, more or less distinctly felt the ne-
cessity of such a science: witness the neglect
into which our Blairs and Bossus have silently
fallen ; our increased and increasing admira-
tion, not only of Shakspeare, but of all his con-
temporaries, and of all who breathe any por-
tion of his spirit ; our controversy whether
Pope was a poet; and so much vague effort
on the part of our best critics, everywhere, to
express some still unexpressed idea concerning
the nature of true poetry ; as if they felt in
their hearts that a pure glory, nay, a divine-
ness, belonged to it, for which they had as yet
no name, and no intellectual form. But in
Italy too, in France itself, the same thing is
visible. Their grand controversy, so hotly

urged, between the Classicists and the Roman'
linsls, in which the Schlegels are assumed,
much too loosely, on all hands, as the patrons
and generalissimos of the latter, shows us
sufficiently what spirit is at Avork in that long
stagnant literature. Doubtless this turbid
fermentation of the elements will at length
settle into clearness, both ihere, and here, as
in Germany it has already in a great measure
done; and perhaps a more serene and genial
poetic day is everywhere to be expected with
some confidence. How much the example of
the Germans may have to teach us in this
particular, needs no farther exposition.

The authors and first promulgators of this
new critical doctrine, were at one time ccm-
temptuously named the Neiu Srlwul: nor was it
till after a war of all the few good heads in the
nation, with all the many bad ones, had ended
as such wars must ever do,* that these critical
principles were generally adopted; and their
assertors found to be no Srhoul. or new hereti-
cal Sect, but the ancient primitive Catholic
Communion, of which all sects that had any
living light in them were but members and
subordinate modes. It is, indeed, the most
sacred article of this creed to preach and prac-
tise universal tolerance. Every literature of
the world has been cultivated by the Germans ;
and to every literature they have studied to give
due honour. Shakspeare and Homer, no doubt,
occupy alone the loftiest station in the poetical
Olympus ; but there is space for all true Sing-
ers, out of every age and clime. Ferdusi and
the primeval Mythologists of Hindostan, live
in brotherly union with the Troubadours anc,
ancient Story-tellers of the West. The way
ward m3'stic gloom of Calderon, the lurid fire
of Dante, the auroral light of Tasso, the clear
icy glitter of Racine, all are acknowledged and
reverenced: nay, in the celestial fore-court an
abode has been appointed for the Cressets and
Delilles, that no spark of inspiration, no tone
of mental music, might remain unrecognised.
The Germans study foreign nations in a spirit
which deserves to be oftener imitated. It is
their honest endeavour to understand each with
its own peculiarities, in its own special man-
ner of existing; not that they may praise it, oi
censure it, .or attempt to alter it, but simply
that they may see this manner of existing as
the nation itself sees it, and so participate in
whatever worth or beauty it has brought into
being. Of all literatures, accordingly, the
German has the best as well as the most trans-
lations ; men like Goethe, Schiller, Wieland,
Schlegel, Tieck, have not disdained this task
Of Shakspeare there are three entire versions
admitted to be good; and Ave know not how

* It bejian in Scliiller's JMiisenalmanch for 1793. The
Xenien, (a series of philosophic episraiiis jointly by
Scliillcr and Goelhe,) descended there tine.xpectedly,
like a flood of ethereal fire, on the German literary world ;
quickening all that was noble into new life, bnt visiting
the ancient empire of Dulness with astonishment and
unknown pangs. The agitation was extreme : scarcely
since the age of Luther, has there been such stir and
strife in the intellect of Germany ; indeed, scarcely since
that age, has there been a controversy, if we consider it*
ultimate bearings on the best and noblest interests ot
mankind, so important as this, which, for the time,
seemed only to turn on metaphysical iMibtilties, and
mafters'of mere elgance. Its farther applications be-
came apparent by degrees.

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

2&

many partial, or considered as bad. In their
criticisms of him we ourselves have long ago
admitted, that no such clear judgment or hearty-
appreciation of his merits had ever been exhi-
bited by any critic of oijr own.

To attempt stating in separate aphorisms
the doctrines of this new poetical s)'^siem,
would, in such space as is now allowed us, be
to ensure them of misapprehension. The
science of Criticism, as the Germans practise
it, is no study of an hour; for it springs from
the depths of thought, and remotely or imme-
diately connects itself with the subtilest prob-
lems of all philosophy. One characteristic of
it we may state, the obvious parent of many
others. Poetic beauty, in its pure essence, is
not, by this theory, as by all our theories, from
Hume's to Alison's, derived from any thing
external, or of merely intellectual origin; not
from association, or an}' reflex or reminiscence
of mere sensations ; nor from natural love,
either of imitation, of similarity in dissimi-
larity, of excitement by contrast, or of seeing
difficulties overcome. On the contrary, it is
assumed as underived; not borrowing its ex-
istence from such sources, but as lending to
most of these their significance and principal
charm for the mind. It dwells, and is born in
the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love of
Virtue, to all true belief in God ; or rather, it
is one with this love and this belief, another
phase of the same highest principle in the
mysterious infinitude of the human Soul. To
apprehend this beauty of poetry, in its full and
purest brightness, is not easy, but difficult ;
thousands on thousands eagerly read poems,
and attain not the smallest taste of it; yet to
all uncorrupted hearts, some effulgences of this
heavenly glory are here and there revealed;
and to apprehend it clearly and wholly, to ac-
quire and maintain a sense and heart that
sees and worships it, is the last perfection of
all humane culture. With mere readers for
amusement, therefore, this Criticism has, and
can have, nothing to do; these find their
amusement, in less or greater measure, and the
nature of Poetry remains for ever hidden from
them in the deepest concealment. On all hands,
there is no truce given to the hypothesis, that
the ultimate object of the poet is to please.
Sensation, even of the finest and most rap-
turous sort, is not the end but the means. Art
is to be loved, not because of its effects, but
because of itself; not because it is useful for
spiritual pleasure, or even for moral culture,
but because it is Art, and the highest in man,
and the soul of all Beauty. To inquire after
its vtiliiy, would be like inquiring after the
uliliiy of a God, or what to the Germans would
sound stranger than it does to us, the uiility of
Virtue and Religion. On these particulars, the
authenticity of which we might verify, not so
much by citation of individual passages, as by
reference to the scope and spirit of whole trea-
tises, we must for the present leave our read-
ers to their own reflections. Might we advise
them, it would be to inquire farther, and, if pos-
sible, to see the matter with their own eyes.

Meanwhile, that all this must tend, among
the Germans, to raise the general standard of
An, and of what an Artist ought to be in his

own esteem and that of others, will be reaiily
inferred. The character of a Poet does, aC'
cordingly, stand higher with the Germans than
with most nations. That he is a man of in-
tegrity as a man ; of zeal and honest diligence
in his art, and of true manly feeling towards
all men, is of course presupposed. Of persons
that are not so, but employ their gifts, in rhyme
or otherwise, for brutish or malignant pur-
poses, it is understood that such lie without the
limits of Ciiticism, being subjects not lor the
judge of Art, but for the judge of Police. But
even with regard to the fair tradesman, who
offers his talent in open market, to do work
of a harmless and acceptable sort for hire, —
with regard to this person also, their opinion
is very low. The " Bread-artist," as they call
him, can gain no reverence for himself from
these men. " Unhappy mortal !" says the mild but
lofty-minded Schiller. " Unhappy mortal ! that,
with Science and Art, the noblest of all instru-
ments, effectest and attemptest nothing more
than the day-drudge with the meanest; that in
the domain of perfect freedom, bearest about
in thee the spirit of a Slave !" Nay, to the
genuine Poet, they deny even the privilege of
regarding what so many cherish, under the title
of their "fame,'" as the best and highest of all.
Hear Schiller again :

"The Artist, it is true, is the son of his age;
but pity for him if he is its pupil, or even its
favourite ! Let some beneficent divinity snatch
him, when a suckling, from the breast of his
mother, and nurse him with the milk of a bettei
time, that he may ripen to his full stature be-
neath a distant Grecian sky. And having
grown to manhood, let him return a foreign
shape, into his century; not, however, to de-
light it by his presence, but dreadful, lilce the
son of Agamemnon, to purify it. The matter of
his works he will take from the present, but
their form he will derive from a nobler time;
nay, from beyond all time, from the absolu.e
unchanging unity of his own nature. Here,
from the pure asther of his spiritual essence,
flows down the Fountain of Beauty, uncontami-
nated by the pollutions of ages and generations,
which roll to and fro in their turbid vortex far
beneath it. His matter, Caprice can dishonour,
as she has ennobled it; but the chaste form is
withdrawn from her. mutations. The Roman
of the first century had long bent the knee be-
fore his Coesars, when the statues of Rome
were still standing erect; the temples con-
tinued holy to the eye, when their gods had
long been a laughing-stock; and the abomina-
tions of a Nero and a Commodus were silentlj
rebuked by the style of the edifice, which lent
them its concealment. Man has lost his
dignity, but Art has saved it, a,nd preserved it
fir him in expressive marbles. Truth still
lives in fiction, and from the copy the original
will be restored.

" But how is the Artist to guard himself from
the corruptions of his time, which m. every side
assail him 1 By despising its decisions. Let
him look upwards to his dignity and the law,
not dow'iwards to his happiness and his M'ants.
Free al.ke from the vain activity mat longs to
impress its traces on the fleeting instant, and
from the querulous spirit of enthusiasm that
C

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

measures by the scale of perfection the meagre
product of reality, let iiim leave to mere Un-
derstanding:, which ishereathome,thei)rovince
of the actual ; while he strives, by uniting the
possible with the necessary, to produce the
ideal. This let him imprint and express in
fiction and truth; imprint it in the sport of his
imagination and the earnest of his actions;
im.print it in all sensible and spiritual forms,
and cast it silently into everlasting time."*

Still higher are Fichte's notions on this iub-
ject; or rather expressed in higher terms, for
the central principle is the same both in the
philosopher and the poet. According to Fichte,
there is a "Divine Idea" pervading the visible
Universe; which visible Universe is indeed
but Its symbol and sensible manifestation, hav-
ing in itself no meaning, or even true existence
independent of it. To the mass of men this
Divine Idea of the world lies iiidden : yet to
discern it, to seize it, and live wholly in it, is
the condition of all genuine virtue, knowledge,
freedom ; and the end, therefore, of all spiritual
effort in every age. Literary Men are the ap-
pointed interpreters of this Divine Idea; a
perpetual priesthood, we might say, standing
ibrth, generation after generation, as the dis-
pensers and living types of God's everlasiinj;
wisdom, to show it and imbody it in their
writings and actions, in such paiticular form
as their own particular times require it in. For
each age, by the law of its nature, is ditTerent
from every other age, and demands a different
representation of this Divine Idea, the essence
of which is the same in all ; so that the lite-
rary man of one century is only by mediation
and re-interpretation aj)plicable to the wants
of another. But in eveiy century, every man
who labours, be it in what province he may,
to teach others, must first have possessed him-
self of this Divine Idea, or, at least, be with
his whole heart and his whole soul striving
after it. If, without possessing it or striving
after it, he abide diligently b)' some material
practical department of knowledge, he may
indeed still be (says Fichte, in his usual rugged
way,) a "useful hodman ;" but should lie at-
tempt to deal with the Whole, and to become
an architect, he is, in strictness of language,
"Nothing;" — "he is an ambiguous mongrel
between the possessor of the Idea, and the man

ho feels himself solidly supported and ear-
ned on by (.he common Reality of things; in
his fruitless endeavour after the Idea, he has
neglected to acquire the craft of taking part in
this Reality; and so hovers between two
worlds, without pertaining to either." Else-
where he adds :

"There is still, fr6m another point of view,
another division in our notion of the Literary
Man, and one to us of immediate application.
Namely, either the Literary Man has already
laid hold of the whole Divine Idea, in so far
as it can be comprehended by man, or perhaps
of a special portion of this its comprehensible
part, — which truly is not possible without at
[east a clear oversight of the whole, — he has
already laiu hold of it, penetrated, and made it
entirely clear to himself, so that it has become

* Ueber die JJesthetische Erziehuiur des Menschen. (On
tb<3 .Sslfietic Education of Man.)

a possession recallable at all times in the samt
shape to his view, and a component part of
his personality: in that case he is a completed
and equipt Literary Man, a man who has
studied. Or else, he is still struggling and
striving to make the Idea in general, or that
particular portion and point of it, from which
onwards he for his part means to penetrate the
whole, — entirely clear to himself; detached
sparkles of light already spring forth on him
from all sides, and disclose a higher world be-
fore him ; but they do not yet unite themselves
into an indivisible whole ; they vanish from his
view as capriciously as they came ; he cannot
yet bring them under obedience to his freedom ;
in that case he is a progressing and self-unfold-
ing litei'ary man, a Student. That it be ac-
tually the Idea, which is possessed or striven
after, is common to both. Should the striving
aim merely at the outward form, and the letter
of learned culture, there is then produced,
when the circle is gone round, the completed,
when it is not go \e round, the progressing,
Bungler (Slumpcr). The latter is more tolera-
ble than the former; for there is still room to
hope that, in continuing his travel, he may at
some future point be seized by the Idea; but
of the first all hope is over."*

From this bold and lofty principle the duties
of the Literary man are deduced with scientific
precision ; and stated, in all their sacredness
and grandeur, with an austere brevity more
impressive than any rhetoric. Fichte's meta-
physical theory may be called in question, and
readily enough misapprehended ; but the sub-
lime stoicism of his sentiments will find some
response in many a heart. We must add the
conclusion of his first Discourse, as a farther
illustration of his manner:

"In disquisitions of the sort like ours of to-
day, which all the rest, too, must resemble, the
generality are wont to censure : First, their se-
verity ; very often on the good-natured suppo-
sition that the speaker is not aware how much
his rigour must displease us; that we have but
frankly to let him know this, and then doubtless
he will reconsider himself, and soften his state-
ments. Thus, we said above, that a man who,
after literary culture, had not arrived at know-
ledge of the Divine Idea, or did not strive to-
wards it, was in strict speech Nothing; and far-
ther down, we said that he was a Bungler. This
is in a style of those unmerciful expressions
by which philosophers give such ofl'ence. —
Now lotdcing away from the present case, that
we may front the maxim in its general shape,
I remind you that this species of character,
without decisive force to renounce all respect
for Truth, seeks merely to bargain and cheap-
en something out of her, whereby itself on
easier terms may attain to some consideration.
But truth, which once for all is as she is, and'
cannot alter aught of her nature, goes on her
way; and ihcre remains for her, in regard to
those who desire her not simpi}' because she
is true, nothing else but to leave them stand-
ing as if they had never addressed her.

"Then farther, discourses of this sort are wont

* Ueber das IVefen des Gelehrten ; (On the Nature of
the Literarr Man ;) a Course of Lectures delivered at
Jena, in 1805.

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

S7

to be censured as unintelligible. Thus I figure
to myself, — nowise you, Gentlemen, but some
completed I,iteraryMan of the second species,
who-se eye tlie disquisition here entered upon
chanced to meet, as coming forward, doubting
this way and that, and at last reflectively ex-
claiming: 'The Idea, the Divine Idea, that
which lies at the bottom of Appearance : what
pray may Ihis mean 1' Of such a questioner I
would inquire in turn: 'What pray may this
question mean ]' — Investigate it strictly, it
means in most cases nothing more than this,
' Under what other names and in what other
formulas, do I already know this same thing,
which thdu expressest by so strange and to me
so unknown a symbol V And to this again in
most cases the only suitable reply were. ' Thou
knowest this thing not at all, neither under this,
nor under any other name; and wouldst thou
arrive at the knowledge of it, thou must even
now tiegin at the beginning to make study
thereof; and then, most fitly, under that name
by which it is first presented to thee !' "

With such a notion of the Artist, it were a
strange inconsistency did Criticism show it-
self unscientific or lax in estimating the products
of his Art. For light on this point, we might
refer to the writings of almost any individual
among the German critics : take, for instance,
the Charakttristikcn of the two Schlegels, a work
too of their younger years ; and say whether in
depth, clearness, minute and patient fidelity,
these Clutraclers have often been surpassed, or
the import and poetic worth of so many poets
and poems more vividly and accurately brought
to view. As an instance of a much higher
kind, we might refer to Goethe's criticism of
Huiiilct in his Wilhclm 3Ieis!cr. This truly is
what may be called the poetry of criticism ;
for it is in some sort also a creative art; aim-
ing, at least, to reproduce under a difl"ei-ent
shape the existing product of the poet; paint-
ing to the intellect what already lay painted to
the heart and the imagination. Nor is it over
poetry alone that criticism watches with such
loving strictness: the mimic, the pictorial, the
musical arts, all modes of representing or ad-
dressing the highest nature of man, are ac-
knowledged as younger sisters of Poetry, and
fostered with the like care. Winkelmann's
History of PUislir Art is known by repute to all
readers: and of those who know it by Inspec-
tion, many may have wondered why such a
work has not been added to our own literature,
to instruct our own statuaries and painters.
On this subject of the plastic arts, we cannot
withhold the following little sketch of Goethe's,
as a specimen of pictorial criticism in what we
consider a superior style. It is of an imaginary
landscape-painter, and his views of Swiss
scenery; it will bear to be studied minutely,
for there is no word without its meaning:

" He succeeds in representing the cheerful
repose of lake prospects, where houses in
friendly approximation, imaging themselves
in the clear wave, seem as if bathing in its
depths; shores encircled with green hills, be-
hind which rise forest mountains, and ic)' peaks
of glaciers. The tone of colouring in such
scenes is gay, mirthfully clear; the distances
as if overflowed with softening vapour, which

from watered hollows and river valleys mounts
up grayer and mistier, and indicates their wind-
ings. No less is the master's art to be praised
in views from valleys lying nearer the high
Alpine ranges, where declivities slope down,
luxuriantly overgrown, and fresh streams roll
hastily along by the foot of rocks.

" With exquisite skill, in the deep shady trees
of the foreground, he gives the distinctive cha-
racter of the several species, satisfying us in
the form of the whole, as in the structure of
the branches, and the details of the leaves ; no
less so in the fresh green with its manifold
shadings, where soft airs appear as if fanning
us with benignant breath, and the lights as if
thereby put in motion.

" In the middle-ground, his lively green tone
grows fainter by degrees ; and at last, on the
more distant mountain-tops, passing into weak
violet, weds itself with the blue of the sky. But
our artist is above all happy in his paintings
of high Alpine regions ; in seizing the simple
greatness and stillness of their character; the
wide pastures on the slopes, where dark soli-
tary firs stand forth from the grassy carpet;
and from high clifts, foaming brooks rush down.
Whether he relieves his pasturages with graz-
ing cattle, or the narrow winding rocky path
with mules and laden pack-horses, he paints all
with equal truth and richness ; still, introduced
in the proper place, and not in too great co-
piousness, they decorate and enliven these
scenes, without interrupting, without lessening
their peaceful solitude. The execution testifies
a master's hand; easy, with a few sure strokes,
and yet complete. In his later pieces, he em-
ployed glittering English permanent-colours
on paper: these pictures, accordingly, are of
preeminently blooming tone; cheerful, yet, at
the same time, strong and sated.

" His views of deep mountain chasms, where,
round and round, nothing fronts us but dead
rock, where, in the abyss, overspanned by its
bold arch, the wild stream rages, are, indeed,
of less attraction than the former: yet their
truth excites us ; we admire the great efl^ect of
the whole, produced at so little cost, by a few
expressive strokes, and masses of iocal colours.

" With no less accuracy of character can he
represent the regions of the topmost Alpine
ranges, where neither tree nor shrub any more
appears ; but only amid the rocky teeth and
snow summits, a few sunny spots clothe them
selves with a soft sward. Beautiful, and balmy
and inviting as he colours these spots, he has
here wisely forborne to introduce grazing
herds ; for these regions give food only to the
chamois, and a perilous employment to the
wild-hay-men."*

We have extracted this passage ft cm Wil-
hclm Mcister's Wander jnhre, Goethe's last Novel.
The perusal of his whole Works would show,
among many other more important facts, that
Criticism also is a science of which he is mas-
ter ; that if ever any man had studied Art in all
its branches and bearings, from its origin in

* The poor wlld-hay-man of the Rigiber?,
Whose trade is, on tlie hrow of the abyss,
To mow tlie coiiiiiion grass from noolts and s)ict«'es.
To which the cattle dare not climb.

ScHiLLKBS iVilhelm Ttll,

28

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

the depths of the creative spirit, to its minutest
finish on the canvas of the painter, on the lips
of the poet, or under the finger of themusician,
he was that man. A nation which appreciates
such studies, nay, requires and rewards them,
cannot, wherever its defects may lie, be defec-
tive in judj;;ment of the arts.

But a weightier question still remains.
What has been the fruit of this its high and
just judgment on these matters'! What has
criticism profited it, to the bringing forth of
good works 1 How do its poems and its poets
correspond with so lofty a standard? We an-
swer, that on this point also, Germany may
rather court investigation than fear it. There
are poets in that country who belong to a no-
bler class than most nations iiave to show in
these days; a class entirely unknown to some
nations; and, for the last two centuries, rare
in all. We have no hesitation in stating, that
we see in certain of the best German poets,
and those too of our own time, something
■which associates them, remotely or nearly we
say not, but which does associate them with
the Masters of Art, the Saints of Poetry, long
since departed, and, as we thought, Avithout
successors, from the earth ; but canonized in
the hearts of all generations, and yet living to
all by the memory of what they did and were.
Glances we do seem to find of that ethereal
glory, which looks on us in its full brightness
from the Tranffiguration of Rafaelle, from the
Tcupest of Shakspeare; and in broken, but
purest and still heart-piercing beams, strug-
gling through the gloom of long ages, from the
tragedies of Sophocles and the weather-worn
sculptures of the Parthenon. This is that
heavenly spirit, which, best seen in the aerial
embodiment of poetry, but spreading likewise
over all the thoughts and actions of an age, has
given us Surreys, Sydneys, Raleighs in court
and camp, Cecils in policy, Hookers in divinity.
Bacons in philosophy, and Shakspeares and
Spensers in song. All hearts that know this,
know it to be the highest; and that, in poetry
or elsewhere, it alone is true and imperishable.
In affirming that any vestige, however feeble,
of this divine spirit, is discernible in German
poetry, we are aware that we place it above
the existing poeti'y of any other nation.

To prove this bold assertion, logical argu-
ments were at all times unavailing; and, in
the present circumstances of the case, more
than usually so. Neither will any extract or
specimen help us ; for it is not in parts, but in
whole poems, that the spirit of a true poet is
to be seen. We can, therefore, only name
such men as Tieck, Richter, Herder, Schiller,
and, above all, Goethe ; and ask any reader
who has learned to admire wisely our own
literature of Queen Elizabeth's age, to peruse
these writers also ; to study them till he feels
that he has understood them, and justly esti-
mated both their light and darkness; and then
to pronounce whether it is not, in some degree,
as we have said. Are there not tones here of
that old melody ? Are there not glimpses of
that serene soul, thatcalm harmonious strength,
.hat smiling earnestness, that Love and Faith
and Humanity of nature? Do these foreign
eontempofaries of ours still exhibit, in their

characters as men, something of that sterling
nobleness, that union of majesty with meek-
ness, which we must ever venerate in those our
spiritual fathers! And do their works, in the
new form of this century, show forth that old
nobleness, not consistent only, with the science,
the precision, the skepticism of these days, but
wedded to them, incorporated with them, and
shining through them like their life and soul 1
Might it in truth almost seem to us, in reading
the prose of Goethe, as if we were reading that
of Milton ; and of Milton writing with the cul-
ture of this lime; combining French clearness
with old English depth? And of his poetry
may it indeed be said that it is poetry, and yet
the poetry of our own generation; an ideal
world, and yet the world we even now live in?
— These questions we must leave candid and
studious inquirers to answer for themselves;
premising only, that the secret is not to be
found on the surface; that the first reply is
likely to be in the negative, but with inquirers
of this sort, by no means likely to be the
final one.

To ourselves, we confess, it has long so ap-
peared. The poetry of Goethe, for instance,
we reckon to be Poetry, sometimes in the very
hignest sense of that word; yet it is no remi-
niscence, but something actually present and
before us ; no looking back into an antique
Fairy-land, divided by impassable abysses from
the real world as it lies about us and within us :
but a looking round upon that real world itself,
now rendered holier to our eyes, and once
more become a solemn temple, where the
spirit of Beauty still dwells, and, under new
emblems, to be worshipped as of old. With
Goethe, the mythologies of bygone days pass
only for what they are ; we have no witchcraft
or magic in the common acceptation ; and
spirits no longer bring with them airs from
heaven or blasts from hell; for Pandemonium
and the steadfast Empyrean have faded away,
since the opinions which they symbolized no
longer are. Neither does he bring his heroes
from remote Oriental climates, or periods of
Chivalry, or any section either of Atlantis or
the Age of Gold ? feeling that the reflex of
these things is cold and faint, and only hangs
like a cloud-picture in the distance, beautiful
but delusive, and which even the simplest
know to be delusion. The end of Poetry is
hisher ; she must dwell in Reality, and become
manifest to men in the forms among which
they live and move. And this is what we prize
in Goethe, and more or less in Schiller and
the rest; all of whom, each in his own way,
are writers of a similar aim. The coldest
skeptic, the most callous worldling, sees rot
the actual aspects of life more sharply than
they are here delineated : the nineteenth cen-
tury stands before us, in all its contradiction
and perplexity ; barren, mean, and baleful, as
we have all known it ; yet here no longer mean
or barren, but enamelled into beauty in the
poet's spirit ; for its secret significance is laid
open, and thus, as it were, the life-giving fire
that slumbers in it is called forth, and flowers
and foliage, as of old, are springing on ?».s
bleakest wildernesses, and overmanlling its
sternest clifls. For these men have not only

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

29

ifae clear eye, but the lovitiir heart. They have
penetrated into the mystery of Nature; after
long trial they have been initiated: and, to
unwearied endeavour, Art has at last yielded
her secret; and thus can the Spirit of our Age,
itnbodicd in fair imaginations, look forth on
us, earnest and full of meaning, from their
works. As the first and indispensable condi-
tion of good poets, they are wise and good men:
much they have seen and suflered, and they
have conquered all this, and made it all their
own ; they have known life in its heights and
dejillis, and mastered it in both, and can teach
others what it is, and how to lead it rightly.
Their minds are as a mirror to us, where the
perplexed image of our own being is reflected
back in soft and clear interpretation. Here
mirih and gravity are blended together; wit
rests on deep devout wisdom, as the green-
sward with its flowers must rest on the rock,
whose foundations reach downward to the
centre. In a word, they are believers; but
their faith is no sallow plant of darkness ; it is
green and flowery, for it grows in the sunlight.
And this faith is the doctrine they have to
teach us, the sense which, under every noble
and graceful form, it is their endeavour to set
forth:

As all nature's thousand chausps
But one clianL'eless God prorluim,
So in Art's wirle kinjilouis ranses
One sole nipaniii?, still lh(> same ;
. Tills is Trutli. eternal Reason,
Which from Beauty takes its dress.
And, serene throuirh time and season,
Stands for aye in loveliness.

Such indeed is the end of Poetry at all times;
yet in no recent literature known to us, except
the German, has it been so far attained; nay,
perhaps, so much as consciously and stead-
lastly attempted.

The reader feels that if this our opinion be
in any measure true, it is a truth of no ordinary
moment. It concerns not this writer or that ;
but it opens to us new views on the fortune
of spiritual culture with ourselves and all na-
tions. Have we not heard gifted men com-
plaining that Poetry had passed away without
return; that creative imagination consorted
not with vigour of intellect, and that in the
cold light of science there was no longer room
for faith in things unseen 1 The old simplicity
of heart was gone; earnest emotions must no
longer be expressed in earnest symbols ; beauty
must recede into elegance, devoutness of cha-
racter be replaced by clearness of thought, and
grave wisdom by shrewdness and persiflage
Such things we have heard, but hesitated to
believe them. If the poetry of the Germans,
and this not by theory but by example, have
proved, or even begun to prove, the contrary,
it will deserve far higher encomiums than any
we have passed upon it.

In fact, the past and present aspect of Ger-
man literature illustrates the literature of Eng-
land in more than one way. Its history keeps
pace with that of ours; for so closely are all
European communities connected, that the
phases of mind in any one country, so far as
these represent its general circumstances and
intellectual position, are but modified repeti-
tions of its phases in every other. We hinted
above, that the Saxon School corresponded

with what might be called the Scotch : Cra
mer was not unlike our Blair; Von Cron°gk
might be compared with Michael Bruce; and
Rabener and Gellert with Beattie and I.ogan.
To this mild and cultivated period, there suc-
ceeded, as with us, a partial abandonment of
poetry, in favour of political and philosophical
Illuinination. Then was the time, when hot
war was declared against Prejudice of all
sorts; Utility was set up for the universal
measure of mental as well as material value;
poetry, except of an economical and precep-
torial character, was found to be the product
of a rude age; and religious enthusiasm was
but derangement in the biliary organs. Then
did the Prices and Condorcets of Germany
indulge in day-dreams of perfectibility ; a new
social order was to bring back the Saturnian
era to the world ; and philosophers sat on
their sunny Pisgah, looking back over dark
savage deserts, and forward into a land flow-
ing with milk and hone}'.

This period also passed away, with its good
and its evil; of which chiefly the latter seems
to be reinembered ; for we scarcely ever find
the afl'air alluded to, except in terms of con-
tempt, by the title Aufdarercy (Illumination-
ism) ; and its partisans, in subsequent sa-
tirical controversies, received the nickname
of Pliilislcni (Philistines), which the few scat-
tered remnants of them still bear, both in writ-
ing and speech. Poetry arose again, and in a
new and singular shape. The Sorrows of Wev'
ler, Goetz van Ferlirhihgen, and The Robbers, may
stand as patriarchs and representatives of
three separate classes, which, commingled ia
various proportions, or separately coexisting,
now with the preponderance of this, now of
that, occupied the whole popular literature of
Germany, till near the end of the last century.
These were the Sentimentalists, the Chivalry,
play-writers, and other gorgeous and outrage-
ous persons; as a whole, now pleasantly de
nominated the Krnpmdnncr, literally. Power-
men. They dealt in skeptical lamentation^
mysterious enthusiasm, frenzy and suicide:
they recurred with fondness to the Feudal
Ages, delineating many a battlemented keep,
and swart buff'-belted man-at-arms; for in re-
flection as in action, tkey studied to be strong,
vehement, rapidly effective; of battle-tumult,
love-madness, heroism, and despair, there was
no end. This literary period is called the
Stii.rm-unrl-Draiig-Zei', the Storm-and-Stress Pe-
riod; for great indeed was the wo and fury
of these Power-men. Beauty, to their mind,
seemed synonymous with Strength. All pas-
sion was poetical, so it were but fierce enough.
Their head moral virtue was Pri;le : their beau
i(?eal of manhood was some transcript of Mil-
ton's Devil. Often they inverted Bolingbroke's
plan, and instead of "patronizing Providence,"
did directly the opposite; raging with extreme
animation against Fate in general, because it
enthralled free virtue; and with clenched
hands, or sounding shields, hurling defiance
towards the vault of heaven.

These Power-men are gone too; and, with

few exceptions, save the three originals above

named, their works have already followed

them. The application of all this to our own

'■. 2

so

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

literature is too obvious to require much ex-
position. Have we not also had our Power-
men ? And will not, as in Germany, to us
likewise a milder, a clearer, and a truer time
come round? Our Byron was, in his youth,
but what Schiller and Goethe had been in
theirs: yet the author of IVerlcr wrote Tphi-
genie and Torqwtto Tiiaso ; and he who be^an
with T/(ei?o6/)f7-.f ended with Wilhclm Tell. With
longer life, all things were to have been hoped
for from Byron : for he loved truth in his in-
most heart, and would have discovered at last
that his ('orsairs and Harolds were not true.
It was otherwise appointed: but with one man
all hope does not die. If this way is the right
one, we too shall find it. The poetry of Ger-
many, meanwhile, we cannot but regard as
well deserving to be studied, in this as in other
points of view: it is distinctly an advance
beyond any other known to us; whether on
the right path or not, may be still uncertain;
but a path selected by Schillers and Goefhes,
and vindicated by Schlegels and Tiecks, is
surely worth serious examination. For the
rest, need we add that it is study for self-in-
struction, nowise for purposes of imitation,
that we recommend 1 Among the deadliest
of poetical sins is imitation ; for if every man
must have his own way of expressing it, much
more every nation. But of danger on that
side, in the country of Shakspeare and Milton,
there seems little to be feared.

We come now to the second grand objection
against German literature, its mysticism. In
treating of a subject itself so vague and dim,
it were well if we tried, in the first place, to
settle, with more accuracy, what each of the
two contending parties really means to say or
to contradict regarding it. Mysticism is a
word in the mouths of all : yet, of the hun-
dred, perhaps not one has ever asked himself
what this opprobrious epithet properly signi-
fied in his mind; or where the boundary be-
tween true Science and this Land of Chimeras
was to be laid down. Examined strictly, mys-
tical, in most cases, will turn out to be merely
synonymous M'ith vot understood. Yet surely
tnere may be haste and oversight here ; for it
is well known, that, to the understanding of
any thing, fM.'o conditions are equally required;
intelligihUity in the thing itself being no whit
more indispensable than intelligence in the
examiner of it. "I am bound to find you in
reasons, Sir," said Johnson, " but not in
brains;" a speech of the most shocking un-
polileness, yet truly enough expressing the
state of the case.

It may throw some light on this question,
if we remind our readers of the following fact.
In the field of human investigation, there
are objects of two sorts: First, the visible, in-
cluding not only such as are material, and
may be seen by the bodily eye; but all such,
likewise, as may be represented in a shape,
bef ire the mind's eye, or in any way pictured
thv^re : And, secondly, the iiivisiljle, or such as
are not only unseen by human eyes, but as
cannot be seen by any eye; not objects of
sense at all ; not capable, in short, of being
yicvred or imaged in the mind, or in any way
represented by a shape either without the mind

or within it. If any man shall here turn upon
us, and assert that there are no such invisibl«
objects; that whatever cannot be so picture^
or imagined {va&ViX\m^ imaged) is nothing, and
the science that relates to it nothing; we shall
regret the circumstance. We shall request
him, however, to consider seriously and deeply
within himself what he means simply by these
two words, Go!) and his own Soul; and
whether he finds that visible shape and true
existence are here also one and the same?
If he still persist in denial, we have nothing
for it, but to wish him good speed on his own
separate path of inquir}'; and he and we will
agree to differ on this subject of mysticism,
as on so many more important ones.

Now, whoever has a material and visible
object to treat, be it of natural Science, Politi-
cal Philosophy, or any such externally and
sensibly existing department, may represent it
to his own mind, and convey it to the minds
of others, as it were, by a direct diagram, more
complex indeed than a geometrical diagram,
but still with the same sort of precision ; and
provided his diagram be complete, and the same
both to himself and his reader, he may reason
of it, and discuss it, with the clearness, and, in
some sort, the certainty of geometry itself. If
he do not so reason of it, this must be for want
of comprehension to image out the ivhole of it,
or of distinctness to convey the same whole to
his reader: the diagrams of the two are differ-
ent; the conclusions of the one diverge from
those of the other, and the obscurity here, pro-
vided the reader be a man of sound judgment
and due attentiveness, results from incapacity
on the part of the writer. In such a case, the
latter is justly regarded as a man of imperfect
intellect; he grasps more than he can carry;
he confuses what, with ordinary faculty, might
be rendered clear ; he is not a mystic, but, what
is much worse, a dunce. Another matter it is,
however, when the object to be treated of be-
longs to the invisible and immaterial class;
cannot be pictured out even by the writer him-
self, much less, in ordinary symbols, set before
the reader. In this case, it is evident, the diffi-
culties of comprehension are increased an
hundred-fold. Here it will require long, pa-
tient, and skilful efl^ort, b'>th from the writer
and the reader, before the two can so much as
speak together ; before the former can make
known to the latter, not hoxe{he matter stands,
but even what the matter is, which they have to
investigate in concert. He must devise new
means of explanation, describe conditions of
mind in which this invisible idea arises, the
false persuasions that eclipse it, the false shows
that may be mistaken for it, the glimpses of it
that appear elsewhere; in short, strive by a
thousand well-devised methods, to guide his
reader up to the perception of it; in all which,
moreover, the reader must faithfully and toil-
somely co-operate with him, if any fruit is to
come of their mutual endeavour. Should th«
latter take up his ground too early, and affirm
to himself that now he has seized what he still
has not seized; that this and nothing else is
the thing aimed at by his teacher, the conse-
quences are plain enough : disunion, darkness,
and contradiction between the twi; the writer

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

31

has written for another man, and this reader,
after long provocation, quarrels with him
finally, and quits him as a niyslir.

JNevertheless, after all these limitations, we
shall not hesitate to admit, that there is in the
German mind a tendency to mysticism, pro-
perly so called; as perhaps there is, unless
carefully guarded against, in all minds tem-
pered like theirs. It is a fault; but one hardly
separable from the excellencies we admire
most in them. A simple, tender, and devout
nature, seized by some touch of divine Truth,
and of this perhaps under some rude enough
symbol, is wrapt with it into a whirlwind of
unutteiable thoughts; wild gleams of splendour
dart to and fro in the eye of the seer, but the
vision will not abide with him, and yet he feels
that its light is light from heaven, and precious
to him beyond all price. A simple nature, a
George Fox, or a Jacob Boehme, ignorant of
all the ways of men, of the dialect in which
they speak, or the forms by which they think,
is labouring with a poetic, a religious idea,
which, like all such ideas, must express itself
by word and act, or consume the heart it dwells
in. Yet how shall he speak, how shall he pour
forth into other souls, that of which his own
soul is full even to bursting] He cannot
speak to us ; he knows not our state, and can-
not make known to us his own. His words
are an inexplicable rhapsody, a speech in an
unknown tongue. Whether there is meaning
in it to the speaker himself, and how much or
how true, we shall never ascertain; for it is
not in the language of men, but of one man
who had not learned the language of men ; and,
with himself the key to its full interpretation was
lost from amongst us. These are mystics; men
who either know not clearly their own mean-
ing, or at least cannot put it forth in formulas
of thought, whereby others, with whatever diifi-
culty, may apprehend it. Was their meaning
clear to themselves, gleams of it will yet
shine through, how ignorantly and unconsci-
ously soever it may have been delivered; was
it still wavering and obscure, no science could
have delivered it wisely. In either case, much
more in the last, they merit and obtain the
name of mystics. To scoffers they are a ready
and ch3ap prey ; but sober persons understand
that pure evil is as unknown in this lower
Universe as pure good ; and that even in mys-
tics, of an honest and deep-feelin? heart, there
may be much to reverence, and of the rest
more to pity than to mock.

But it is not to apologize for Boehme, or
Novalis, or the school of Theosophus and
Flood, that we have here undertaken. Neither
is it on such persons that the charge of mys-
ticism brought against the Germans mainly
rests. Boehme is little known among us;
Novaiis, much as he deserves knowing, not at
all; nor is it understood, that, in their own
country, these men rank higher than they do,
or might do, with ourselves. The chief mys-
tics in Germany, it M'ould appear, are the
Transcendental Philosophers, Kant, Fichte,
and Schelling! Wiih these is the chosen seat
of mysticism, these are its " tenebrific constel-
lation," from which it "doth ray out darkness"
over lh( earth. Among a certain class of

thmkers, does a frantic exaggeration in senti-
ment, a crude fever-dream in opinion, any
where break forth, it is directly labelled aa
Kantism ; and the moon-struck speculator is,
for the time, silenced and put to shame by this
epithet. For often, in such circles, Kant's
Philosophy is not only an absurdity, but a
wickedness and a horror ; the pious and peace-
ful sage of KiJnigsberg passes for a sort of
Necromancer and Blackartist in Metaphysics;
his doctrine is a region of boundless baleful
gloom, too cunningly broken here and there by
splendours of unholy fire ; spectres and tempt-
ing demons people it; and, hovering over
fathomless abysses, hang gay and gorgeous
air-castles, into which the hapless traveller is
seduced to enter, and so sinks to rise no more.
If any thing m the history of Philosophy
could surprise us, it might well be this. Per-
haps among all the metaphysical wruers of
the eighteenth century, including Hume and
Hartley themselves, there is not one that so
ill meets the conditions of a mystic as this
same Immannel Kant. A quit, vigilant, clear-
sighted man, who had become distinguished to
the world in mathematics before he attempted
philosophy; who, in his writings generally, on
this and other subjects, is perhaps character-
ized by no quality so much as precisely by the
distinctness of his conceptions, and the se-
quence and iron strictness with which he
reasons. To our own minds, in the little that we
knovv of him, he has more than once recalled
Father Boscovich in Natural Philosophy ; so
piercing, yet so sure; so concise, so still, so
simple; with such clearness and composure
does he mould the complicacy of his subject
and so firm, sharp, and definite are the results
he evolves from it.* Right or wrong as his
hypothesis may be, no one that knows him will
suspect that he himself had not seen it, and
seen over it; had not meditated it with calm-
ness and deep thought, and studied throughout
to expound it with scientific rigor. Neither, as
we often hear, is there any superhuman faculty
required to follow him. We venture to assure
such of our readers as are in any measure
used to metaphysical study, that the 7wt i/, ilcr
reinen Vernnnft is by no means the hardest ta-;k
they have tried. It is true, there is an unknown
and forbidding terminology to be mastered ; but
is not this the case also with Chemistry, and
Astronomy, and all other sciences that deserve
the name of science'? It is true, a careless or
unprepared reader will find Kant's writing a
riddle; but will a reader of this sort make
much of Newton's Prinripii, or D'Alembert's
Calculus of Viiridlions? He will make nothing
of them; perhaps less than nothing; for if he
trust to his own judgment, he will pronounce
them madness. Yet if the Philosophy of Mind
is any philosophy at all, Physics and Mitlhe-
malics must be plain sulijects compared with
it. But these latter are happy, nnt only in the
fixedness and simplicity of their niethods, but
also in the universal acknovi'ledgment of their

* We hnve hmrd that the I-ntin Trin?Intinn of h»»
works is iiiiinlflli'.'i'ih', Ihe Triiisl itnr hinisi'lf ncit h;iv-
itic mulcrstodrl it ; alsoilrit VilU-rs is tio s:i(p a li.le in
th(> stmiy oCliiiii. Neit)ier Villers nor those Latin work*
are known lo us.

82

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

claim to that prior and continual intensity of
application, without which All progress in any
science is impossible ; though more than one
may be attempted without it; and blamed, he-
cause without it they will yield no result.

The truth is, German Philosophy differs not
more widely from ours in the substance of its
doctrines, than in its manner of communicat-
ing them. The class of disquisitions, named
Kamm-Philosophic (Parlor-fire Philosophy) in
Germany, is there held in little estimation. No
right treatise on any thing, it is believed, least
of all on the nature of the human mind, can
be profitably read, unless the reader himself
co-operates: the blessing of half-sleep in such
cases is denied him ; he must be alert, and
strain every faculty, or it profits nothing.
Philosophy, with these men, pretends to be a
Science, nay, the living principle and soul of
all Sciences, and must be treated and studied
scientifically, or not studied and treated at all.
Its doctrines should be present with every cul-
tivated writer; its spirit should pervade every
piece of composition, how slight or popular
soever; but to treat itself popularly would be
a degradation and an impossibilit}'. Philoso-
phy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the
divinity of its inmost shrine : her dictates des-
cend among men, but she herself descends not ;
whoso would behold her, must climb with long
and laborious effort ; nay, still linger in the
forecourt, till manifold trial have proved him
worthy of admission into the interior solem-
nities.

It is the false notion prevalent respecting the
objects aimed at, and the purposed manner of
attaining them, in German Philosophy, that
causes, in great part, this disappointment of
our attempts to study it, and the evil report
which the disappointed naturally enough bring
back with them. Let the reader believe us,
the Critical Philosophers, whatever they may
be, are no mystics, and have no fellowship
with mystics. What a mystic is, we have said
above. But Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, are
men of cool judgment, and determinate ener-
getic character ; men of science and profound
and universal investigal^ion ; nowhere does the
world, in all its bearings, spiritual or material,
theoretic or practical, lie pictured in clearer or
truer colours, than in such heads as these.
We have heard Kant estimated as a spiritual
brother of Boehme ; as justly might we take
Sir Isaac Newton for a spiritual brother of
Count Swedenborg, and Laplace's Mechanism
of the Heavens for a peristyle to the Vision of the
New Jerusalem. That this is no extravagant
comparison, we appeal to any man acquainted
with any single volume of Kant's writings.
Neither, though Schelling's system differs still
more widely from ours, can we reckon Schell-
ing a mystic. He is a man evidently of deep
insight into individual things; speaks wisely,
and reasons with the nicest accuracy, on all
matter^ where we understand his data. Fairer
migl^t i* be in us to say that we had not yet
a]>preciated his truth, and therefore could not
appreciate his error. But above all, the mysti-
cism of Fichte might astonish us. The cold,
colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and
«*!*»ar, like a Cato Major among degenerate

men : fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa,
and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue
in the groves of Academe ! Our reader has
seen some words of Fichte's : are these like
words cf a mystic'? We state Fichte's cha-
racter, as it is known and admitted by men of
all parties among the Germans, when we say
that so robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so
lofty, massive, and immovable, has not mingled
in philosophical discussion since the time of
Luther. We figure his motionless look, had
he heard this charge of mysticism ! For the
man rises before us, amid contradiction and
debate, like a granite mountain amid clouds
and wind. Ridicule, of the best that could be
commanded, has been already tried against
him; but it could not avail. What was the
wit of a thousand wits to him? The cry of a
thousand choughs assaulting that old cliff of
granite : seen from the summit, these, as they
winged the midway air, showed scarce so
gross as beetles, and their cry was seldom
even audible. Fichte's opinions may be true
or false ; but his character, as a thinker, can
be slightly valued only by such as know it ill;
and as a man, approved by action and suffer-
ing, in his life and in his death, he ranks with
a class of men who were common only in
better ages than ours.

The Critical Philosophy has been regarded
by persons of approved judgment, and nowise
directly implicated in the farthering of it, as
distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement
of the century in which it came to light. Au-
gust Wilhelm Schlegel has stated in plain terms
his belief that, in respect of its probable in-
fluence on the moral culture of Europe, it stands
on a line with the Reformation. We mention
Schlegel as a man whose opinion has a known
value among ourselves. But the worth of
Kant's philosophy is not to be gathered from
votes alone. The noble system of morality,
the purer theology, the lofty views of man's na-
ture derived from it; nay, perhaps, the very
discussion of such matters, to which it gave so
strong an impetus, have told with remarkable
and beneficial influence on the whole spiritual
character of Germany. No writer of any im-
portance in that country, be he acquainted or
not with the Critical Philosophy, but breathes
a spirit of devoutness and elevation more or less
directly drawn from it. Such men as Goethe
and Schiller cannot exist without effect in any
literature or in any century : but if one circum-
stance more than another has contributed to
forward their endeavours, and introduce that
higher tone into the literature of Germany, it
has been this philosopical system ; to which,
in wisely believing its results, or even in wisely
denying them, all that was lofty and pure in
the genius of poetry, or the reason of man, so
readily allied itself.

That such a system must in the end become
known among ourselves, as it is already be-
coming known in France and Italy, and over
all Europe, no one acquainted in any measure
with the character of this matter, and the cha-
racter of England, will hesitate to predict.
Doubtless it will be studied here, and by heads
adequate to do it justice : it will be investigated
duly and thoroughl}-,/ and settled in our minds

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

33

on the footing which belongs to it, and where
thenceforth it must continue. Respecting the
degrees of truth and error which will then be
found to exist in Kant's system, or in the mo-
difications it has since received, and is still re-
ceiving, we desire to be understood as making
no estimate, and little qualitied to make any.
We would have it studied and known, on ge-
neral grounds; because even the errors of such
men are instructive; and because, without a
large admixture of truth, no error f«H exist un-
der such combinations, and become diffused so
widely. To judge of it we pretend not : we are
still inquirers in the mere outskirts of the mat-
ter; and it is but inquiry that we wisli to see
promoted.

Meanwhile, as an advance or first step to-
wards this, we may state something of what
has most struck ourselves as characterizing
Kant's system ; as distinguishing it from every
other known to us ; and chiefly from the Me-
taphysical philosophy which is taught in Bri-
tain, or rather which wa^ taught ; fir, on look-
ing round, we see not that there is any such
Philosophy in existence at the present day.*
The Kantist, in direct contradiction to Locke
and all his followers, both of the French, and
English or Scotch school, commences from
within, and proceeds outwards ; instead of
commencing from without, and, with various
precautions and hesitations, endeavouring to
proceed inwards. The ultimate aim of all Phi-
losophy must be to interpret appearances, —
from the given symbol to ascertain the thing.
Now the first step towards this, the aim of what
may be called Primary or Critical Philosophy,
must be to find some indubitable principle; to
fix ourselves on some unchangeable basis : to
discover what the Germans call the Unvahr,
the Primitive Truth, the necessarily, absolute-
ly, and eternally IVuc. This necessarily True,
this absolute basis of Truth, Locke silently,
and Reid and his followers with more tumult,
find in a certain modified Experience, and evi-
dence of Sense, in the universal and natural
persuasions of all men. Not so the Germans :
they deny that there is here any absolute Truth,

* The name of Diiftald Stewart is a name venerabte
to all Europe, and to none more dear and venerable than
to ourselves. Nevertheless his writings are not a phi-
losophy, but a maltiiis ready for one He does not enter
on tiie field to till it, he only encompasses it with fences,
invites cultivators, and drives away intruders ; often
(I'allen on evil days) he is reduced to long arguments
with passers by, to prove that it is a field, that this so
highly prized domain of his is, in truth, soil and sub-
stance, not clouds and shadow. We regard his discus-
sions on the nature of philosophic Lansuage, and his un-
wearied elTorts to set forth and guard against its fallacies,
as worthy of all acknowledgment ; as indeed forming
the greatest, perhaps the only true improvement, which
Philosophy has received among us in our age. It is only
to ii superficial observer that the import of these discus-
siotis can seem trivial : rightIy((inderstood they give suf-
ficient and final answer to Hartley's and Darwin's and
all other possible forms of Materialism, the grand Idola-
try, as we may rightly call it, by which, in all times, the
true Worship, that of the invisible, has been polluted
and withstood. Mr. Stewart has written warmly against
Kant ; but it would surprise him to find how much of a
Kantist he himself essentially is. Has not the whole
scope of his labotirs been to reconcile what a Kantist
would call his Understandins with his Reason ; a noble,
but still too fruitless effort to overarch the chasm
which, for all minds but his own. separates his .Science
from his Religion'? We regard the assiduous study of
)■'-: Works, as the best preparation of studying those of
ilalit.

or that any Philosophy whatever can be built
on such a basis ; nay, they go the length
of asserting, that such an appeal even to the
universal persuasions of mankind, gather them
with what precautions you may, amounts to a
total abdication of Philosophy, strictly so called,
and renders not only its further progress, but
its very existence, impossible. What, they
would say, have the persuasions, or instinc-
tive beliefs, or whatever they are called, of men,
to do in this matter? Is it not ihe object of
Philosophy to enlighten, and rectify, and inaiiy
times directly contradict these very beliefs.
Take, for instance, the voice of all generations
of men on the subject of Astronomy. Will
there, out of any age or climate, be one dissen-
tient against the/art t>f the Sun's going round
the Earth] Can any evidence be clearer, is
there any persuasion more universal, any be-
lief more instinctive ? And yet the sun moves
no hairsbreadth ; but stands in th-; centre of his
Planets, let us vote as we please. So is it like-
wise with our evidence for an external inde-
pendent existence of Matter, and, in general,
with our whole argtiment against Hume;
whose reasonings, from the premises admitted
both by him and us, the Germans affirm to be
rigorously consistent and legitimate, and, on
these premises, altogether uncontroverted and
incontrovertible. British Philosophy, since the
time of Hume, appears to them nothing more
than a "laborious and unsuccessful striving
to build dike after dike in front of our Churches
and Judgment-halls, and so turn back from
them the deluge of Skepticism, with which that
extraordinary writer overflowed us, and still
threatens to destroy whatever we value most."
This is Schlegel's meaning: his words are not
before us.

The Germans take up the matter differently,
and would assail Hume, not in his outworks
but in the centre of his citadel. They deny
his first principle, that Sense is the only inlet
of Knowledge, that Experience is the primary
ground of Belief. Their Primitive Truth,
however, they seek, not historically and by
experiment, in the universal persuasions of
men, but by intuition, in the deepest and purest
nature of Man. Instead of attempting, which
they consider vain, to prove the existence of
God, Virtue, an immaterial Soul, by inferences
drawn, as the conclusion of all Philosophy,
from the world of sense, they find these things
written as the beginning of all Philosophy, in
obscured but ineffaceable characters, within
our inmost being; and theinselves first afford-
ing any certainty and clear meaning to liiat
very world of sense, by which we endeavour
to demonstrate them. God is nay, alone is,
for with like emphasis we cannot say that any
thing else is. This is the Absolute, the Primi
tively True, which the philosopher seeks
Endeavouring, by logical argument, to prove
the existence of God, a Kantist might say,
would be like taking out a candle to look for
the sun; nay, gaze steadily into your candle-
light, and tile sun himself may be invisible
To open the inward eye to the sight of thi.s
Primitively True ; or, rather, we might call it,
to clear off the Obscurations of sense, which
eclipse this truth within us, so that we niav

34

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

see it, and believe it not only to be true, but
the foundation and essence of all other truth,
ma}', in such language as we are here using,
be said lo be the problem of Critical Phi-
losophy.

In this point of view, Kant's system may
be tlioughl lo have a remote affinity to those
of Malebranche and Descartes. But if they
in some measure agree as to their aim, there
is the widest diflerence as to the means.
We state what to ourselves has long appeared
the grand characteristic of Kanl's Philosophy,
when we mention his distinction, seldom per-
haps expressed so broadly, but uniformly im-
plied, between Understanding and Reason
(Vcrs/a7id and Vcrmuifl). To most of our
readers this may seem a distinction without a
diflerence; nevertiieless, to the Kantists it is
by no means such. They believe that both
Understanding and Reason are organs, or
rather, we should say, modes of operation, by
which the mind discovers truth; but they
think tnat their manner of proceeding is es-
sentially different: that their provinces are
separable and distinguishable, nay, that it is
of the last importance to separate and distin-
guish them. Reason, the Kantists say, is of a
liigher nature than Understanding; it works
by more subtle methods, on higher objects,
and requires a far finer culture for its de-
velopment, indeed in many men it is never
developed at all; but its results are no less
certain, nay, rather, they are much more so;
for Reason discerns Truth itself, the absolutely
and primitively True: while Understanding
discerns only rclalions, and cannot decide with-
out if. The proper province of Understand-
ing is all, strictly speaking, rev/, practical, and
material knowledge. Mathematics, Physics,
Political Economy, the adaptation of means
to ends in the whole business of life. In this
province it is the strength and universal im-
plement of the mind: an indispensable ser-
vant, without which, indeed, existence itself
would be impossible. Let it not step beyond
this province, however, not usurp the province
of Reason, which it is appointed to obey, and
cannot rule over without ruin to the whole
spiritual man. Should Understanding attempt
to prove the existence of God, it ends, if
thorough-going and consistent with itself, in
Atheism, or a faint possible Theism, which
scarcely diifers from this: should it speculate
of Virtue, it ends in Utility, making Prudence
and a sufficiently cunning love of Self the
highest good. Consult Understanding about
the Beauty of Poetry, and it asks, where is
this Beauty? or discovers it at length in
rhythms and fitnesses, and male and female
rhymes. Witness also its everlasting para-
doxes on Necessity and the Freedom of the
Will; its ominous silence on the end and
meaning of man; and the enigma which,
under such inspection, the whole purport of
existence becomes.

Nevertheless, say the Kantists, there is a
truth in these things. Virtue is Virtue, and
not prudence; not less surely than the angle
iij a semicircle is a right angle, and no trape-
zium : Shakspeare is a Poet, and Boileau is
none think of it as you may : Neither is it

more certain that I myself exist, than that God
exists, infinite, eternal, invisible, the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. To discern
these truths is the province of Reason, which
therefore is to be cuiiivated as the highest
faculty in man. Not by logic and argument
does it work; yet surely and clearly may it
be taught to work: and its domain lies in that
higher region whither logic and argument
cannot reach; in that holier region, where
Poetry, and Virtue, and Divinity abide, in
whose presence Understanding wavers and
recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that
"sea of light," at once the fountain and the
termination of all true knowledge.

Will the Kantists forgive us for the loose
and popular manner in which we must here
speak of these things, to bring them in any
measure before the' eyes of our readers? — It
may illustrate this distinction still farther, if
we say, that, in the opinion of a Kantisl, the
French are of all European nations the moot
gifted with Understanding, and the most desti
tute of Reason ;* that David Hume had no
forecast of this latter, and that Shakspeare
and Luther dwelt perennially in its purest
sphere.

Of the vast, nay, in these days boundless,
impoi'tance of this distinction, could it be
scientifically established, we need remind no
thinking man. For the rest, far be it from the
reader to suppose that this same Reason is
but a new appearance, under another name,
of our own old "Wholesome Prejudice," so
well known to most of us ! Prejudice, whole-
some or unwholesome, is a personage for
whom the German Philosophers disclaim all
shadow of respect; nor do the vehement
among them hide their deep disdain for all
and sundry who fight under her flag. Truth
is to be loved purely and solely because it ia
true. With moral, political, religious con-
siderations, high and dear as they may other-
wise be, the Philosopher, as such, has no con-
cern. To look at them would but perplex him,
and distract his vision from the task in his
hands. Calmly he constructs his theorem, as
the Geometer does his, without hope or fear,
save that he may or may not find the solution ;
and stands in the middle, by the one, it maybe,
accused as an Infidel, by the other as an Enthu-
siast and a Mystic, till the tumult ceases, and
what was true is and continues true to the end
of all time.

Such are some of the high and momentous
questions treated of, by calm, earnest, and
deeply meditative men, in this system of Phi-
losophy, which to the wiser minds among us
is still unknown, and by the unwiser is spoken
of and regarded as their nature requires. The
profoundness, subtilty, extent of investigation,
which the answer of these questions presup-
poses, need not be farther pointed out. With
the truth or falsehood of the system, we have
here, as already' stated, no concern ; our aim
has been, so far as might be done, to show it as
it appeared to us ; and lo ask such of our read-
ers as pursue these studies, whether this also

* Sclielling has said as iiiitch or more, {Metliode de»
.ffcailemischen Studium, pp 105 — 111,) in terms which we
could wish we had space to transcribe.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

35

is not worthy of some study. The reply we
must now leave to themselves.

As an appendage to the charge of Mysticism
brought against the Germans, there is often
added the seemingly incongruous one of Irre-
ligion. On this point also we had much to
say; but must for the present decline it. Mean-
while, let the reader be assured, that to the
charge of Irreligion, as to so many others, the
Germans will plead not guilty. On the contra-
ry, they will not scruple to assert that their lite-
rature is, in a positive sense, religious ; nay,
perhaps to maintain, that if ever neighbouring
nations are to recover that pure and high spirit
of devotion, the loss of which, however we may
disguise it or pretend to overlook it, can be
hidden from no observant mind, it must be by
travelling, if not on the same path, at least in
the same direction, in which the Germans have
already begun to travel. We shall add, that
the Religion of Germany is a subject not fu-
slight but for deep study, and, if we mistake
not, may in some degree reward the deepest.

Here, however, we must close our examina-
tion or defence. We have spoken freely, be-
cause we felt distinctly, and thought the matter
worthy of being stated, and more fully inquired
into. Farther than this, we have no quarrel
for the Germans; we would have justice done
them, as to all men and all things; but for their
literature or character we profess no sectarian
or exclusive preference. We think their re-
cent Poetry, indeed, superior to the recent
Poetry of any other nation; but taken as a
whole, inferior to that of several; inferior not
tr> our own only, but to that of Italy, nay, per-
haps to that of Spain. Their Philosophy, too,
must still be regarded as uncertain; at best
only the beginning of better things. But surely
even this is not to be neglected. A little light
is precious in great darkness: nor, amid the
myriads of Poetasters and Phitosophes, are Poets
and Philosophers so numerous that we should
reject such, when they speak to us in the hard,
but manly, deep, and expressive tones of that

.old Saxon speech, which is also our mother
tongfue.

We confess the present aspect of spiritual
Europe might fill a melancholic observer with
doubt and foreboding. It is mournful to see so
many noble, tender, and high-aspiring minds
deserted of that religious light which once
guided all such : standing sorrowful on the
scene of past convulsions and controversies, as
on a scene blackened and burnt up with fire;
mourning in the darkness, because there is de-
solation, and no home for the soul ; or what is
worse, pitching tents among the ashes, and
kindling weak earthly lamps which we are to
take for stars. This darkness is but transitory
obscuration: these ashes are the soil of future
herbage and richer harvests. Religion, Poetry,
is not dead; it will never die. Its dwelling
and birthplace is in the soul of man, and it is
eternal as the being of man. In any point of
Space, in any section of Time, let there be a
living Man: and there is an Infinitude above
him and beneath him, and an eternity encom-
passes him on this hand and on that ; and tones
of Sphere-music, and tidings from loftier
worlds, will flit round him, if he can but listen,
and visit him with holy influences, even in the
thickest press of trivialities, or the din of busiest
life. Happy the man, happy the nation that
can hear these tidings ; that has them written in
fit characters, legible to every eye, and the so-
lemn import of them present at all moments to
every heart ! That there is, in these days, no
nation so happy, is too clear; but that all na-
tions, and ourselves in the van, are, with more
or less discernment of its nature, struggling
towards this happiness, is the hope and the
glory of our time. To us, as to others, success,
at a distant or a nearer day, cannot be uncer-
tain. Meanwhile, the first condition of success
is, that, in striving honestly ourselves, we ho-
nestly acknowledge the striving of our neigh-
bour; that with a Will unwearied in seeking
Truth, we have a Sense open for it, whereso-
ever and howsoever it may arise.

LIFE AND WETTINGS OF WERNER.

[Foreign Review, 1823.]

If the charm of fame consisted, as Horace
has mistakenly declared, "in being pointed at

* 1. Lebens-Mriss Friedrirh Ludiciir ZarhariasJVerners.
yon dem Ileraiisireber iwii Nnffmanns Lebtni vnd J^Tach-
liiss.) Sketch of the Life of Froileiic I.uiiwiff Ziicharias
Werner. IJy the Eiliior of "Hoffmann's Life and Re-
mains.") Derlin, 1823.

2. Die Sohne dcs Tlials. (The Sons of the Valley.)
A Dramatic Poem. Part I. Die Tempter aiif Cijpern.
(The remplars in Cyprus.) Part H. Die Krevzesbriidcr.
(The rSrethrcnof the Cross.) Berlin, 1801, 1802.

3. Das Kreuz an der Ostsce. (The Cross on the Baltic.)
A Trai'edy. Berlin, 1800.

4. Jilartin Luther, oder Die fVeihe der Kraft. (Martin
Luther, or the Consecration of Strength.) A Tragedy.
Berlin, 1(^(IT.

5. 'He Mutter der Maklcabiier. (The Mother of the
Maccabees ■> A Tragedy. Vienna, 1820.

with the finger, and having it said, This is he f"
few writers of the present age could boast o£
more fame than Werner. It has been the un-
happy fortune of this man to stand for a long
period incessantly before the world, in a far
stronger light than naturally belonged to him,
or could exhibit him to advantage. Twenty
years ago he was a man of considerable note,
which has ever since been degenerating into
notoriety. The mystic dramatist, the skepti-
cal enthusiast, was known and partly esteemed
by all students of poetry ; Madame de Stael,
we .'•ecollect, allows him an entire chapter in
her " AUemagne." It was a much coarser cu-
riositj', and in a much wider circle, which the

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRIT INGS.

dissipated man, by successive indecorums, oc-
casioned; till at last the convert to Popery, the
preaching zealot, came to figure in all news-
papers ; and some picture of him was required
for all heads that would not sit blank and mute
in the topic of every coffeehouse and (Esthetic
tea. In dim heads, that is, in the great majo-
rity, the picture was, of course, perverted into
a strange bugbear, and the original decisively
enough condemned; but even the few, who
might see him in his true shape, felt too well
that nothing loud could be said in his behalf;
that, with so many mournful blemishes, if ex-
tenuation could not avail, no complete defence
was to be attempted.

At the same time, it is not the history of a
mere literary profligate that we have here to do
with. Of men whom fine talents cannot teach
the humblest prudence, whose high feeling,
unexpressed in noble action, must lie smould-
ering with baser admixtures in their own
bosom, till their existence, assaulted from
without and from within, becomes a burnt and
blackened ruin, to be sighed over by the few,
and stared at, or trampled on, by the many, —
there is unliappiiy no want in any country;
nor can the unnatural union of genius with
depravity and degradation have such charms
for our readers, that we should go abroad in
quest of it, or in any case to dwell on it, other-
wise than with reluctance. Werner is some-
thing more than this: a gifted spirit, struggling
earnestly amid the new, complex, tumultuous
influences of his time and country, but without
force to body himself forth from amongst them;
a keen adventurous swimmer, aiming towards
high and distant landmarks, but too weakly in
so rough a sea, for the currents drive him far
astray, and he sinks at last in the waves, at-
taining little for himself, and leaving little,
save the memory of his failure, to others. A
glance over his history may not be unprofita-
ble ; if the man himself can less interest us,
the ocean of German, of European Opinion,
still rolls in wild eddies to and fro; and with
its movements and refluxes, indicated in the
history of such men, every one of us is con-
cerned.

Our materials for this survey are deficient,
not so much in quantity as quality. The "Life,"
now known to be by Hitzig of Berlin, seems a
very honest, unpresuming performance; but,
on the other hand, it is much too fragmentary
and discursive for our wants ; the features of
the man are nowhere united into a portrait,
but left for the reader to unite as he may ; a
task which, to most readers, will be hard
enough : for the work, short in compass, is
more than proportionally short in details of
facts; and Werner's historjr, much as an in-
timate friend must have known of it, still lies
before us, in great part, dark and unintelligible.
For what he has done we should doubtless
thank our Author; yet it seems a pity, that, in
this instance, he had not done more and better.
A singular chance made him, at the same time,
companion of both Hoffmann and Werner,
perhaps the two most showy, heterogeneous,
and misinterpretable writers of his day; nor
fliall v/e deny, that, in performing a friend's
'?uiv tt their memory, he has done truth also a

service. His " Life of Hoffmann," pretendmg
to no artfulness of arrangement, is redundant,
rather than defective, in minuteness; but there,
at least, the means of a correct judgment are
brought within our reach, and the work, as
usual with Hitzig, bears marks of the utmost
fairness; and of an accuracy which we might
almost call professional : for the author, it
would seem, is a legal functionary of long
standing, and now of respectable rank; and
he examines and records, with a certain notarial
strictness too rare in compilations of this sort.
So far as Hoffmann is concerned, therefore,
we have reason to be satisfied. In regard to
Werner, however, we cannot say so much:
here we should certainly have wished for more
facts, though it had been with fewer conse-
quences drawn from them ; were these some-
what chaotic expositions of Werner's charac-
ter exchanged for simple particulars of his walk
and conversation, the result would be much
surer, and, especially to foreigners, much more
complete and luminous. As it is, from repeated
perusals of this biography, we have failed
to gather any very clear notion of the man ;
nor with, perhaps, more study of his wi-itings
than, on other grounds, they might have mer-
ited, does his manner of existence still stand
out to us with that distinct cohesion which
puts an end to doubt. Our view of him the
reader will accept as an approximation, and be
content to wonder with us, and charitably pause
where we cannot altogether interpret.

Werner was born at Konigsberg, in East
Prussia, on the 18th of November, 17C8. His
father was Professor of History and Eloquence
in the University there; and further, in virtue
of this oflice. Dramatic Censor, which latter
circumstance procured young AVerner almost
daily opportunity of visiting the theatre, and
so gave him, as he says, a greater acquaint-
ance with the mechanism of the stage than
even most pla3'ers are possessed of. A strong
taste for the drama it probably enough gave
him ; but this skill in stage mechanism may
be questioned, for often in his own plays no
such skill, but rather the want of it, is evinced.

The Professor and Censor, of whom we hear
nothing in blame or praise, died in the four-
teenth year of his son, and the boy now fell to
the sole charge of his mother, a woman whom
he seems to have loved warmly, but whose
guardianship could scarcely be the best for
him. Werner himself speaks of her in earnest
commendation, as of a pure, high-minded, and
heavily-afl^icted being. Hoffmann, however,
adds, that she was hypochondriacal, and gen-
erally quite delirious, imagining herself to be
the Virgin Mary, and her son to be the promised
Shiloh ! Hoffmann had opportunity enough
of knowing; for it is a curious fact that these
two singular persons were brought up under
the same roof, though, at this lime, by reason
of their difference of age, Werner being eight
years older, they had little or no acquaintance.
What a nervous and melancholic parent was,
HotTmann, by another unhappy coincidence
had also full occasion to know : his own mothei
parted from her husband, lay helpless and
broken-hearted for the last seventeen years of
her life, and the first seventeen of his ; a source

LIFE AKD WRITINGS OF WERNER.

37

of painfu, influences, which he used to trace
throiicjh the wliole (if his own character; as to
the like ciiu.se he imputed the primary perver-
sion of Werner's. How far liis views on this
point were accurate or exaggerated, we have
f)o means of judging.

Of Werner's early years the biographer says
l.'ttle or nothing. We learn only that, about
ihe usual age, he matriculated in the Konigs-
t>e>-g University, intending to qualify himself
'or the business of a lawyer; and with his pro-
'essional studies united, or attempted to unite,
he study of philosophy under Kant. His
collage-life is characterized by a single, but too
c'xpressive word: "It is said," observes Hitzig,
•■'to have been very dissolute." His progress
in metaphysics, as in all branches of learning,
might thus be expected to be small ; indeed,
at no period of his life can he, even in the
language of panegyric, be called a man of cul-
ture or solid information on any subject. Never-
theii'ss, he contrived, in his twenty-first year,
to publish a little volume of" Poems," apparent-
ly in ievy tolerable magazine metre, and after
some ' roamings" over Germany, having loiter-
ed for a while at Berlin, and longer at Dresden,
he betvik himself to more serious business,
applied for admittance and promotion as a
Prussia; man of law; the employment which
young j irists look for in that country being
chiefly i ^ the hands of government: consist-
ing, indeed, of appointments in the various
judicial or administrative Boards by which the
Provinces are managed. In 1793, Werner ac-
cordingly was made Kainmcrsecretdr (Exchequer
Secretary;) a subaltern office, which beheld
successively in several stations, and last and
longest in Warsaw, where Hitzig, a young man
foUowins: the same profession, first became ac-
quainted with him in 1799.

What the purport or result of Werner's
"roamings" may have been, or how he had de-
meaned himself in office or out of it, we are
nowhere informed; but it is an ominous cir-
cumstance that, even at this period, in his
thirtieth year, he had divorced two wives, the
last at least by mutual consent, and was look-
ing out for a third! Hitzig, with whom he
seems to have formed a prompt and close in-
timacy, gives us no full picture of him under
any of his aspects: yet we can see, that his
life, as naturally it might, already wore some-
what of a shattered appearance in his own
eyes, that he was broken in character, in spirit,
perhaps in bodily constitution ; and, content-
ing himself with the transient gratifications of
so gay a city, and so tolerable an appointment,
had renounced all steady and rational hope
either of being happy or of deserving to be so.
Of unsteady and irrational hopes, however, he
had still abundance. The fine enthusiasm of
his nature, undestroyed by so many external
perplexities, nay, to which, perhaps, these very
perplexities had given fresh and undue excite-
ment, glowed forth in strange manj'-coloured
brightness, from amid the wreck of his fortunes,
and led him into wild worlds of speculation.
the more vehemently, that the real world of
action and duty had become so unmanageable
in iiis hands.

Werner's early publication had sunk, after a

brief provincial life, into merited oblivion ; in
fact, he had then only been a rhymer, and was
now, for the first time, beginning to be a poet.
We have one of those youthful pieces tran-
scribed in this volume, and certainly it exhibits
a curious contrast with his subsequent writ-
ings, both in form and spirit. In form, because,
unlike the first fruits of a genius, it is cold and
correct : Avhile his later works, without excep-
tion, are fervid, extravagant, and full of gross
blemishes. In spirit no less, because, treating
of his favourite theme, Religion, it treats of it
harshly and skeptically; being, indeed, little
more than a metrical version of common Util-
itarian Freethinking, as it may be found
(without metre) in most taverns and debating-
societies. Werner's intermediate secret history
might form a strange chapter in psychology:
for now, it is clear, his French skepticism had
got overlaid with wondrous Iheosophic garni-
ture; his mind was full of visions and cloudy
glories, and no occupation pleased him better
than to controvert, in generous inquiring minds,
that very unbelief which he appears to have
once entertained in his own. From Hitzig's
account of the matter, this seems to have
formed the strongest link of his intercourse
with Werner. The latter was his senior by ten
years of time, and by more than ten years of
unhappy experience ; the grand questions of
Immortality, of Fate, Free-will, Fore-knowledge
absolute, were in continual agitation between
them ; and Hitzig still remembers with grati-
tude these earnest warnings against irregular-
ity of life, and so many ardent and not ineffec-
tual endeavours to awaken in the passionate
temperament of youth a glow of purer and en-
lightening fire.

"Some leagues from Warsaw," says the
Biographer, " enchantingly embosomed in a
thick wood, close by the high banks of the
Vistula, lies the Cameldulensian Abbey of
Bielany, inhabited by a class of monks, who in
strictness of discipline yield only to those of
La Trappe. To this cloistral solitude Werner
was wont to repair with his friend, every fine
Saturday of the summer of 1800, so soon as
their occupations in the city Avere over. In
defect of any formal inn, the two used to
bivouac in the forest, or at best to sleep under
a temporary tent. The Sunday was then spent
in the open air; in roving about the woods;
sailing on the river, and the like; till late night
recalled them to the city. On such occasions,
the younger of the party had ample room to
unfold his whole heart before his more mature
and settled companion; to advance his doubts
and objections against many theories, whJch
Werner was already cherishing: and so, ly
exciting him with contradiction, to cause him
to make them clearer to himself."

Week after week-, these discussions were
carefully resumed from the point where they
had been left : indeed, to Werner, it would
seem, this controversy had unusual attractions ;
for he was now busy composing a Poem, in-
tended ]irincipally to convince the world of
those very truths which he was striving to im-
press on his friend ; and to which the world, as
might be expected, was likely to give a similar
reception. The character, or at least the wav
D

38

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of thought, attributed to Robert d'Heredon, the
Scottish Templar, in the Sons of the Valley, was
borrowed, it appears, as if by regular instal-
ments, from these conferences with Hitzig; the
result of the one Sunday being duly entered in
dramatic form during the week; then audited
on the Sunday following; and so forming the
text for further disquisition. "Blissful days,"
adds Hitzig, "pure and innocent, which doubt-
less Werner also ever held in pleased remem-
brance!"

The Sblnic rlea Thuls, composed in this rather
questionable fashion, was in due time forth-
coming; the First Part in 1801, the Second
about a year afterwards. It is a drama, or
rather two dramas, unrivalled at least in one
particular, in length; each Part being a play
of six acts, and the whole amounting to some-
what more than eight hundred small octavo
pages! To attempt any analysis of such a
work would but fatigue our readers to little
purpose: it is, as might be anticipated, of a
most loose and formless structure: expanding
on all sides into vague boundlessness, and, on
the whole, resembling not so much a poem as
the rude materials of one. The subject is the
destruction of the Templar Order; an event
which has been dramatized more than once,
but on which, notwithstanding, Werner, we
suppose, may boast of being entirely original.
The fate of Jacques Molay, and his brethren,
acts here but lilce a little leaven ; and lucky
were we, could it leaven the lump; but it lies
buried under such a mass of Mystical theology,
Masonic mummery, Cabalistic tradition, and
Rosicrucian philosophy, as no power could
work into dramatic union. The incidents are
few, and of little interest; interrupted contin-
ually by flaring shows and long-winded specu-
lations; for Werner's besetting sin, that of
loquacity, is here in decided action ; and so we
wander, in aimless windings, through scene
after scene of gorgeousness or gloom ; till at
last the whole rises before us like a wild phan-
tasmagoria; cloud heaped on cloud, painted
indeed here and there with prismatic hues, but
representing nothing, or at least not the subject,
but the author.

In this last point of view, however, as a pic-
ture of himself, independently of other consid-
erations, this play of Werner's may still have
a certain value for us. The strange chaotic
nature of the man is displayed in it: his skep-
ticism and theosophy ; his audacity, yet in-
trinsic weakness of character; liis baffled
longings, but still ardent endeavours after
Truth and Good; his search for them in far
jouineyings, not on the beaten hiffhways, but
through the pathless infinitude of Thought.
To call it a work of art would be a misappli-
cation of names : it is little more than a rhap-
sodic effusion; the outpouring of a passionate
and mystic soul, only half knowing what it
utters, and not ruling its own movements, but
ruied by them. It is fair to add that such also,
in a greai measure, was Werner's own view
of the matter: most likely the utterance of
these things gave him such relief, that, crude
as ihey were, he could not suppress them. For
:'. ought to be remembered, that in this per-
formance one condition, at least, of genuine in-

spiration is not wanting: Werner evidently
thinks that in these his ultramundane excur-
sions he has found truth; he has something
positive to set forth, and he feels himself as if
bound on a high and holy mission in preach-
ing it to his fellow-men.

To explain with any minuteness the articles
of Werner's creed, as it was now fashioned,
and is here exhibited, would be a task perhaps
too hard for us, and, at all events, unprofitable
in proportion to its difficulty. We have found
some separable passages, in which, under dark
symbolical figures, he has himself shadowed
forth a vague likeness of it: these we shall
now submit to the reader, with such exposi-
tions as we gather from the context, or as Ger-
man readers, from the usual tone of specula-
tion in that country, are naturally enabled to
suppl}'. This may, at the same time, convey
as fair a notion of the work itself, with its
tawdry splendours, and tumid grandiloquence,
and mere playhouse thunder and lightning, as
by any other plan our limits would admit.

Let the reader fancy himself in the island
of Cyprus, where the Order of the Templars
still subsists, though the heads of it are already
summoned before the French King and Pope
Clement; which summons they are now, not
without dreary enough forebodings, preparing
to obey. The purport of this First Part, so far
as it has any dramatic purport, is to paint the
situation, outward and inward, of that once
pious and heroic, and still magnificent and
powerful body. It is entitled The Templars in
Cyprus: but why it should also be called The
Sons of the Valley does not so well appear ; for
the Brotherhood of the Valley has yet scarcely
come into activity, and only hovers before us
in glimpses, of so enigmatic a sort, that we
know not fully so much as whether these its
Sons are of flesh and blood like ourselves, or of
some spiritual nature, or of something inter-
mediate, and altogether nondescrii)t. For the
rest, it is a series of spectacles and disserta-
tions; the action cannot so much be said to
advance as to revolve. On this occasion the
Templars are admitting two new members;
the acolytes have already passed their prelim-
inary trials; this is the chief and final one; —

ACT FIFTH.— SCENE first.

Mi'Inight. Interior of the Tetiiple Church. Backwards, a deep perspeo-
live of Allars and Golhic Pillars. On Ihe rishl-Innd side of the foreground,
a lillle Chapel ; and in this an Altar with the fifiurc of SI. Sebastian. Th«
scene is lighted very dimly by a single Laii.p which hangs before Ihe Altar.

« » » » » «

ADALBERT (ijrcs.ied in white, vithnnt mantle or doublet}

groping his way in the dark.)

Was it not at the Altar of Sebastian
Th:U I was liiti to wait for tlie unknown f
Here should it be ; but dartiness with Iier veil
Inwraps the figures.

{Advancing to the j?Ztor.)
Here is the fifth pillar!
Yes, this is he, thn Sainted. — How the glimmer
Of that faint lamp falls on his fading eye!—
Ah, it is not the spears o' th' Saracens,
It is the pangs of hopeless love that burning
Transfi.x thy heart, poor Comrade ! — O my Agnes
May not thy s(iirit, in this earnest hour.
Be looking on 1 Art hovering in that moon-beam
Which struggles through the painted window, and diet
Amid the cloister's gloom 1 Or linger'st thou

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

Behind these pillars, which, ominous and blacli,
Look down on me, like horrors of the Past
Upon the Present; and hidest thy gentle form,
Lest with thy paleness thou too much affright mel
Hide not tliyself, pale shadow of my Agnes,
Thou affrlghtest not thy lover. — Hush I —
Hark! Was there not a rustling 1 — Father! You 1

PHILIP (rushing- in with wild looks.)
Yes, Adalbert !— But time is precious !— Come,
My son, my one sole Adalbert, come with nie !

ADALBERT.

What would you, father, in this solemn hourl
PHILIP.

This hour, or never !

(Leading Adalbert to the Altar.)
Hither ! — Know'st thou him ?

ADALBERT.

•Tig Saint Sebastian.

Because he would not
Renounce his faith, a tyrant had him murder'd.

(Points to his head.)
These furrows, too, the rage of tyrants ploughed
In thy old father's face. My son, iny lirst-born cliiUi,
In this great hour I do conjure thee ! Wilt Ihou,
Wilt tho-i obey me 1

ADALBERT.

Be it just, I will !

Then swear, in this great hour, in this dread presence,
Here by thy father's head made early gray,
By the remembrance of thy mother's agony,
And by the ravished blossom of thy Agnes,
Against the Tyranny which sacrificed us,
Inexpiable, bloody, everlasting hate !

ADALBERT.

Ha! This the All-avenger spoke through thee ! —
Yes! Bloody shall my Agues' dealhtorcli burn
In Philip's heart ; I swear it !

PHILIP (icith increasing vehemence.)

And if thou break
This oath, and if thou reconcile thee to him.
Or let his golden chains, his gifis, his prayers,
His dying-niDan itself, avert thy dagger
When th' hour of vengeance comes, — shall this gray head,
Thy mother's wail, the last sii;h of thy Agnes,
Accuse thee at the bar of the Eiernall

ADALBERT.

So be it, if I break my oath !

Then man thee ! —
(Looking up, then shrinking togcthrr as with daiiled eye.".)
Ha ! was nnt that his lightning'?— Fare thee well!
I hear the footstep of the Ureadnd ! — Firm I —
Reinembei nie, remember this stern midnight !

(Retires hastily )

ADALBERT (alone )

Ves, drayhead, whom the beckoning of the Lord
Sent hither to awake me out of craven sleep,
I will remember thee and this stern midnight.
And my Agnes' spirit shall have vengeance i

Enter an armed man. (Ife is mailed from head to /not in
black harness ; his visor is cloted.)

ASMED HAX.

Pray !

(ADALBERT knecls.)

Bare thyself!

(He strips him to the girdle and raises him.)
Look on the ground, and follow!

(He leads him into the back-ground to a trap door, on the
right. He descends first himself; and when Adalbert hat
followed him, it closes.)

SCENE SECOND.

Cemetery of the Templars, under the Church. The scene is lighted 011I7
by a Lamp which hang^ down from the vault. Around are Toinbslones of
deceased Knights, marked with Crosses and sculptured Bones. In the back-
ground, two colossal Skeletons holding between them a lar^e white Buok,
marked wiih a nd Cross; from the under end of the Book hanjs a long
hl.ick curtain. The Book, of which only the cover is visible, has an inscrip.
lion in black ciphers, 'the Skeleton on the right hidds in its ri'ht hand 11
naked drawn sword ; that on the left holds in its left hand a Palm turned
downwards. On the right side of the foreground, stands a black Coifin open;
on the left, a similar one with the body of a Templar in full dress of hij
Order; on both O.lTini are inscriptions in white ciphers. On each side,
nearer the back-ground, are seen the lowest steps of the stairs, whiih lead
up into the Temjrlc Church above the vault.

ARMED MAN {not yet visible ; above on the right-hand
stairs.)
Dreaded ! Is the grave laid open 1

CONCEALED TOICES.

Yea!

ARMED MAN (irho after a pause shows himself on the
stairs.)

Shall he behold the Tombs o' th' fathers'?

CONCEALED ■VOICES.

Yea !

(AitMED MAN with drawn swnrd leads ADALBERT carefully
down the steps on the right hand.)

ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT.)

Look down ! 'Tis on thy life !

(Lrads him to the open Coffin.)
What seest thou ?

ADALBERT.

An open empty Coffin.

ARMED MAN.

'Tis the house
Where thou one oay shall dwell. Canst read th' inscrij^
tior '»

ADALBERT.

No.

aRmed man.
Hear it, then ; " Thy /vages, Sin, is Death."
{Leads him to the opposite Coffin where the Body is lying.)
Look down! 'Tis on thy life!— What seest thou'?
{Shows the Coffin.)

ADALBERT.

A Coffin with a Corpse.

AHMED Hi AN.

He is thy Brother,
One day thou art as he. — Canst read the inscription'?

ADALBERT

Nq

40

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ARMED MAN.

Hear: "Corruption is the name of Life."
Now look around ; go forward,— move, and act ! —

{He pushes him towards the back-ground of the staffe.)

ADALBEUT (.observing the Book.)

Ha ! Here the Book of Ordination ! — Seems
(.Approaching.)
Ab If th' inscription on it miglit be read.

(lie reads it.)
"Knock four times on the ground,
Thou shalt behold thy loved one."
O Heavens ! And may I see thee, sainted Agnes I

(Hastening close to the Book.)
My bosom yearns for thee! —

{fVith the following words, he stamps four times on the
ground.)
One,— Two,— Three,— Four !—
{The Curtain hanging from the Book rolls rapidly up,
and covers it. Jl colossal DeviV s-head appears between the
tiDO Skeletons : its form is horrible ; it is gilt ; has a
huge golden Crown, a Heart of the same in its Brow ; roll-
ing flaming Eyes: Serpents instead of Hair: golden
Chains round its neck, which is visible to the breast: and a
golden Cross, yet not a Crucifix, which rises over its right
shoulder, as if crushing it down. The whole Bust rests
on four gilt Dragon's feet, ^t sight of it, Adalbert
Itarts back in horror, and ezclaiins :)
Defend us !

AHMED MAN.

Dreaded, may he hear if?

CONCEALED VOICES.

Yea!
AIlMED MAN (touchcs the Curtain with his sword: it
rolls down over the DeviVs-head, concealing it again ; and
above, as before, appears the Book, but now opened, with
white colossal leaves and red characters. The armtd man,
pointing constantly to the Book with his Sword, and there-
with turning the leaves, addresses Adalbert, who stands
on the other side of the Book, and nearer the foreground.)

List to the Story of the Fallen Master.

(He reads the following from the Book: yet not stand-
ing before it but on one side, at some paces distance, and
whilst he reads, turning the leaves with hia sword.)
"So now when the foundation-stone was laid,
The Lord called forth the Master, Bafiometus,
And said to him ; Go and complete my Temple !
But in his heart the Master thought : What boot.s it
Building thee a temple? and took the.stoncs,
And built himself a dwelling, and what stones
Were left he gave for filthy gold and silver.
Now after forty moons the Lord returned,
And s|)ake : Where is my teinple, Bafrometusf
riie Master said : I had to build myself
/V dwelling : grant me other forty weeks.
And after forty weeks, the Lord returns,
And ask? : where is my temple, Baftbmetus?
Hp said: There were no stones (but he had sold them
For lilthy gold ;) so wait yet forty days.
In forty days thereafter came the I>ord,
And cried : Where is my temple, Bati'ometusi
Thoi like a mill-stone fell it on his soul
How he for lucre had betrayed his Lord ;
But yet to other sin the Fiend did tempt him,
And he answered, saying : Give me forty hours!
And when the forty hours were gone, the Lord
Came down in wrath : My Temple, B.ifTometus'?
Then fell he quaking on his face, and cried
For mercy ; but the Lord was wroth, and said :
Since thou hast cozened me with empty lies,
jvnil those the stones I lent thee for my Temple
Hast sold them for a purse of filthy golil,
).o, I will cast thee f)rth, and with the Mammon
'Vill chastise thee, until a Saviour rise
Of thy own seed, who shall redeem thy trespass.

'•ill did the Lord lift up the purse of Gold;

And shook the gold into a melting-pot,

And set the melting-pot upon the Sun,

So that the metal fused into a fluid mass.

And then he dipt a finger in the same,

And; straightway touching BafTometus,

Anoints him on the chin and brow and cheeki.

Then was the face of Baffometus changed :

His eye-balls rolled like fire-flames,

His nose became a crooked vuKure's bill.

The tongue hung bloody from his throat ; the flesh

Went from his hollow cheeks; and of his hair

Grew snakes, and of the snakes grew Devil's-horni).

Again the Lord put forth his finger with the gold

And pressed it upon Baffometus' heart;

Whereby the heart did bleed and wither up.

And all his members bled and withered up,

And fell away, the one and then the other.

At last his back itself sunk into ashes :

The head alone continued gilt and living;

And instead of back, grew dragon's-talons,

Which destroyed all life from off the Earth.

Then from the ground the Lord took up the heart,

Which, as he touched it, also grew of gold.

And placed it on the brow of Baffometus;

And of the other metal in the pot

He made for Irin a burning crown of gold.

And crushed it on his serpent-hair, so that

Ev'n to the bone and brain, the circlet scorched him.

And round the neck he twisted golden chains,

Which strangled him and pressed his breath together.

What in the pot remained he poured upon the ground.

Athwart, along, and there it formed a cross ;

The which he lifted and laid upon his neck.

And bent him that he could not raise his head.

Two Deaths moreover he appointed warders

To guard him: Death of Life, and Death of Hope.

The sword of the first he sees not but it smites him;

The other's Palm he sees, but it escapes him.

So languishes the outcast Baffometus

Four thousand years and four-and-forty moons,

Till once a Saviour rise from his own seed,

Redeem his trespass, and deliver him."

(To ADALBERT.)

This is the Story of the Fallen Master.
(With his sword he touches the Curtain, which now ai
before rolls up over the hook : so that the head under it
again becomes visible, in its former shape.)

ADALBERT {looking at the HEAD.)
Hah, what a hideous shape !

HEAD (with a hollow voice.)

Deliver me!

AHMED MAN.

Dreaded ! Shall the work begin f

CONCEALED VOICES.

Yea!

ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT.)

Take the Neckband
Away ! (Pointing to the head.)
ADALBERT.

I dare not!
HEAD (with a still more piteous tone.)
O, deliver me!

ADALBERT (taking off the chains.)
Poor fallen one .'

ARMED MAN.

Now lift the Crown from 's head '.

ADALBERT
It seems so heavy!

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

41

ABHES MAN.

Touch it, it grows light.
ATALBERT (taking off the Crown, and casting it, as he
did the chaiiis, on the ground.)

AHMED MAN.

Now lake the golden heart from off his brow !

ADALBERT.
R Beems to burn !

ARMED MAN.
Thou errest ; ice is warmer.
ADALBERT (taking the Heart from the Brow.)
Ilah! shivering frost!

ARMED MAN.

Take from his back the Cross,
And throw it from thee ! —

ADALBERT.

How ! the Saviour's token 1

HEAD.

Deliver, O deliver me !

ARMED MAN.

This Cross
Is not thy Master's, not that bloody one :
Its counterfeit is this : throw 't from thee !

ADALBERT (taking it front the Bust, and laying it softly

on the ground.)
The Cross of the Good Lord that died for mel

ARMED MAN.
Thou shall no more believe in one that died ;
Thou shall henceforth believe in one that liveth
Jlnd never dies ! — Obey, and question not, —
Step over it!

ADALBERT.

Take pity on me !
ARMED JIAN (threatening him with his sword.)
Step!
ADALBERT.

I do 't with shuddering—

(Steps over, and then looks up to the head which raises
itself, as if freed from a load.)

How the figure rises
And looks in gladness!

ARMED MAN.

Him whom thou hast served
Till now, deny !

ADALBERT (horror-struck.)

Deny the Lord my God f

ARMED MAN.
Tliy God 'tis not : the Idol of this world!
Deny him, or —

(Pressing on him with ti.e Sword in a threatening pos-
tare.)
— thou diest !

ADALBERT.

I deny!
AHMED MAK (pointing to the Head with his Sword.)
Go 10 the Fallen ! — Kiss his lips ! —

— And so on through many other sulphurous
pages ! How much of this mummery is copied
from the actual practice of the Templars we
know not with certain!}'-; nor what precisely
either they or Werner intended, by this mar-
6

vellous " Story of the Fallen Master," to sha-
dow forth. At first view, one might take it for
an allegory, couched in masonic language, —
and truly no flattering allegory, — of the Catho-
lic Church ; and this trampling on the Cross,
which is said to have been actually enjoined
on every Templar at his initiation, to be a type
of his secret behest to undermine that Institu-
tion, and redeem the spirit of Religion from the
state of thraldom and distortion under which it
was there held. It is known at least, and was
well known to Werner, that the heads of the
Templars entertained views, both on religion
and politics, which they did not think meet for
communicating to their age, and only imparted
by degrees, and under mysterious adumbra-
tions, to the wiser of their own Order. They
had even publicly resisted, and succeeded in
thwarting, some iniquitous measures of Phi-
lippe Auguste, the French King, in regard to his
coinage; and this, while it secured them the
love of the people, was one great cause, per-
haps second only to their wealth, of the hatred
which that sovereign bore them, and of the
savage doom which he at last executed on the
whole body.

But on these secret principles of theirs, as
on Werner's manner of conceiving them, we
are only enabled to guess ; for Werner, too,
has an esoteric doctrine, which he does not
promulgate, except in dark Sybilline enigmas,
to the unitiated. As we are here seeking chief-
ly for his religious creed, which forms, in
truth, with its changes, the main thread where-
by his wayward, desultory existence attains any
unity or even coherence in our thoughts, we
may quote another passage from the same
First Part of this rhapsody; which, at the
same time, will aftbrd us a glimpse of his
favourite hero, Robert d'Heredon, lately the dar-
ling of the Templars, but now, for some mo-
mentary infraction of their rules, cast into
prison, and expecting death, or, at best, exclu-
sion from the Order. Gottfried is another
Templar, in all points the reverse of Robert.

ACT FOURTH. SCENE FIRST.

(Prison; at the wall a Tabic. Robebt, without sword,
cap, or mantle, .'lits downcast on one side of it : Gott-
fried, who keeps walch by him, sitting at the other.)

GOTTFRIED.

But how could'st thou so fir forget thyself?

Thou wert our pride, the Master's friend and favourite I

ROBERT.

I did it, thou perceivest !

GOTTFRIED.
How could a word
Of the old surly Hugo so provoke thee I

ROBERT.

Ask not! — Man's being is a spider-web:
The passionate flash o' th' snul— comes not of him;
It is: the breath of that dark Genius,
Which whirls invisible along the threads:
A servant of eternal Destiny,
It purifies them from the vulgar dust,
Which earthward strives to precs the net:
But Fate gives sign ; the breath becomes a whirlwind
And in a moment rends to shreds the thing
Wo thought was woven for Eternity.
D 2

4S

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

GOTTFUIED.

^ct each man shapes his destiny himself.

BOBKRT.
Bmall Boul ! Dost thou too know It f Has the story
Of Force and free Volition, that, defying
The corporal Atoms and Annihilation,
Methodic guides the car of Destiny,
Come down to thee 7 Dreani'st thou, poor Nothingness,
That thou, and like of thee, and ten times better
Than thou or I, can lead the wheel of Fate
One hair's-breadth from its everlasting track 1
I too have had such dreams : but fearfully
Have I been shook from sleep; and they are fled! —
Look at our OrcVr: has it spared its thousands
Of noblest lives, the victims of its Purpose;
And has it gained this Purpose ; can it gain ill
Look at our noble Molay's silvered hair :
The fruit of watchful nights and slormful days,
And of the broken yet still burning heart!
That mighty heart! — Through sixty battling years,
'T has beat in pain for nothing: his creation
Hemains the vision of his own great soul ;
It dies with him ; and one day shall the pilgrim
Ask where his dust is lying, and not learn !

GOTTFRIED (yawning.)
But then the Christian has the joy of Heaven
For recompense : in his flesh he shall see God.

ROBERT.

In his flesh?— Now fair befal the journey !
Wilt stow it in behind, by way of luggage.
When the Angel comes to coach Ihee into Glory 1
Mind also that the memory of those fair hours
When dinner smoked before thee, or thou usedst
To dress thy nag, or scour thy rusty harness,
And such like noble business be not left behind !-
Ha ! self-deceiving bipeds, is it not enoush
The carcass should at every slop oppress,
Imprison you ; that toothache, headache.
Gout, — who knows what all,— at every moment,
Degrades the god of Earth into a beast;
But you would fake this villanous mingle,
The coarser dross of all the elements,
Which, by the Light-beam from on high that visits
And dwells in it, but baser shows its baseness, —
Take this, and all the freaks which, bubble-like,
Spring forth o' th' blood, and which by sui h f.iir names
You call,— along with you into your Heaven'? —
Well, be it so ! much good may't —

(^s his eye, by chance, lights on Gottfried, tcho mean-
while has fallen asleep)

— Sound already 1
There is a race for whom all serves as— pillow,
Even rattling chains are but a lullaby.

This Robert d'Heredon, whose preaching
has here such a narcotic virtue, is destined ul-
timately for a higher office Ihan to rattle his
chains by way of lullaby. He is ejected from
the Order; not, however, with disgrace and in
anger, but in sad feeling of necessity, and with
tears and blessings from his brethren ; and the
messenger of the Valley, a strange, ambigu-
ous, Utile sylph-like maiden, giyes him obscure
encouragement, before his departure, to pos-
sess his soul in patience; seeing, if he can
learn the grand secret of Renunciation, his
course is not ended, but only opening on a
fairer scene. Robert knows not well what to
make of this ; but sails for his native Hebrides,
in darkness and contrition, as one who can do
nr, other.

In the end of the Second Part, which is re-
presented as divided from the First by an
interval of seven years, Robert is again sum-

moned forth; and the whole surprising secret
of his mission, and of the \'aUey which ap-
points it for him, is disclosed. This Frieden-
thal (Valley of Peace), it now appears, is an
immense secret association, which has its
chief seat somewhere about the roots of Mount
Carmel, if we mistake not; but, comprehending
in its ramifications the best heads and hearts
of every country, extends over the whole civi-
lized world; and has, in particular, a strong
body of adherents in Paris, and indeed a sub-
terraneous, but seemingly very commodious
suite of rooms, under the Carmelite Monastery
of that city. Here sit in solemn conclave the
heads of the Establishment; directing from
their lodge, in deepest concealment, the princi-
pal movements of the kingdom : for William
of Paris, Archbishop of Sens, being of their
number, the king and his other ministers, fan-
cying within themselves the utmost freedom
of action, are nothing more than puppets in
the hands of this all-powerful Brotherhood,
which watches, like a sort of Fate, over the in-
terests of mankind, and by mysterious agen-
cies, forwards, we suppose, " the cause of civil
and religious liberty over all the world." It is
they that have doomed the Templars; and,
without malice or pil.y, are sending their lead-
ers to the dungeon and the stake. That knight-
ly Order,once a favourite minister of good, has
now degenerated from its purity, and come to
mistake its purpose, having taken up politics
and a sort of radical reform ; and so inusl now
be broken and reshaped, like a worn imple-
ment, which can no longer do its appointed
work.

Such a magnificent "Society for the Sup
pression of Vice" may well be supposed to
walk by the most philosophical principles.
These Friedcnihalcra, in fact, profess to be a
sort of Invisible Church ; preserving in vestal
purity the sacreil fire of religion, which burns
with more or less fuliginous admixture in the
worship of every people, but only with its clear
sidereal lustre in the recesses of the I'allcy,
They are Bramins on the Ganges, Bonzes on
the Hoangho, Monks on the Seine. They ad-
dict themselves to contemplation, and the sub-
tilest study; have penetrated far into the inys-
teries of spiritual and physical nature; they
command the deep-hidden virtues of plant and
mineral; and their sages can discriminate the
eye of the mind from its sensual instruments,
and behold, without type or material embody-
ment, the essence of Being. Their activity is
all-comprehending and unerringly calculated:
they rule over the world by the authority of
wisdom over ignorance.

In the Fifth Act of the Second Part, we are
at length, after many a hint and significant
note of preparation, introduced to the privacies
of this philosophical Sainte Hcrmatulad. A
strange Delphic cave this of theirs, under the
ver}' pavements of Paris! There are brazen
folding doors, and concealed voices, and
sphinxes, and naptha-lamps, and all manner
of wondrous furniture. It seeins, moreover, to
be a sort of gala evening with them ; for the
"Old Man of Carmel, in eremite garb, with a
long beard reaching to his girdle," is for a mo-
ment discovered " reading in a deep monoto-

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

48

;'..'us roice." The " Strong Ones," meanwhile",
are out in quest of Robert d'Heredon; who, by
cunning practices, has been enticed from his
Hebridean solitude, in the hope of saving Mo-
lajsand is even now to be initialed, and equip-
ped for his task. After a due allowance of
pompous ceremonial, Robert is at last ushered
in, or rather dragged in ; for it appears that he
has made a stout debate, not submitting to the
customary form of being ducked, — an essential
preliminary, it would seem, — till compelled by
the direst necessity. He is in a truly Highland
anger, as is natural: but by various manipula-
tions and solacements, he is reduced to reason
again, finding, indeed, the fruitlessness of any
thing else; for « hen lance and sword and free
space are given him, and he makes a thrust at
Adam of Valincourt, the master of the cere-
monies, it is to no purpose: the old man has a
torpedo quality in him, which benumbs the
stoutest arm ; and no death issues from the
ballled sword-point, but only a small spark of
electric fire. With his Scottish prudence,
Robert, under these circumstances, cannot but
perceive that quietness is best. The people
hand him, in succession, the " Cup of Strength,"
the "Cup of Beauty," and the "Cup of Wis-
dom;" liquors brewed, if we may judge from
their effect, with the highest stretch of Rosi-
crucian art; and which must have gone far to
disgust Robert d'Heredon with his natural ms-
quclxiuglt, however excellent, had that fierce
drink been in use then. He rages in a fine
frenzy; dies away in raptures; and then, at
last, "considers what he wanted and what he
wants." Now is the time for Adam of Valin-
court to strike in with an interminable exposi-
tion of the '< objects of the society." To not
unwilling, but still cautious ears, he unbosoms
himself, in mystic wise, with extreme copious-
ness ; turning aside objections like a veteran
disputant, and leading his apt and courageous
pupil, by signs and wonders, as well as by
logic, deeper and deeper into the secrets of
theosophic and thaumatnrgic science. A little
glimpse of this our readers may share with us ;
though we fear the allegory will seem to most
of them but a hollow nut. Nevertheless, it is
an allegory — of its sort; and we can profess to
have translated with entire fidelity.

ADAM.

Tfiy riddle by a second will be solved,
{f{e leads hivt to the Sphinx.)
Behold this Sphinx ! Ilalf-benst, half-ringel, both
Combined in one, it is an pmbleiii to tlioe
Of lir ancient Mother, Nature, hirself a riiUIle,
And only by a deeper to be inaster'd.
Eternal dearness in tli' eternal Ferment :
This is the riildle of Existence : — read it, —
Prnfiose that other to her, and she serves thee !
•^Thf. dour on the riirht hand opens, and, in the space

behind it appears, as before, the oLn MAJf OF CAIIMEL,

siltinv at a Table, and reading in a large Volume. The

deep strokes of a Bell are heard.)

OLD MAX OF CARMEL {reading with aloud but still mo-
notonous voice)
"And when the Lord saw Phosphoros " —
ROBEUT {interrupting him.)

Ha ! Again
A story as --f Baironietus t

Not so.
That tale of theirs was but some poor distortion
Of th' outmost image of our sanctuary. —
Keep silence here ; and see thou interrupt not.
By too bold cavilling, this mystery.

OLD MAN (.reading.)

"And when the Lord saw Phosphoros his pride.

Being wroth thereat, he cast him forth,

And shut him in a prison called Life ;

And gave him for a Garment, earth and water,

And hound him straitly in four Azure Chains,

And pour'd for him the bitter Cup of Fire.

The Lord moreover spake : Because thou hast forgotlei

My will I yield thee to the Element,

And thou shall be his slave, and have no longer

Remembrance of thy birthplace or my name.

And sithencfi thou hast sinn'd against me by

Thy prideful Thought of being One and Somewhat,

I leave with thee that thought to be thy whip,

And this thy weakness for a Bit and Bridle ;

Till once a Saviour from the waters rise,

Who shall again baptize thee in my bosom.

That so thou may'st be Nought and AH.

"And when the Lord had spoken, he drew back
As in a mighty rushing ; and the Element
Rose up round Phosphoros, and tower'd itself
Aloft to Heav'n; and he lay stunn'd beneath it.

" But when his first-born Sister saw his pain,
Her heart was full of sorrow, and she turn'd her
To the Lord ; and with veil'd face, thus spake Mylitta :*
Pity my Brothrr, and let me console him !

" Then did the Lord in pity rend asunder
A little chink in Phosphoros his dungeon.
That so he might behold his Sister's face :
And when she silent peep'd into his Prison,
She left with him a Mirror for his solace,
.\nd when he look'd therein, his earthly Garment
Pressed him less ; and, like the gleam of morning,
Some f.iiut remembrance of his Birthplace dawn'd

"But yet the A/.ure Chains she could not break,
The bitter Cup of Fire not take from him.
Therefore she pray'd to ^lythras, to her Father,
To save his younger-born: and Mythras went
Up to the footstool of the Lord, and said :
Take pity on my Son !— Then said the Lord ;
Have I not sent Mylitta that he may
Behold his Birthplace f — Wherefore Mythras answer'dj
What profits it f The chains she cannot break.
The bitter Cup of Fire not take from him.
So will I, said the Lord, the Salt he given him.
That so the bitter Cup of Fire be softened ;
But yet the Azure Chains must lie on him
Till once a Saviour rise from out the Waters. —
And when the Salt was laid on Phosphor's tongue
The Fire's piercing ceased ; but th' Element
Congeal'd the Salt to Ice, and Phosphoros
Lay there benumb'd, and had not power to move.
But Isis saw him, and thus spake the mother :

"Thou who art Father, Strength and Word and
Light:
Shall he my last-born grandchild lie for ever
In pain, the down-press'd thrall of his rude Brother I
Then had the Lord compassion, and he sent him
The Herald of the Saviour from the Waters ;
The cup of Fluidness, and in the Cup
The drops of Sadness and the drops of Longing :
And then the Ice was thawed, the Fire grew co/.,
And Phosphoros again had room to breathe.
But yet the earthy Garment cumber'd him,
The Azure chains still gall'd, and the Rememhrancn
Of the Name, the Lord's, which he had lost, was want-
ing.

"Then the Mother's heart was moved with pity.
She beckoned the Son to her, and said :
Thou who art more than I, and yet my nursling,

*jMliliita, in the old Persian mysteries, was the nanri
of t!ie Moon : Muthras tliat of the Sun.

44

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Put on this Robe of Earth, and show thyself

To fallen Phosphoros hniind in the dungeon,

And open liiin that diinseoii's narrow cover.

Then said the Word : It shall be so ! and sent

His inesseiiKer Diskase; she broke the roof

Of Piiosphor's Prison, so that once ajiain

The Fonnt of I,iehl he saw : the Element

Was dazzled blind; but Phosphor knew his Father.

And when the Word, in Earlh, came to the Prison,

The Element address'd him as his like ;

But PJins[ihiiros look'd up to him, and said :

Thou art sent hither to redeem from Sin,

Yei art ihon not the Savionr from the Waters. —

Then spake the Word : The Saviour from the Waters

I surely am not ; yet when thou hast drunk

The Cup of Fliiidness, I will Redeem thee.

Then I'hosfihor drank the Cup of Fluidness,

Of LonjiinfT, and of t<adness; and his Garment

l)id drop sweet drops ; wherewith the Messenger

Of the Word wash'd all his Garment, till its fdds

Anil stiffness vauish'd, and it 'gan <.'row ligfit.

And when the Prison Lite she touih'd, straightway

It wax'd thin and lucid like to crystal.

But yet the .'Vzure Chains she could not break. —

Then did the Word vouihsafe him the Cup of Faith,

And havius; drunk it, Phosphoros look'd up.

And saw the Saviour statuiiiii! in the Waters.

Both hands the (Captive stretch'd to grasp that Saviour ;

But he fled.

" So Phosphoros was grieved in heart :
But yet the Word spake comfort, giving him
The Pillow Patience, there to lay his head.
And having resleil, he rais'd his head, and said :
Wilt thou redeem me from the Prison too i
Then said the Word : Wait yet in peace seven moons,
It may he nine, until thy hour shall come.
And Phosphor answered. Lord, thy will be done !

" Which when the mother Isis saw, it grieved her ;
She called the Rainbow up, and said to him :
Go thou and tell the Word that he forgive
The Captive these seven mnons ! And Rainbow fiew
Where he was sent ; and as he shook his wings
There drop; from them the Oil of Purity :
And this the Word did eather in a Cup,
And clean.-ed with it the Sinner's head and bosom.
Then passing forth into his Father's Garden,
He breathed upon the ground, and there arose
A tlow'ret out of it, like milk and rose-hlo(un ;
W'hich having welted with the dew of Rapture,
Hecrown'd therewith the Captive's brow ; then grasp'd

him
With his right hand, the Rainbow with the left;
Mylitta likewise with the Mirror c:>.nie.
And Phosphoros looked into it, and saw
Wrote on the Azure of Infinity
The long-forgotten Name, and the REMEMBnANCE
Of his Bihthplace, gleaming as in light of gold.

"Then fell there as if scales from Phosphor's eyes,
lie left the Thought of being One and Somewhat,
His nature melted in tiie mighty All ;
Like sighings from above came balmy healing,
So lh;it his heart for very bliss was bursting.
For (Chains and Garment cumher'd him no more :
The Garment he had changed to royal purple,
And of his Chains were fishion'd glancing jewels.

" True, still the Savionr from the Waters tarried ;
Yet came the Spirit over him ; the Lord
Turn'd towards him a gracious countenance,
And Isis held him in her mother-arms.

"This is the last Evangile.

'The door closes, and ag-ain conceals the OLD MAN OF
CAnMEL.)

The purport of thi.s enigma Robert confesses
!hat he does not "wholly" understand; an ad-
mi^sion in which, we suspect, most of our
readers, and the Old Man of Carmel himself,
■were he candid, might be inclined to agree
with him. Sometimes, in the deeper consider-
ation which translators are bound to bestow

on such extravagances, we have fancied xre
could discern in this apologue some glimmer-
ings of meaning, scattered here and there like
weak lamps in the darkness; not enough to
interpret the riddle, bn! to show that by possi-
bility it might have an interpretation, — was a
typical vision, with a certain degree of signifi-
cance in the wild mind of the poet, not an in-
ane fever-dream. Might not Phosphoros, for
example, indicate generally the spiritual es-
sence of a man, and this story be an emblem
of his history? He longs to be " One and
Somewhat;" that is, he labours under the
very common complaint o[ egoiism ; cannot, in
the grandeur of Beauty and Virtue, forget his
own so beautiful and virtuous Self ; but, amid
the glories of the majestic All, is still haunted
and blinded by some shadow of his own little
Mc. For this reason he is punished ; impri-
soned in the "Element" (of a material body,)
and has the " four Azure Chains " (the four
principles of matter) bound round him ; so
that he can neither think nor act, except in a
foreign medium, and under conditions that
confuse him. The "Cup of Fiie" is given
him ; perhaps, the ntde, barbarous passion and
cruelty natural to all uncultivated tribes ? But,
at length, he beholds tne "Moon;" begins lo
have some sight and love of material Nature ;
and, looking into her "Mirror," forms to him-
self, under gross emblems, a theogony and sort
of mythologic pnetr}' ; in which, if he cannot
behold the "Name," and has forgotten his own
" Birthplace," both of which are blotted out
and hidden hy the "Element," he finds some
spiritual solace, and breathes more freely.
Still, however, the "Cup of Fire" tortures him;
till the "Salt" (intellectual culture?) is vouch-
safed; which, indeed, calms the raging of that
furious bloodthirstiness and warlike strife, but
leaves him, as mere culture of the understand-
ing may be supposed to do, frozen into irreli-
gion and moral inactivity, and farther from
the "Name" and his "Own Original" than
ever. Then is the " Cup of Fluidness " a more
merciful disposition ? and intended, with "the
Drops of Sadness and the Drops of Longing,"
to shadow forth that Avo-struck, desolate, yet
softer and devouter state in which mankind
displayed itself at the coming of the " Word,"
at the first promulgation of the Christian reli-
gion ? Is the "Rainbow" the modern poetry
of Europe, the Chivalry, the new form of Sto-
icism, the whole romauiir feeling of these later
days ? But who or what the "Ilcihind avs den
Wusscm" (Saviour from the Waters) may oe,
we need not hide our entire ignorance; thi.s
being apparently a secret of the Volley, which
Robert d'Heredon, and Werner, and men of
like gifts, are in due time to show the world,
but unhappily have not yet succeeded in bring-
ing to light. Perhaps, indeed, our whole in-
terpretation may be thought little better than
lost labour; a reading of what was only
scrawled and flourished, not written; a shap-
ing of gay castles and metallic palaces from
the sunset clouds, which, though mountain-
like, and purple and golden of hue, and tow-
ered together as if by Cyclopean arms, are but
dyed vapour.

Adam of Valincourt continues his expofii-

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER

IS

tion in the most liberal way ; but, througlr
many pages of metrical lecturing, he does
little to satisfy us. What was more to his
purpose, he partly succeeds in satisfying Ro-
bert d'Heredon; who, after due preparation, —
Molay being burnt like a martyr, under the
most promising omens, and the Pope and the
King of France struck dead, or nearly so, —
sets out to found the order of St. Andrews in
his own countr)s that of Calatrava in S))ain,
and other knightly Missions of the Heihind am
den Wasrcrn elsewhere; and thus, to the great
satisfaction of all parties, the .Vo»s of the Valley
terminates, "positively for the last time."

Our reader may have already convinced
himself that in this strange phaniasmagoria
there are not wanting indications of very high
poetic talent. We see a mind of great depth,
if not of sufficient strength ; struggling with
objects which, though it cannot master them,
are essentially of richest significance. Had
the writer only kept his piece till the ninth
5^ear ; meditating it with true diligence and un-
wearied will ! But the weak Werner was not
a man for such things: he must reap the har-
vest on the morrow after seed-day, and so
stands before us at last, as a man capable of
much, only not of bringing aught to perfec-
tion.

Of his natural dramatic genius, this work,
ill-concocted as it is, affords no unfavourable
specimen ; and may, indeed, have justified ex-
pectations which were never realized. It is
true, he cannot yet give form and animation to
a character, in the genuine poetic sense ; we
do not !^ce any of his dratnatis persona, but only
hear of them: yet, in some cases his endea-
vour, though imperfect, is by no means abor-
tive ; and here, for instance, Jacques Molay,
Philip Adalbert, Hugo, and the like, though
not living men, have still as much life as many
a buff-and-scarlet Sebastian or Barbarossa,
whom we find swaggering, for years, with ac-
ceptance, on the boards. Of his spiritual
beings, whom in most of his plays he intro-
duces too profusely, we cannot speak in com-
mendation: they are of a mongrel nature,
neither rightly dead nor alive ; in fact, they
sometimes glide about like real, thongh rather
singular mortals, through the whole piece;
and only vanish as ghosts in the fifth act.
But, on the other hand, in contriving theatrical
incidents and sentiments ; in scenic shows,
and all manner of gorgeous, frightful, or as-
tonishing machinery, Werner exhibits a copi-
ous invention, and strong though untutored
feeling. Doubtless, it is all crude enough ; all
illuminated by an impure, barbaric splendour;
not the soft, peaceful brightness of sunlight,
hntthe red, resinous glare of playhouse torches.
Werner, however, was still young; and had he
been of a right spirit, all that was impure and
crude might in time have become ripe and
clear; and a poet of no ordinary excellence
would have been moulded out of him.

But as matters stood, this was by no means
the thing Werner had most at heart. It is not
the degree of poetic talent manifested in the
Sons of the Valley that he prizes, but the reli-
gious truth shadowed forth in it. To judge from
the parables of Baffometus and Phosphoros,

our readers may be disposed to hold his reve-
lations on this subject rather cheap. Never*
theless, taking up the character of Vutcs in its
widest sense, Werner earnestly desires not
only to be a poet, but a prophet; and, indeed,
looks upon his merits in the former province
as altogether subservient to his higher pur-
poses in the latter. We have a series of the
most confused and long-winded letters to Hit-
zig, who had now removed to Berlin ; setting
forth, with a singular simplicitj'-, the mighty
projects Werner was cherishing on this head,
lie thinks that there ought to be a new Creed
promulgated, a new Body of Religionists es-
tablished ; and that, for this purpose, not writ-
ing, but actual preaching, can avail. He
detests common Protestantism, under which
he seems to mean a sort of Socinianism, or
diluted French Infidelity; he talks of Jacob
Bcehrae, and Luther, and Schleiermacher, and
a new Trinity of "Art, Religion, and Love."
All this should be sounded in the ears of men,
and in a loud voice, that so their torpid slum-
ber, the harbinger of spiritual death, may be
driven away. With the utmost gravity he
commissions his correspondent to wait upon
Schlegel, Tieck, and others of a like spirit,
and see whether they will not join him. For
his own share in the matter, he is totally in-
different; will serve in the meanest capacity,
and rejoice with his whole heart, if, in zeal
and ability as poets and preachers, not some
only, but every one, should infinitely outstrip
him. We suppose, he had dropped the thought
of being "One and Somewhat;" and now
wished, rapt away by this divine purpose, tc
be " Nought and All."

On the HcHaiid mis den Wassern this corre
spondence throws no further light : what the
new Creed specially was, which Werner felt
so eager to plant and propagate, we nowhere
learn with any distinctness. Probably, he
might himself have been rather at a loss to
explain it in brief compass. His theogony, we
suspect, was still very much in posse ; and
perhaps only the moral part of this system
could stand before him with some degree of
clearness. On this latter point, indeed, he is
determined enough ; well assured of his dog-
mas, and apparently waiting but for some
proper vehicle in which to convey them to
the minds of men. His fundamental princi-
ple of morals we have seen in part already:
it does not exclusively or primarily belong
to himself; being little more than that high
tenet of entire Self-forgetfulness, that " merg-
ing of the Mc in the Idea " a principle which
reigns both in Stoical and Christian ethics;,
and is at this day common, in theory, among
all German philosophers, especially of the
Transcendental class. Werner has adopted
this principle with his whole heart and his
whole soul, as the indispensable condition of
all Virtue. He believes it, we should say, in-
tensely, and without compromise, exaggerating
rather than softening or concealing its peculi-
arities. He will not have Happiness, under
any form, to be the real or chief end of man,
this is but love of enjoyment, disguise it as
we like; a more complex and sometimes more
respectable species of hunger, he would sav

46

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

10 be admitted as an indestructible element m
human nature, but nowise to be recognised as
the highest ; on the contrary, to be resisted and
incessantly warred with, till it become obedi-
ent to love of God, Avhich is only, in the truest
sense, love of Goodness, and the germ of which
lies deep in the inmost nature of man ; of au-
thority superior to all sensitive impulses;
forming, in fact, the grand law of his being, as
subjection to it forms the first and last condi-
tion of spiritual health. He thinks that to pro-
pose a reward for virtue is to render virtue im-
po.ssible. He warmly seconds Schleiermacher
in declaring that even the hope of Immortality is
a consideration unfit to be introduced into re-
ligion, and tending only to pervert it, and im-
pair its sacredness. Strange as this may seem,
Werner is firmly convinced of its importance ;
and has even enforced it specifically in a pas-
sage of his Sohne des ThaU, which he is at the
pains to cite and expound in his correspond-
ence with Hitzig. Here is another fraction of
that wondrous dialogue between Robert d'Here-
don and Adam of Valincourt, in the cavern of
the Valley:

• • « * » •

BOBERT.

And Death, — so dawns it on me, — Death perhaps,
The doom that leaves nouffht of this Me remaining,
May be perhaps the Symbol of that Self-denial,—

Perhaps still more, perhaps, — I have it, friend ! —

That cripplish Immortality, — think'st nof!—

Which but spins forth our paltry Jt/e, so thin

And pitiful, into Infinitude,

That too must die ?— This shallow Self of ours.

We are not nail'd to it eternally ?

We can, we must be free of it, and then

Uncumber'd wanton in the Force of All !

ADAIW (^calling joijfuUtj into the interior of the Cavern.)

Brethren, he has renounced ! Himself has found it!
Oh ! praised be Light ! He sees ! The North is saved !
CONCEALED VOICES o/tAe old men of the Valley.

Hail and joy to thee, thou Strong One ;
Force to thee from above, and Light!
Complete, — complete the work!

ADAM {embracing Robert.)
Come to my heart ! — &c. &c.

Such was the spirit of that new Faith, Avhich,
symbolized under mythuses of BafTometus and
Phosphoros, and "Saviours from the Waters,"
and " Trinities of Art, Religion, and Love,"
and to be preached abroad by the aid of Schlei-
ermacher, and what was then called the New
Poetical Sriwol, Werner seriously purposed, like
another Luther, to cast forth, as good seed,
among the ruins of decayed and down-trodden
Protestantism ! "Whether Hitzig was still young
enough to attempt executing his commission,
and applying to Schlegel and Tieck for help ;
and if so, in what gestures of speechless asto-
nishment, or what peals of inextinguishable
laughter they answered him, we are not in-
formed. One thing, however, is clear: that a
man with so unbridled an imagination, joined to
so weak an understanding, and so broken a voli-
tion , who had plunged so deep into Theoso-
phy, and still hovered so near the surface in
all practical knowledge of men and their af-
fairs ; who, shattered and degraded in his own
private character, could meditate such apos-
tolic enterprises, was a man likely, if he lived

long, to play fantastic tricks in abundance;
and, at least, in his religious history, to set the
world a-wondering. Conversion, not to Pope-
ry, but, if it so chanced, to Braminism, was a
thing nowise to be thought impossible.

Nevertheless, let his missionary zeal have
justice from us • It does seem to have been
grounded on no wicked or even illaudable
motive : to all appearance, he not only believed
what he professed, but thought it of the high-
est moment that others should believe it. And
if the proselytizing spirit, which dwells in all
men, be allowed exercise even when it only
assaults what it reckons Errors, still more
should this be so, when it proclaims what it
reckons Truth, and fancies itself not taking
from us what in our eyes may be good, but
adding thereto what is better.

Meanwhile, Werner was not so absorbed in
spiritual schemes, that he altogether over-
looked his own merely temporal comfort. In
contempt of former failures, he was now court-
ing for himself a third wife, " a young Poless
of the highest personal attractions ;" and this
under difficulties which would have appalled
an ordinary wooer : for the two had no lan-
guage in common ; he not understanding
three words of Polish, she not one of Ger-
man. Nevertheless, nothing daunted by this
circumstance, nay, perhaps discerning in it
an assurance against many a sorrowful cur-
tain lecture, he prosecuted his suit, we sup-
pose by signs and dumb-show, with such
ardour, that he quite gained the fair mute;
wedded her in 1801 ; and soon after, in her
company quitted Warsaw for Konigsberg,
where the helpless state of his mother re-
quired immediate attention. It is from Konigs-
berg that most of his missionary epistles to
Hitzig are written ; the latter, as we have hint-
ed above, being now stationed, by his official
appointment, in Berlin. The sad duty of
watching over his crazed, forsaken, and dying
mother, Werner appears to have discharged
with true filial assiduity : for three years she
lingered in the most painful state, under his
nursing; and her death, in 1804, seems not-
withstanding to have filled him with the deep<
est sorrow. This is an extract of his leUer to
Hitzig on that mournful occasion :

" I know not whether thou hast heard that oa
the 24th of February, (the same day whe.i our
excellent Mnioch died in Warsaw,) my mother
departed here, in my arms. My Friend ! God
knocks with an iron hammer at our hearts ;
and we are duller than stone, if we do not feel
it; and madder than mad, if we think it shame
to cast ourselves into the dust before the All-
powerful, and let our whole so highly misera-
ble Self be annihilated in the sentiment of His
infinite greatness and long-sufl!'ering. I wish I
had words to paint how inexpressibly pitiful
my Sdh)7c cks Thais appeared to me in that hour,
when, after eighteen years of neglect, I again
went to partake in the Communion ! This
death of my mother, — the pure, royal poet-and-
martyr spirit, who for eight years had lain con-
tinually on a sick-bed, and suffered unspeaka-
ble things, — affected me, (much as, for her sake
and my own, I could not but wish it with alto-
gether agonizing feelings.) Ah, Friend, how

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

47

heavy do my youthful faults lie on me ! How-
much would I give to have my mother — (though
both I and my wife have of late times lived
wholly for her, and had much to endure on her
account) — now much would I give to have her
back to me but one week, that I might dis-
burden my heavy-laden heart with tears of re-
pentance! My beloved Friend, give thou no
grief to thy parents ! ah. no earthly voice can
awaken the dead ! God and Parents, that is
the first concern ; all else is secondarJ^"

This affection for his mother forms, as it
were, a little island of light and verdure in
Werner's history, where, amid so much that is
dark and desolate, one feels it pleasant to lin-
ger. Here was at least one duty, perhaps, in-
deed, the only one, which, in a wayward,
wasted life, he discharged with fidelity: from
his conduct towards this one hapless being, we
may, perhaps, still learn that his heart, how-
ever j)erverted by circunislances, was not in-
capableof true, disinterested love. A rich heart
by Nature; but unwisely squandering its riches,
and attaining to a pure imion only with this one
neart; for it seems doubtful whether he ever
loved another! His poor mother, while alive,
was the haven of all his earthly voyagings; and,
in after years, from amid far scenes, and crush-
ing perplexities, he often looks back to her
grave with a I'eeling to which all bosoms must
respond.* The date of her decease became a
memorable era in his mind; as may appear
from the title which he gave, long afterwards,
to one of his most popular and tragical pro-
duction';. Die Vici-Hiifl-zwanzigsle Februar (The
Twenty-fourth of February.)

After this event, which left him in posses-
sion of a small but competent fortune, Werner
returned with his wife to his post at Warsaw.
By this time, Hitzig, too, had been sent back,
and to a higher post: he was now married
likewise; and the two wives, he says, soon be-
came as intimate as their husbands. In a lit-
tle while Hoffmann joined them ; a colleague
in Hitzig's office, and by him ere long intro-
duced to Werner, and the other circle of Prus-
sian men of law, who, in this foreign capital,
formed each other's chief society; and, of
course, cleave to one another more closely
than they might have done elsewhere. Hoff-
mann does not seem to have loved Werner;
as, indeed, he was at all times rather shy in
his attachments; and, to his quick eye, and
more rigid, fastidious feeling, the lofty theory
and low selfish practice, the general diffuse-
ness, nay, incoherence of character, the pe-
dantry and solemn affectation, too visible in
the man, could nowise be hidden. Neverthe-
less, he feels and acknowledges the frequent

♦ See, for example, the Preface to \\\s Miitter der Mak-
kablier, written at Vienna, in 1819. The tone of still, luit
deep and heartfelt sadness, which runs lhroiif;ti the
whole of this piece, cannot be coniniunicated in extracts.
We quote only a half stan/.a, which, except in prose, we
Khali not venture to translate :

fell, dem der Liebe Kosen
Und alle Freudeiirosen,
Beym crsten Schaufcltosen
■^m Muttergrab' eiilfiohn.—

"T. for whom the caresses of love and all roses of joy
withe-ed away, as the first shovel with its mould sound-
ed on the coftin of my motlier."

charm of his conversation : for Werner many
times could be frank and simple; and the true
humour and abandonment with which he often
launched forth into bland satire on his friends,
and still ofteneron himself, atoned for many of
his whims and weaknesses. Probably the two
could not have lived together by themselves:
but in a circle of common men, where these
touchy elements were attempered by a fair ad-
dition of wholesome insensibilities and for-
malities, they even relished one another; and,
indeed, the whole social union seems to have
stood on no undesirable footing. For the rest,
Warsaw itself was, at this lime, a gay, pic-
turesque, and stirring city; full of resources
for spending life in pleasant occupation, either
wisely or unwisely.*

It was here, that, in 1805, Werner's Kreuz
an dcr Ostfce (Cross on the Baltic) was writ-
ten : a sort of half-operatic performance, for
which Hoffmann, who to his gifts as a writer
added perhaps still higher attainments, both as
a musician and a painter, composed the ac-
companiment. He complains that, in this mat-
ter, Werner was very ill to please. A ridicu-
lous scene, at the first reading of the piece, the
same shrewd wag has recorded in his Sera-
pions-Bruder; Hitzig assures us that it is lite-
rally true, and that Hoffmann himself was the
main actor in the business.

" Our Poet had invited a few friends, to read
to them, in manuscript, his Kreuz under Ostsee,
of which they already knew some fragments
that had raised their expectations to the high-
est stretch. Planted, as usual, in the middle
of the circle, at a little miniature table,on which
two clear lights, stuck in high candlesticks,
were burning, sat the poet : he had drawn the
manuscript from his breast; the huge snuff-box,
the blue-checked handkerchief^, aptly reminding
you of Baltic iTiuslin,as in use for petticoats and
other indispensable things, lay arranged in
order before him. — Deep silence on all sides! —
Not a bieath heard! — The poet cuts one of
those unparalleled, ever-memorable, altogether
indescribable faces you have seen in him, and
begins. — Now you recollect, at the rising of the
curtain, the Prussians are assembled on the
coast of the Baltic, fishing amber, and com-

* Hitziff has thus described the first aspect it presented
to Hoffmann : " Streets of stately breadth, formed of pa-
laces in the finest Italian style, and wooden huts which
threatened every moment to rush down over the heads
of their inmates; in these edifices, Asiatic pomp com-
bined in strange union with Greenland squalor. An
ever-niovins population, forminj; the sharpest contrasts,
as in a perpetual masquerade: long-bearded Jews;
monks in the garb of every order ; here veiled and deep-
ly-shrouded nuns of strictest discipline, walking, self-
secluded and apart: there flijrhts of youns Polesses, in
silk mantles of the hriffhiest colours, talking and prome-
nading over broad squares. The venerable ancient Po-
lish noble, with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sabre, and
red or yellow hoots : the new generation equipt to the
utmost pitch as Parisian Ivcroyables ; with Turks,
Greeks, Russians, Italians, Frenchmen, in ever-chang-
ing throng. Add to this a police of inconceivable toler-
ance, disturbing no popular sport ; so that little puppet-
theatres, apes, camels, dancing bears, practised inces
santly in open spaces and streets ; while the most elogant
equipages, and the poorest pedestrian bearers of burden,
stood gazing at them. Further, a theatre in the national
language ; a good French company; an Italian opera ;
German players of at least a very passable sort ; mask-
ed-balls on a quite original hut highly entertaining plan ;
places for pleasure-excursions all round the city," Sit.
&c. — Hoffmann's Leben und J^fachlass, b. i. p. 287.

48

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

mence by calling on the god who presides over
this vocation. — So — begins:

Bangputtis! Bangputlis ! Bangputtis!

—Brief pause ! — Incipient stare in the audi-
ence ! — and from a fellow in the corner comes
a small clear voice : ' My dearest, most valued
friend! my best of poets ! If thy whole dear
opera is written in that cursed language, no
soul of us knows a syllable of it; and I beg,
in the Devil's name, thou wouldst rather have
the goodness to translate it first!' "*

Of this Kreitz an dcr Ostsce our limits will
permit us to say but little. It is still a frag-
ment ; the Second Part, which was often pro-
mised, and, we believe, partly written, having
never yet been published. In some respects,
it appears to us the best of Werner's dramas :
there is a decisive coherence in the plot, such
as we seldom find with him ; and a firmness, a
rugged nervous brevity in the dialogue, which
is equally rare. Here, too, the mystic dreamy
agencies, which, as in most of his pieces, he
has interwoven with the action, harmonize
more than usually with the spirit of the whole.
It is a wild subject, and this helps to give it a
corresponding wildness of locality. The first
planting of Christianity among the Prussians,
by the Teutonic Knights, leads us back of
itself into dim ages of antiquity, of supersti-
tious barbarism, and stern apostolic zeal : it is
a scene hanging, as it were, in half-ghastly
chiaroscuro, on a ground of primeval Night:
where the Cross and St. Adalbert come in con-
tact with the Sacred Oak and the Idols of
Romova, we are not surprised that spectral
shapes peer forth on us from the gloom.

In the constructing and depicting of charac-
ters, Werner, indeed, is still little better than a
mannerist: his persons, differing in external
figure, differ too slightly in inward nature ; and
no one of them comes forward on us with a
rightly visible or living air. Yet, in scenes
and incidents, in what maybe called the gene-
ral costume of his subject, he has here attained
a really superior excellence. The savage
Prussians, with their amber-fishing, their bear-
hunting, their bloody idolatry, and stormful un-
tutored energy, are brought vividly into view ;
no less so the Polish Court of Plozk, and the
German Crusaders, in their bridal-feasts and
battles, as they live and move, here placed on
the verge of Heathendom, as it were, the van-
guard of Light in conflict with the kingdoms
of Darkness. The nocturnal assault on Plozk
by the Prussians, where the handful of Teuto-
nic Knights is overpowered, but the city saved
from ruin by the miraculous interposition of
the " Harper," who now proves to be the spirit
of St. Adalbert; this, with the scene which
follows it, on the Island of the Vistula, where
the dawn slowly breaks over doings of wo and
horrid cruelty, but of wo and cruelty atoned
for by immortal hope, — belongs undoubtedly
to Werner's most successful efforts. With
much that is questionable, much that is merely
common, there are intermingled touches from
(he irue Land of Wonders ; indeed, the whole
is overspread with a certain dim religious
light, in which its r.^any pettinesses and exag-

* Hoffmann's Serapions-Bruder, b. iv. s. 240.

gerations are softened into something which
at least resembles poetic harmony. We give
this drama a high praise, when we say that
more than once it has reminded us of Cal-
deron.

The " Cross on the Baltic" had been bespoke
by Iffland for the Berlin theatre; but the com-
plex machinery of the piece, the " little flames"
springing, at intervals, from the heads of cer-
tain characters, and the other supernatural
ware with which it is replenished, were found
to transcend the capabilities of any merely
terrestrial stage. Itfland, the best actor in
Germany, was himself a dramatist, and a man
of talent, but in all points diflering from Wer-
ner, as a stage-machinist may differ from a
man with the second-sight. Hoffmann chuckles
in secret over the perplexities in which the
shrewd prosaic manager and playwright must
have found himself, when he came to the
"little flames." Nothing remained but to write
back a refusal, full of admiration and expostu-
lation : and Iffland wrote one which, says Hoff-
mann, " passes for a master-piece of theatrical
diplomacy."

In this one respect, at least, Werner's next
. play was happier, for it actually crossed the
" Stygian marsh" of green-room hesitations,
and reached, though in a maimed state, the
Elysium of the boards; and this to the great
joy, as it proved, both of Itfland and all other
parties interested. We allude to the Martin
Luther, oder die Wei'hc der Kraf:, (Martin Luther,
or the Consecration of Strength,) Werner's
most popular performance, which came out at
Berlin in 1807, and soon spread over all Ger-
many, Catholic as well as protestant, being
acted, it M'oukl seem, even in Vienna, to over-
flowing and delighted audiences.

If instant acceptance, therefore, were a
measure of dramatic merit, this play should
rank high among that class of works. Never-
theless, to judge from our own impressions,
the sober reader of Martin Lvther will be far
from finding in it such excellence. It cannot
be named among the best dramas: it is not
even the best of Werner's. There is, indeed,
much scenic exhibition, many a "fervid senti-
ment," as the newspapers have it; nay, with
all its mixture of coarseness, here and there
a glimpse of genuine dramatic inspiration;
but, as a whole, the work sorely disappoints
us ; it is of so loose and mixed a structure and
falls asunder in our thoughts, like the iron and
clay in the Chaldean's Dream. There is an
interest, perhaps of no trivial sort, awakened
in the First Act ; but, unhappily, it goes on de-
clining, till, in the Fifth, an ill-natured critic
might almost say, it expires. The story is too
wide for Werner's dramatic lens to gather into
a focus ; besides, the reader brings with him
an image of it, too fixed for being so boldly
metamorphosed, and too high and august for
being ornamented M'ith tinsel and gilt paste-
board. Accordingly, the Diet of Worms,
plentifully furnished as it is with sceptres and
armorial shields, continues a mUch grander
scene in History, than it is here in Fiction,
Neither, with regard to the persons of the play,
excepting those of Luther and Catharine, the
Nun whom he weds, can we find much scope

LIFE AND WKITINGS OF WERNER.

4»

for praise. Nay, our praise even of these
two must have many limitations. Catharine,
though carefully enough depicted, is, in fact,
little more than a common tragedy-queen, with
the storminess, the love, and other stage-hero-
ism, which belong prescriptively to that class
of dignitaries. With regard to Luther himself,
it is evident that Werner has put forth his
whole strength in this delineation ; and, trying
him by common standards, we are far from
saying that he has failed. Doubtless it is, in
some respects, a significant and even sublime
delineation : yet must we ask whether it is
Luther, the Luther of History, or even the
Luther proper for this drama; and not rather
some ideal portraiture of Zacharias Werner
himself] Is not this Luther, with his too as-
siduous flute-playing, his trances of three days,
his visions of the Devil, (at whom, to the sor-
row of the housemaid, he resolutely throws his
huge ink-bottle,) by much too spasmodic and
brainsick a personage ] We cannot but ques-
tion the dramatic beauty, whatever it may be
in history, of that three days' trance ; the hero
must before this have been in want of mere
victuals ; and there, as he sits deaf and dumb,
with his eyes sightless, yet fixed and staring,
are we not tempted less to admire, than to send
in all haste for some officer of the Humane
Society 1 — Seriouslj^, we cannot but regret
that these and other such blemishes had not
been avoided, and the character, worked into
chasteness and purity, been presented to us in
the simple grandeur which essentially belongs
to it. For, censure as we may, it were blind-
ness to deny that this figure of Luther has in
it features of an austere loveliness, a mild, yet
awful beauty : undoubtedly a figure rising from
the depths of the poet's soul ; and, marred as it
is with such adhesions, piercing at times into
the depths of ours ! Among so many poetical
sins, it forms the chief redeeming virtue, and
truly were almost in itself a sort of atone-
ment.

As for the other characters, they need not
detain us long. Of Charles the Fifth, by far
the most ambitious, — meant, indeed, as the
counterpoise of Luther, — we may say, without
hesitation, that he is a failure. An empty Gas-
con this ; bragging of his power, and honour,
and the like, in a style which Charles, even in
his nineteenth year, could never have used.
"One God, one Charles," is no speech for an
emperor; and, besides, is borrowed from some
panegyrist of a Spanish opera-singer. Neither
can we fall in with Charles, when he tells us,
that " he fears nothing, — not even God." We
humbly think he must be mistaken. With the
old Miners, again, with Hans Luther and his
Wife, the Reformer's parents, there is more
reason to be satisfied; yet in Werner's hands
simplicity is always apt, in such cases, to be-
come too simple, and these honest peasants,
like the honest Hugo in the " Sons of the Val-
ley," are vcr-y garrulous.

This drama of "Martin Luther" is named
likewise the "Consecration of Strength;" that
is, we suppose, the purifying of this great
theologian from all remnants of earthly pas-
sion, into a clear heavenly zeal ; an operation
which is brought about, strangely enough, by
7

two half-ghosts and one whole ghost, — a little
fairy girl, Catharine's servant, who imper-
sonates Faith ; a little fairy youth, Luther's
servant, who represents Art ; and the "Spirit
of Cotta's wife," an honest housekeeper, but
defunct many years before, who stands for
Purity. These three supernaturals hover about
in very whimsical wise, cultivating flowers,
playing on flutes, and singing dirge-like epilha-
lamiums over unsound sleepers : we cannot see
how aught of this is to "consecrate strength ;"
or, indeed, what such jack-o'-lantern person-
ages have in the least to do with so grave a
business. If the author intended by such
m.achinery to elevate his subject from the
Common, and unite it with the higher region
of the Infinite and the Invisible, we cannot
think that his contrivance has succeeded, or
was worthy to succeed. These half-allegorical,
half-corporeal beings yield no contentment
anywhere : Abstract Ideas, however they may
put on fleshly garments, are a class of charac-
ters whom we cannot sympathize with or de-
light in. Besides, how can this mere imbody-
ment of an allegory be supposed to act on the
rugged materials of life, and elevate into ideal
grandeur the doings of real men, that live and
move amid the actual pressure of worldly
things 1 At best, it can stand but like a ha}id
in the margin : it is not perfarniing the task pro-
posed, but only telling us that it was meant to
be performed. To our feelings, this entire
episode runs like straggling bindweed through
the whole growth of the piece, not so much
uniting as encumbering and choking up what
it meets with; in itself, perhaps, a green and
rather pretty weed; yet here superfluous, and,
like any other weed, deserving only to be alto-
gether cut away.

Our general opinion of " Martin Luther," it
would seem, therefore, corresponds ill with that
of the "overflowing and delighted audiences"
over all Germany. We believe, however, that
now, in its twentieth year, the work may be
somewhat more calmly judged of even there.
As a classical drama it could never pass with
any critic ; nor, on the other hand, shall we
ourselves deny that, in the lower sphere of a
popular spectacle, its attractions are manifold.
We find it, what, more or less, we find all
Werner's pieces to be, a splendid, sparkling
mass ; yet not of pure metal, but of many-
ctDloured scoria, not unmingled with metal ; and
must regret, as ever, that it had not been re-
fined in a stronger furnace, and kept in the
crucible till the true silver-gleam, glancing from
it, had shown that the process was complete.

Werner's dramatic popularity could not re-
main without influence on him, more espe-
cially as he was now' in the very centre of its
brilliancy, having changed his residence from
Warsaw to Berlin, some time before his Weihe
der Kraft was acted, or indeed written. Von
Schrotter, one of the state-ministers, a man
harmonizing with Werner in his " zeal both for
religion and freemasonry," had been persuaded
by some friends to appoint him his secretary.
Werner naturally rejoiced in such promotion ;
yet, combined with his theatrical success, it
perhaps, in the long run, did him more harm
than good. He might now, for the first time.

60

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

be said to see the busy and influential world
with his own eyes : but to draw future instruc-
tion from it, or even to guide himself in its
present complexities, he was little qualiiied.
He took a shorter method: "he plunged into
the vortex of society," says Hitzig, with brief ex-
pressiveness ; became acquainted, indeed, with
Fichte, Johannes Muller and other excellent
men, but united himself also, and with closer
partiality, to players, play-lovers, and a long
list of jovial, admiring, but highly unprofitable
companions. His religious schemes, perhaps,
rebutted by collision with actual life, lay dor-
mant fjr the timT, or mingled in strange union
•with wine-vapours, and the "feast of^ reason,
and the flow of soul." The result of all this
might, in some measure, be foreseen. In eight
weeks, for example, Werner had parted with
his wife. It was not to be expected, he writes,
that she should be happy with him. "I am
no bad man," continues he, with considerable
candour; "yet a weakling in many respects,
(for God strengthens me also in several,) fret-
ful, capricious, greedy, impure. Thou knowest
me ! Still, immersed in my fantasies, in my
occupation: so that here, what with playhouses,
what with social parties, she had no manner
of enjoyment with me. t>hc is innocent. I,
too, perhaps, for can I pledge myself that I am
sol" These repeated divorces of Werner's at
length convinced him that he had no talent for
managing wives ; indeed, we subsequently find
him, more than once, arguing in dissuasion of
marriage altogether. To our readers one other
consideration may occur: astonishment at
the state of marriage-law, and the strange foot-
ing this "sacrament" must stand on throughout
Protestant Germany. For a Christian man, at
least not a Mohammedan, to leave Ihrcc widows
behind him, certainly wears a peculiar aspect.
Perhaps it is saying much for Geruian morality,
that so absurd a system has not, by the dis-
orders resulting from it, already brought about
its own abrogation.

Of Werner's further proceedings in Berlin,
except by implication, we have little notice.
After the arrival of the French armies, his
secretaryship ceased; and now wifeless and
placeless, in the summer of 1807, " he felt him-
self," he says, "authorized by Fate to indulge
his taste for pilgriming." Indulge it accord-
ingly he did ; for he wandered to and fro many
years, nay, we may almost say to the end of
his life, like a perfect Bedouin. The various
stages and occurrences of his travels, he has
himself recorded in a paper, furnished by him
for his own Name, in some Biographical Dic-
tionar)'. Hitzig quotes great part of it, but it
is too long and too meagre for being quoted
here. Werner was at Prague, Vienna, Munich,
—everywhere received with open arms ; " saw
at Jena, in December, 1807, for the first time,
the most universal and the clearest man of his
age, (the man whose like no one that has seen
him will ever see again,) the great, nay, only
GoETiiE ; and, under his introduction, the pat-
tern of German princes," (the Duke of
Weimar;) and then, "after three ever-memora-
ble months in this society, beheld at Berlin the
triumphant entry of the pattern of European
:yraiLts " (Napoleon.) On the summit of the

Rigi, at sunrise, he became acquainted with
the Crown-Prince, King of Bavaria; was by
him introduced to the Swiss festival at In-
terlacken, and to the most " intellectual lady
of our time, the Baroness de Stael ;" and must
beg to be credited when, after sufi^cicnt in-
dividual experience, he can declare, that the
heart of this high and noble woman was at
least as great as her genius. Coppet, for a
while, was his head quarters, but he went to
Paris, to Weimar,* again to Switzerland ; in
short, trudged and hurried hither and thither,
inconstant as an ignis fatuus, and restless as
the Wandering Jew.

On his mood of mind during all this period,
Werner gives us no direct information ; but so
unquiet an outward life betokens of itself no
inward repose ; and when we, from other lights,
gain a transient glimpse into the wayfarer's
thoughts, they seem still more fluctuating than
his footsteps. His project of a New Religion
u a i by this time abandoned: Hitzig thinks
his closer survey of life at Berlin had taught
him the impracticability of such chimeras.
Nevertheless, the subject of Religion, in one
shape or another, nay, of propagating it in new
purity by teaching and preaching, had nowise
vanished from his meditations. On the con-
trary, we can perceive that it still formed the
master-principle of his soul, " the pillar of
cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night,"
which guided him, so far as he had any guid-
ance, in the pathless desert of his now solidary,
barren, and cheerless existence. What h*is
special opinions or prospects on the matter
had, at this period, become, we nowhere learn ;
except, indeed, negatively, — for if he has not
yet found the new, he still cordially enough
detests the old. All his admiration of Luther
cannot reconcile him to modern Lutheranism.
This he regards but as another and more hide-
ous impersonation of the Utilitarian spirit of the
age, nay, as the last triumph of Infidelity, which
has now dressed itself in priestly garb, and
even mounted the pulpit, to preach, in heaven-
ly symbols, a doctrine which is altogether of
the earth. A curious passage from his pre-
face to the "Cross on the Baltic" we may
quote, by way of illustration. After speaking
of St. x^dalbert's miracles, and how his body,
when purchased from the heathen for its
weight in gold, became light as gossamer, he
proceeds:

"Though these things maybe justly doubted;
yet OMP miracle cannot be denied him, the mi-
racle, namely, that after his death he has ex-
torted from this Spirit of Protestantism against
Strength in general, — which now replaced the
old heathen and catholic Spirit of Persecution,
and weighs almost as much as Adalbert's body,
— the admission, that he knew what he wanted;
was what he wished to be ; was so wholly ; and
therefore must have been a man, at all points
diametrically opposite both to that Protestant-
ism, and to the culture of our day." In a Note,
he adds: "There is another Protestantism,

♦ It was tiore that Hitzis saw liim, for tJie last time,
in 1809, found admittance, through liis means, to a court
festival in honour of Bernadotte ; and he still recollects,
with gratification, ''the lordly spectacle of Goethe and
that sovereign standing front to front, engaged in tbo
liveliest conversation."

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

51

however, which constitutes in Conduct, what
Art is in Speculation, and which I reverence
so highly, that I even place it above Art, as
Conduct is above Speculation at all times. But
in tliis, St. Adalbert and St. Luther are — col-
lear;ues : and if God, which I daily pray for,
should awaken Luther to us before the Last
Day, \.\\e first task he would find, in respect of
that degenerate and spurious Protestantism,
would be, in his somewhat rugged manner, to
— pro'tcst against it."

A similar, or pel'haps still more reckless
temper, is to be traced elsewhere, in passages
of a gay, as well as grave character. This is
the conclusion of a letter from Vienna, in
1807

"We have Tragedies here which contain so
many edifying maxims, that you might use
them instead of Jesus Sirach, and have them
read from beginning to end in the Berlin Sun-
day-schools. Comedies, likewise, absolutely
bursting with household felicity and nobleness
of mind. The genuine Kasperl is dead, and
Schilcander gone his ways; but here, too, Bigotry
and Superstition are attacked in enlightened
Journals with such profit, that the people care
less for Popery than even you in Berlin do;
and prize, for instance, the Wcihc der Kraft,
which has also been declaimed in Regensburg
and Munich to thronging audiences, — chiefly
for the multitude of liberal Protestant opinions
'therein brought to light ; and regard the author,
ail his struggling to the contrary unheeded, as
a secret Illuminnius, or at worst an amiable
Enthusiast. In a word, Vienna is determined,
without loss of time, to overtake Berlin in the
career of improvement; and when I recollect
that Berlin, on her side, carries Porsten's
IJyniii-Lioolc with her, in her reticule, to the
shows in the Thiergarten ; and that the ray
of Christiano-catholico-plaionic Faith pierces
deeper and deeper into your (already by nature
very deep) Privy-councillor Mamsell, — I al-
most fancy that Germany is one great mad-
house; and could find in my heart to pack up
my goods, and set ofl" for Italy to-morrow morn-
ing;— not, indeed, that I might work there,
where follies enough are to be had too ; but
that, amid ruins and -flowers, I might forget all
things, and myself in the first place." — Lcbcns-
Mriss, s. 70.

To Italy accordingly he went, though with
rather different objects, and not quite so soon
".s on the morrow. In the course of his wander-
iogs, a munificent ecclesiastical Prince, the
Frirst Primas von Dalberg, had settled a year-
ly pension on him; so that now he felt still
more at liberty to go whither he listed. In
the course of a second visit to Coppet, and
which lasted four months, Madame de Stael
encouraged and assisted him to execute his
favourite project; he set out, through Turin
and Florence, and "on the 9th of December,
1800, saw, for the first time, the capital of the
world !" Of his proceedings here, much as
we should desire to have minute details, no
information is given in this narrative ; and
Hilzig seems to know, by a letter, merely, that
" he knelt with streaming eyes over the graves
of St. Peter and St. Paul." This little phrase
says much. Werner appears likewise to have

assisted at certain "Spiritual Exercitations"
(Geistliche Uebungen ;) a new invention set on
foot. at Rome for quickening the devotion of
the faithful, consisting, so far as we can gather,
in a sort of fasting-and-prayer meetings, con-
ducted on the most rigorous principles, the
considerable band of devotees being bound
over to strict silence, and secluded for several
days, with conventual care, from every sort of
intercourse with the world. The effect of these
Exercitations, Werner elsewhere declares, was
edifying to an extreme degree ; at parting on
the threshold of their holy tabernacle, all the
brethren " embraced each other, as if intoxi-
cated with divine joy; and each confessed to
the other, that throughout these precious days
he had been, as it were, in heaven ; and now,
strengthened as by a soul-purifying bath, was
but loath to venture back into the cold week-
day world." The next step from these Tabor-
feasts, if, indeed, it had not preceded them, was
a decisive one: "On the 19th of April, 1811,
Werner had grace given him to return to the
Faith of his fathers, the Catholic!"

Here, then, the "crowning mercy" had at
length arrived! This passing of the Rubicon
determined the whole remainder of Werner's
life, which had henceforth the merit, at least,
of entire consistency. He forthwith set about
the professional study of Theology ; then being
perfected in this, he left Italy in 181.3, taking
care, however, by the road, " to supplicate, and
certainly not in vain, the help of the Gracious
Mother at Loretto; and after due preparation,
under the superintendence of his patron, the
Prince Archbishop von Dalberg, had himself
ordained a Priest at Aschaffenburg, in June,
1814. Next, from Aschaffenburg he hastened
to Vienna ; and there, with all his might, began
preaching; his first auditory being the Con-
gress of the Holy Alliance, which had then
just begun its venerable sessions. "The novelty
and strangeness," he says, "nay, originality
of his appearance, secured him an extraor-
dinary concourse of hearers." He was, indeed,
a man worth hearing and seeing ; for his name,
noised abroad in many-sounding peals, was
filling all Germany from the hut to the palace.
This, he thinks, might have affected his head;
but he " had a trust in God, which bore him
through." Neither did he seem anywise anx-
ious to still this clamour of his judges, least of
all to propitiate his detractors : for already,
before arriving at Vienna, he had published,
as a pendant to his " Martin Luther, or the
Consecration of Strength," a pamphlet, in dog-
grel metre, entitled the "Consecration of
Weakness," wherein he proclaims himself to
the whole world as an honest seeker and finder
of truth, and takes occasion to revoke his old
"Trinity," of art, religion, and love; love hav-
ing now turned out to be a dangerous ingredi-
ent in such mixtures. The writing of this
Weihe der Unkrnfl. was reckoned by many a
bold but injudicious measure, — a throwing
down of the gauntlet when the lists were fuL
of tumultuous foes, and the knight w.is bu4
weak, and his cause, at best, of the most ques
tionable sort. To reports, and calumnies, and
criticisms, and vituperations, there was no
limit.

hi

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

What remains of this strange eventful his-
tory may be summed up in few words. Wer-
ner accepted no special charge in the Church ;
but continued a private and secular Priest;
preaching diligently, but only where he him-
self saw good; oftenest at Vienna, but in sum-
mer over all parts of Austria, in Styria, Carin-
thia, and even Venice. Everywhere, he says,
the opinions of his hearers were "violently
divided." At one time, he thought of becom-
ing Monk, and had actually entered on a sort
of noviciate; but he quitted the establishment
rather suddenly, and, as he is reported to have
said, "for reasons known only to God and
himself." By degrees, his health grew very
•weak; yet he still laboured hard both in public
and private; writing or revising poems, devo-
tional or dramatic; preaching, and officiating
as father-confessor, in which last capacity he
is said to have been in great request. Of his
poetical productions during this period, there
is none of any moment known to us, except the
Mother of the Maccabees (1819); a tragedy of
careful structure, and apparently in high favour
Vith the author, but which, notwithstanding,
/leed not detain us long. In our view, it is the
worst of all his pieces; a pale, bloodless, in-
deed quite ghost-like affair; for a cold breath
as from a sepulchre chills the heart in perus-
ing it: there is no passion or interest, but a
certain wo-struck martyrzeal, or rather frenzy,
and this not so much storming as shrieking;
not loud and resolute, but shrill, hysterical, and
bleared with ineffectual tears. To read it may
well sadden us: it is a convulsive fit, whose
uncontrollable writhings indicate, not strength,
but the last decay of it.*

Werner was, in fact, drawing to his latter
end: his health had long been ruined; espe-
cially of later years, he had suffered much
from disorders of the lungs. In 1817, he was
thought to be dangerously ill; and afterwards,
in 1822, when a journey to the Baths partly
restored him; though he himself still felt that
his term was near, and spoke and acted like a
man that was shortly to depart. In January,
1823, he was evidently dying: his affairs he
had already settled ; much of his time he spent
in prayer; was constantly cheerful, at inter-
vals even gay. "His death," says Hitzig, " was
especially mild. On the eleventh day of his
disorder, he felt himself, particularly towards
evening, as if altogether light and well; so
that he would hardly consent to have any one
to watch with him. The servant whose turn
it was did watch, however; he had sat down
by the bedside between two and three next
morning, (the 17th,) and continued there a con-
siderable while, in the belief that his patient
was asleep. Surprised, however, that no
breathing was to be heard, he hastily aroused

* Of liis Jittila^ (1808.) his Vier-mid-ncamisste Fe.bruar,
{1809,) his Ciinen-unde. (1814,) and various other pieces
written in his wanderings, we have not room to speaR
It is ttie less necessary, as the Jlttila and Twenty fvurth
of Ftbruarij. by much the best of these, have already been
forcibly, aiid, on the whole, fairly characterized by Ma-
dame de Stat'l. Of the last-named little work we niifht
say, with double emphasis, JVcc pneros coraiiupopvlo Me-
dea trucidet : it has a deep and jrenuine tragic interest,
were it not so painfully protracted into the regions of
pure horror. Werner's Sermons, his Ilynnis, his Preface
te Tkomas H Kerapis, l^-c., are entirely unknown to us.

the household, and it was found that Werner
had already passed away."

In imitation, it is thought, of Lipsius, he
bequeathed his Pen to the treasury of the Vir«
gin at Mariazell, " as a chief instrument of his
aberrations, his sins, and his repentance." He
was honourably interred at Enzersdorf on the
Hill, where a simple inscription, composed by
himself, begs the wanderer to " pray charitably
for his poor soul;" and expresses a trembling
ho])e that, as to Mary Magdalen, " because she
loved much," so to him also, "much maybe
forgiven."

We have thus, in hurried movement, travelled
over Zacharias Werner's Life and Works;
noting down from the former such particulars
as seemed most characteristic; and gleaning
from the latter some more curious passages,
less indeed with a view to their intrinsic ex-
cellence, than to their fitness for illustrating the
man. These scattered indications we must
now leave our readers to interpret each for
himself: each will adjust them into that com-
bination which shall best harmonize with his
own way of thought. As a writer, Werner's
character will occasion little difficulty. A
richly gifted nature; but never wisely guided,
or resolutely applied: a loving heart; an in-
tellect subtile and inquisitive, if not always
clear and strong; a gorgeous, deep, and bold
imagination; a true, nay, keen and burning
sympathy with all high, all tender and holy"
things; — here lay the main elements of no
common poet; save only that one was still
wanting, — the force to cultivate them, and
mould them into pure union. But they have
remained uncultivated, disunited, too often
struggling in wild disorder: his poetry, like his
life, is still not so much an edifice as a quarry.
Werner had cast a look into perhaps the very
deepest region of the Wonderful; but he had
not learned to live there: he was yet no deni-
zen of that mysterious land : and, in his visions,
its splendour is strangely mingled and over-
clouded with the flame or smoke of mere
earthly fire. Of his dramas we have already
spoken ; and with much to praise, found always
more to censure. In his rhymed pieces, his
shorter, more didactic poems, we are better
satisfied: here, in the rude, jolting vehicle of a
certain Sternhold-and-Hopkins metre, we often
find a strain of true pathos, and a deep, though
quaint significance. His prose, again, is among
the worst known to us : degraded with silliness ;
diffuse, nay, tautological, yet obscure and
vague; contorted into endless involutions; a
misshapen, lumbering, complected coil, well
nigh inexplicable in its entanglements, and
seldom worth the trouble of unravelling. He
does not move through his subject, and arrange
it, and rule over it; for the most part, he but
welters in it, and laboriously tumbles it, and at
last sinks under it.

As a man, the ill-fated Werner can still less
content us. His feverish, inconstant, and
wasted life we have already looked at. Hitzig,
his determined well-wisher, admits that in
practice he was selfish, wearying out his best
friends by the most barefaced importunities ; a
man of no dignit}^ ; avaricious, greedy, sensual,
at times obscene; in discourse, with all hia

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

S»

Bumour and heartiness, apt to be intolerably
long-winded; and of a maladroitaess, a blank
ineptitude, which exposed him to incessant
ridicule and manifold mystifications from peo-
ple of the world. Nevertheless, under all this
rubbish, contends the friendly Biographer,
there dwelt, for those who could look more
narrowly, a spirit, marred indeed in its beauty,
and languishing in painful conscious oppres-
sion, yet never wholly forgetful of its original
nobleness. Werner's soul was made for affec-
tion; and often as, under his too rude colli-
sions with external things, it was struck into
harshness and dissonance, there was a tone
which spoke of melody, even in its jarrings.
A kind, a sad, and heartfelt remembrance of
his friends seems never to have quitted him :
to the last he ceased not from warm love to
men at large; nay, to awaken in them, with
such knowledge as he had, a sense for what
was best and highest, may be said to have
formed the earnest, though weak and unstable
aim of his whole existence. The truth is, his
defects as a writer were also his defects as a
man: he was feeble, and without volition; in
life, as in poetry, his endowments fell into con-
fusion ; his character relaxed itself on all sides
into incoherent expansion; his activity became
gigantic endeavour, followed by most dwarfish
performance.

The grand incident of his life, his adoption
of the Roman Catholic religion, is one on
which we need not heap further censure; for
already, as appears to us, it is rather liable to
be too harshly than too leniently dealt with.
There is a feeling in the popular mind, which,
in well-meant hatred of inconsistency, perhaps
in general too sweepingly condemns such
changes. Werner, it should be recollected,
had at all periods of his life a religion ; nay, he
hungered and thirstedafter truth in this matter,
as after the highest good of man ; a fact which
of itself must, in this respect, set him far above
the most consistent of mere unbelievers, — in
whose barren and callous soul consistency,
perhaps, is no such brilliant virtue. We par-
don genial weather for its changes; but the
steadiest of all climates is that of Greenland.
Further, we must say that, strange as it may
seem, in Werner's whole conduct, both before
and after his conversion, there is not visible
the slightest trace of insincerity. On the whole,
there are fewer genuine renegades than men
arc apt to imagine. Surely, indeed, that must
be a nature of extreme baseness, who feels
that, in worldly good, he ran gain by such a
step. Is the contempt, the execration of all
that have known and loved us, and of millions
that have never known us, to be weighed
as^ainst a mess of pottage, or apiece of money 1
We hope there are not many, even in the rank
of sharpers, that would think so. But for Wer-
ner there was no gain in any way; nay, rather
certainty of loss. He enjoyed or sought no
patronage; -with his own resources he was
already independent though poor, and on a
footing of good esteem with all that was most
estimable in his country. His little pension,
conferred on him, at a prior date, by a Catholic
Prince, was not continued after his conversion,
.jxcept by the Duke of Weimar, a Protestant.

He became a mark for calumny; the defence*
less butt at which every callow witling made
his proof-shot; his character was more de-
formed and mangled than that of any other
man. What had he to gain I Insult and per-
secution ; and with these, as candour bids us
believe, the approving voice of his own con-
science. To judge from his writings, he was
far from repenting of the change he had made ;
his Catholic faith evidently stands in his own
mind as the first blessing of his life; and he
clings to it as to the anchor of his soul. Scarce-
ly more than once (in the Preface to his MiUtc-
(ler Mukkabder) does he allude to the legions of
falsehoods that were in circulation against
him; and it is in a spirit which, without en-
tirely concealing the querulousness of nature,
nowise fails in the meekness and endurance
which became him as a Christian. Here is a
fragment of another Paper, published since
his death, as it was meant to be ; which ex-
hibits him in a still clearer light. The reader
may condemn, or what will be better, pity and
sympathize with him; but the structure of this
strange piece surely bespeaks any thing but in-
sincerity. We translate it with all its breaks
and fantastic crotchets, as it stands before us :

" Testamextaut Inschiption, from Fried-
rich Ludwig Zacharias Werner, a son," &c. —
(here follows a statement of his parentage and
birth, with vacant spaces for the date of his
death,) — " of the following lines, submitted to
all such as have more or less felt any friendly
interest in his unworthy person, with the re-
quest to take warning by his example, and
charitably to remember the poor soul of the
writer before God, in prayer and good deeds.

"Begun at Florence, on the 24th of Septem-
ber, about eight in the evening, amid the still
distant sound of approaching thunder. Con-
cluded, when and where God will !

" Motto, Device, and Watchword in Death :
Remittunlur ei peccata mv.lta, quoniam dilexit mul'
turn ! ! ! — Lucas, Caput vii. v. 47.

"N. B. Most humbly and earnestly, and in
the name of God, does the Author of this Writ-
ing beg, of such honest persons as may find it,
to submit the same in any suitable way to
public examination.

" Fecisti nos, Domine, ad Te, et irrequietum est
cor nostrum, donee requiescat in Te. — S. Augustiniis,

"Per multa dispergitur, et hie illueque qucerit
(^cor") ubi requicscerc possit, et nihil invenit quod ei
sufficiat, donee ad ipsutn (^sc, Deuni) redeat. — S.
Bernardus.

"In the name of God the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, Amen!

"The thunder came hither, and is still roll-
ing, though now at a distance. — The name of
the Lord be praised! Hallelujah! — I begix:

"This Paper must needs be brief; because

the appointed term for my life itself may al-

eady be near at hand. There are not wai.ting

iPinrle^ ^f .mportant and unimportant aieu.

64

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

rvhu have left behind them in writing the de-
fence, or even sometimes the accusation, of
their earthly life. Without estimating such
procedure, I am not minded to imitate it. With
trembling I reflect that I myself shall first learn
in its whole terrific compass what properly I
was, when these lines shall be read by men ;
that is to say, in a point of Time which for me
will be no Time; in a condition wherein all
experience will for me be too late !

Rex trevicnda inajestatis.
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, fans pietatis ! ! !

But if I do, till that day when All shall be laid
open, draw a veil over my past life, it is not
merely out of false shame that I so order it;
for though not free from this vice also, I would
willingly make known my guilt to all and
every one whom my voice might reach, could
I hope, by such confession, to atone for what I
have done; or thereby to save a single soul
from perdition. There are two motives, how-
ever, which forbid me to make such an open
personal revelation after death : the one, because
the unclosing of a pestilential grave may be
dangerous to thehealth of the uninfected looker-
on ; the other, because in my writings, (which
may God forgive me !) amid a wilderness of
poisonous weeds and garbage, there may also
be here and there a medicinal herb lying scat-
tered, from which poor patients, to whom it
might be useful, would start back with shud-
dering, did they know the pestiferous soil on
which it grew.

" So much, however, in regard to those good
creatures as they call themselves, namely, to
those feeble weaklings who brag of what they
designate their good hearts, — so much must I
say before God, that such a heart alone, when
it is not checked and regulated by forethought
and steadfastness, is not only incapable of
saving its possessor from destruction, but it is
rather certain to hurry him, full speed, into
that abyss, where I have been, whence I — per-
haps ?!! ! — by God's grace am snatched, and
from which may God mercifully preserve every
reader of these lines." — Werner's Letzte Leben-
stageti, (quoted by Hitzig, p. 80.)

" All this is melancholy enough ; but it is not
like the writing of a hypocrite or repentant
apostate. To Protestantism, above all things,
Werner shows no thought of returning. In al-
lusion to a rumour, which had spread, of his
having given up Catholicism, he says (in the
Pre/are already quoted) :

" A stupid falsehood I must reckon it; since,
according to my deepest conviction, it is as
impossible that a soul in Bliss should return
back into the Grave, as that a man, who, like
me, after a life of error and search has found
the priceless jewel of Truth, should, I will not
say, give up the same, but hesitate to sacrifice
for it blood and life, nay, many things perhaps
far dearer, with joyful heart, when the one good
cause is concerned."

And elsewhere in a private letter:

'' I not only assure thee, but I beg of thee to
assure all men, if God should ever so withdraw
■he light of his grace from me, that I ceased to
bo a Catholic,! would a thousand times sooner

join myself to .Judaism, or to the Bramins oa
the Ganges : but to that shallowest, driest,
most contradictory, inanest Inanity of Protest-
antism, never, never, never!"

Here, perhaps, there is a touch of priestly,
of almost feminine vehemence ; for it is to a
Protestant and an old friend that he writes:
but the conclusion of his Prefare shows him in
a better light. Speaking of Second Parts, and
regretting that so many of his works were un-
finished, he adds :

" But what specially comforts me is the pros-
pect of — our general Second Part; where, even
in the first Scene, tins consolation, that there
all our works will be known, may not indeed
prove solacing/or vs all: but where, through
the strength of Him that alone completes all
works, it will be granted to those whom He
has saved, not only to know each other, but
even to know Him, as by Him they are known !
— With my trust in Christ, whom I have
not yet won, I regard, with the Teacher of
the Gentiles, all things but dross that I
may win Him; and to him, cordially and
lovingly do I, in life or at death, commit you
all, my beloved Friends and my beloved Ene-
mies !"

On the whole, we cannot think it doubtful
that Werner's belief was real and' heartfelt.
But how then, our wondering readers may in
quire, if his belief was real and not pretended,
hnn^ then did he believe ? He, who scoffs in
infidel style at the truths of Protestantism, by
what alchemy did he succeed in tempering
into credibility the harder and bulkier dogmas
of Popery? Of Popery, too, the frauds and
gross corruptions of which he has so fiercely
exposed in his Martin Luther! and this, more
over, without cancelling, or even softening his
vituperations, long after his conversion, in the
very last edition of that drama? To this
question, we are far from pretending to have
any answer that altogether satisfies ourselves,
much less that shall altogether satisfy others.
Meanwhile, there are two considerations which
throw light on the difficulty for us : these, af
some step, or at least, attempt towards a solu
tion of it, we shall not withhold. The Jirslliei
in Werner's individual character and mode of
life. Not only was he born a mystic, not only
had he lived from of old amid freemasonry, and
all manner of cabalistic and other traditionarj
chimeras; he was also, and had long been
what is emphatically called difsolnte : 9 -yord
which has now lost somewhat of it<" origina
force; but which, as applied here. "^ s'Jil morv
just and significant in its etyn,j/cgical, thav
in its common acception. H'. VdS a man dis
solit'e ; that is, by a long c urse of vicious in-
dulgences, enervated (.iid loosened asunder.
Everywhere in Werr ,r'j life and actions, we
discern a mind re'i.xcd from its proper ten-
sion ; no longer cupable of effort and toilsome
resolute vigilav^e; but floating almost pas-
sively with th^ current of its impulses, in lan-
guid, imagi: dtive, Asiatic reverie. That such
a man sV ^uld discriminate, with sharp, fear-
less lo,<^lc, between beloved errors and unwel-
come .ruths, was not to be expected. His belief
is li .ely to have been persuasion rather than ron*
v-Jion, both as it related to Religion, and to

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER.

66

other .subjects. What, or how much a man-in
this way may bring himself to bclmv, wiih sncli
force and distinctness as he honestly and
usually calls belief, there is no predicting.

But ano'hcr consideration, which we think
should nowise be omitted, is the general state of
religious opinion in Germany, especially among
such minds as Werner was most apt to take
for his examplars. To this complex and high-
ly interesting subject, we can for the present
do nothing more than allude. So much, how-
ever, we may say: It is a common theory
among the Germans, that every Creed, every
Form of worship, is a. form merely ; the mortal
and everchanging bod)/, in which the immortal
and unchanging spirit of Religion is, with more
or less completeness, expressed to the mate-
rial eye, and made manifest and influen-
tial among the doings of men. It is thus, for
instance, that Johannes Miiller, in his Uait^er-
sal History, professes to consider the Mosaic
Law, the creed of Mahomet, nay, Luther's Re-
formation ; and, in short, all other systems of
Faith ; which he scruples not to designate,
"without special praise or censure, simply as
Vorstcllv.n^sartcn, " modes of Representation."
We could report equally singular things of
Schelling and others, belonging to the philoso-
phic class ; nay of Herder, a Protestant clergy-
man, and even bearing high authority in the
Church. Now, it is clear, in a country where
such opinions are openly and generally pro-
fessed, a change of religious creed must be
comparatively a slight matter. Conversions
to Catholicism are accordingly by no means
unknown among the Germans: Friedrich
Schlegel, and the younger Count von Stolberg,
men, as we should think, of vigorous intellect,
and of character above suspicion, were col-
leagues, or rather precursors, of Werner in
this adventure; and, indeed, formed part of
his acquaintance at Vienna. It is but, they
would pay perhaps, as if a melodist, inspired
with harmony of inward music, should choose
this instrument in preference to that, for giving
voice to it : the inward inspiration is the grand
concern ; and to express it, the " deep majestic
solemn organ" of the Unchangeable Church
maybe better fitted than the "scrannel pipe"
of a withered, trivial, Arian Protestantism.
That Werner, still more that Schlegel and Stol-
berg, could, on the strength of such hypotheses,
put otr or put on their religious creed, like a
new suit of apparal, we are far from asserting;

they are men of earnest hearts, and seem to
have a deep feeling of devotion : but it should
be remembered, that what forms the ground-
work of their religion, is professedly not De-
monstration but Faith ; and so pliant a theory
could not but help to soften the transition from
the former to the latter. That some such prin-
ciple, in one shape or another, lurked in
Wewier's mind, we think we can perceive
from several indications ; among others, from
the Prologue to his last tragedy, where, mys-
teriously enough, under the emblem of a Phoe-
nix, he seems to be shadowing forth the histo-
ry of his own Faith; and represents himself
even then as merely "climbing the ?/tc, where
the pinions of his PhcEnix last vanished " but
not hoping to regain that blissful vision, till his
e3'es shall have been opened by death.

On the whole, we must not pretend to under-
stand Werner, or expound him with scientific
rigour: acting many times with only half con-
sciousness, he was always, in some degree, an
enigma to himself, and may well be obscure to
us. Above all, there are mysteries and un-
sounded abysses in every human heart ; and
that is but a questionable philosophy which
undertakes so readily to explain them. Reli-
gious belief especially, at least when it seems
heartfelt and well-intentioned, is no subject
for harsh or even irreverent investigation.
He is a wise man that, having such a belief,
knows and sees clearly the grounds of it in
himself: and those, we imagine, who have
explored with strictest scrutiny the secret of
their own bosoms, will be least apt to rush
with intolerant violence into that of other
men's.

"The good Werner," says Jean Paul, "fell,
like our more vigorous Hoffmann, into the po-
etical fermenting vat (Giihrbottich) of our time,
where all Literatures, Freedoms, Tastes, jmkI
Untastes are foaming through each other: and
where all is to be found, excepting truth, dili-
gence, and the polish of the file. Both would
have come forth clearer had they studied in
liCssing's day."* We cannot justify Werner:
yet let him be condemned with pity! And
well were it could each of us apply to him-
self those words, which Hitzig, in his friendly
indignation, would " thunder in the ears" of
many a German gainsayer: Ta/.e thou the beam
out of thine own eye : then shitlt thou see clearly to
take the mote out of thy brother's.

* Letter to Hitzig, in Jean Paul's Leien, by Daertrg.

56

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

GOETHE'S HELENA/

[Foreign Review, 1828.]

NovALis has rather tauntingly asserted of
Goethe, that the grand law of his being is to
conclude whatsoever he undertakes ; that, let,
him engage in any task, no matter what its
difhculties or how small its worth, he cannot
quit it till he has mastered its whole secret,
finii^hed it, and made the result of it his own.
This, surely, whatever Novalis might think, is
a quality of which it is far sater to have too
much than too little ; and if, in a friendlier
spirit, we admit that it does strikingly belong
to Goethe, these his present occupations will
not seem out of harmony with the rest of his
life ; but rather it may be regarded as a sin-
gular constancy of fortune, which now allows
him, after completing so many single enter-
prizes, to adjust deliberately the details and
combination of the whole; and thus, in per-
fecting his individual works, to put the last
hand to the highest of all his works, his own
literary character, and leave the impress of it
to posterity in that form and accompaniment
which he himself reckons fittest. For the last
two years, as many of our readers may know,
the venerable Poet has been employed in a pa-
tient and thorough revisal of all his Writings;
an edition of which, designated as the " complete
and final" one, was commenced in 1827, under
external encouragements of the most flattering
sort, and with arrangements for private co-ope-
ration, which, as we learn, have secured the
constant progress of the work " against every
accident." The first Licfenmg, of five vo-
lumes, is now in our hands; a second of like
extent, we understand to be already on its way
hither; and thus by regular "Deliveries,"
from half-year to half-year, the whole Forty
Volumes are to be completed in 1831.

To the lover of German literature, or of
literature in general, this undertaking will not
be indifferent: considering, as he must do, the
works of Goethe to be among the most import-
ant which Germany for some centuries has
sent forth, he will value their correctness and
completeness for its own sake ; and not the
less, as forming the conclusion of a long pro-
cess to which the last step was still wanting;
whereby he may not only enjoy the result, but
instruct himself by following so great a mas-
ter through the changes which led to it. We
can now add, that, to the mere book-collector
also, the business promises to be satisfactory.
I'his Edition, avoiding any attempt at splen-
dour or unnecessary decoration, ranks, never-
theless, in regard to accuracy, convenience,
and true, simple elegance, among the best spe-
cimens of German typography. The cost, too,

* Goellie's Sdwmtliche Ji'crkc. Vollstavdige Jius[rahe
letzter JIanil. (fVoetlie's Collective Works. Complete
Edition, with his final Corrections.) First Portion, vols.
i — V. 16mo and 8vo. Colla : Stuttgard & Tiibingcn.
1827.

seems moderate; so that, on every account,
we doubt not but that these tasteful volumes
will spread far and wide in their own country,
and by and by, we may hope, be met with here
in many a British library.

Hitherto, in the First Portion, we have found
little or no alteration of what was already
known ; but, in return, some changes of ar-
rangement ; and, what is more important,
some additions of heretofore unpublished
poems ; in particular, a piece entitled " Helena,
a clussico-romanlic Phantasmagoria," which oc-
cupies some eighty pages of Volume Fourth.
It is to this piece that we now propose direct-
ing the attention of our readers. Such of
these, as have studied Helena for themselves,
must have felt how little calculated it is, either
intrinsically or by its extrinsic relations and
allusions, to be rendered very interesting or
even very intelligible to the English public,
and may incline to augur ill of our enterprise.
Indeed, to our own eyes it already looks dubi-
ous enough. But tlie dainty little " Phantas-
magoria," it would appear, has become a
subject of diligent and truly wonderful specu-
lation to our German neighbours ; of which,
also, some vague rumours seem now to have
reached this country, and these likely enough
to awaken on all hands a curiosity,* which,
whether intelligent or idle, it were a kind of
good deed to allay. In a Journal of this sort,
what little light on such a matter is at our
disposal may naturally be looked for.

Helena, like many of Goethe's works, by no
means carries its significance written on its
forehead, so that he who runs may read ; but,
on the contrary, it is enveloped in a certain
mystery, under coy disguises, which, to hasty
readers, may not be only offensively obscure,
but altogether provoking and impenetrable.
Neither is this any new thing with Goethe.
Often has he produced compositions, both in
prose and verse, which bring critic and com-
mentator into straits, or even to a total non-
plus. Some we have, wholly parabolic; some
half-literal, half-parabolic; these latter are oc-
casionally studied, by dull heads, in the literal
sense alone ; and not only studied, but con-
demned : for, in truth, the outward meaning
seems unsatisfactory enough, were it not that
ever and anon we are remhided of a cunning,
manifold meaning which lies hidden under
it; and incited by capricious beckonings to
evolve this, more and more completely, from
its quaint concealment.

Did we believe that Goethe adopted this
mode of writing as a vulgar lure, to confer on
his poems the interest which might belong to

♦ See, for instance, the " Athenspiim," No. vii., where
an iirlicle stands headed with these words: Faust
Helen of Troy, and I.oed Byron.

GOETHE'S HELENA.

67

so many charades, we should hold it a very
poor proceeding. Of this most readers of
Goethe will know that he is incapable. Such
juggleries, and uncertain anglings for distinc-
tion, are a class of accomplishments to which
hz has never made any pretension. The truth
is, this styl6 has, in many cases, its own ap-
propriateness. Certainly, in all matters of
Business and Science, in all expositions of
fact or argument, clearness and ready compre-
hes.jibility are a great, often an indispensable,
objec;, Nor is there any man better aware of
this priticiple than Goethe, or who more rigo-
rously adheres to it, or more happily exempli-
fies it, wherever it seems applicable. But in
this, as in many other respects, Science and
Poetry, having separate purposes, may have
each its several law. If an artist has con-
ceived his subject in the secret shrine of his
own mind, and knows, with a knowledge be-
yond all power of cavil, that it is true and pure,
he may choose his own manner of exhibiting
it, and will generally be the fittest to choose it
well. One degree of light, he may find, will
beseem one delineation ; quite a different de-
gree of light another. The Face of Agamem-
non was not painted but hidden in the old Pic-
ture: the Veiled Figure at Sais was the most
expressive in the Temple. In fact, the grand
point is to have a meaning, a genuine, deep,
and noble one; the proper form for embodying
this, the form best suited to the subject and to
the author, will gather round it almost of its
own accord. We profess ourselves unfriendly
to no mode of communicating Truth ; which
we rejoice to meet with in all shapes, from that
of the child's Catechi^im to the deepest poetical
Allegory. Nay, the Allegory itself may some-
times be the truest part of the matter. John
Bunyan, we hope, is nowise our best theolo-
gian ; neither, unhappily, is theology our most
attractive science ; yet, which of our compends
and treatises, nay, which of our romances and
poems, lives in such mild sunshine as the good
old Ptlgriin''s Progress, in the memory of so many
men 1

Under Goethe's management, this style of
composition has often a singular charm. The
reader is kept on the alert, ever conscious of
his own active co-operation ; light breaks on
him, and clearer and clearer vision, by degrees ;
till at last the whole lovely Shape comes forth,
definite, it may be, and bright with heavenly
radiance, or fading, on this side and that, into
vague expressive mystery; but true in both
cases, and beautiful with nameless enchant-
ments, as the poet's own eye may have beheld
it. We love it the more for the labour it has
given us ; we almost feel as if we ourselves
had assisted in its creation. And herein lies
the highcst.meritof a piece, and the proper art
of reading it. We have not rend an author till
we have seen his object, whatever it may be,
as l(c saw it. It is a matter of reasoning, and
has he reasoned stupidly and falsely 1 We
should understand the circumstances which to
his mind made it seem true, or persuaded him
to write it, knowing that it was not so. In any
other way we do him injustice if we judge him.
Is it of poetry] His word? are so many sym-
bols, tc which we out selves must furnish the

interpretation ; or they remain, as in all prosaic
minds the words of poetry ever do, a dead
letter: indications they are, barren in them-
selves, but by following which, we also may
reach, or approach, that Hill of Vision where
the poet stood, beholding the glorious scene
which it is the purport of his poem to show
others. A reposing state, in which the Hill were
brought under us, not we obliged to mount it,
might, indeed, for the present be more conve-
nient; but, in the end, it could not be equally
satisfying. Continuance of passive pleasure,
it should never be forgotten, is here, as under
all conditions of mortal existence, an impossi
bility. Everywhere in life, the true question is,
not what we gain, but what we do: so also in
intellectual matters, m conversation, in read-
ing, which is more precise and careful con-
versation, it is not what we receive, but what we
are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits
us. True, the mass of readers will object; be-
cause, like the mass of men, they are too indo-
lent. But if any one aifect, not the active and
watchful, but the passive and somnolent line
of study, are there not writers, expressly
fashioned for him, enough and to spare '.' It is
but the smaller number of books that become
more instructive by a second perusal : the
great majority are as perfectly plain as perfect
triteness can make them. Yet, if time is pre-
cious, no book that will not improve by re-
peated readings deserves to be read at all.
And were there an artist of a right spirit; a,
man of wisdom, conscious of his high voca-
tion, of whom we could know beforehand that
he had not written without purpose and earnest
meditation, that he knew what he had written,
and had imbodied in it, more or less, the crea-
tions of a deep and noble soul, — should we not
draw near to him reverently, as disciples to a
master; and what task could there "be more
profitable than to read him as we have de-
scribed, to study him even to his minutest
meanings 1 For, were not this to think as he
had thought, to see with his gifted eyes, to
make the very mood and feeling of his great
and rich mind the mood also of our poor and
little one 1 It is under the consciousness of
some such mutual relation that Goethe writes,
and his countrymen now reckon themselves
bound to read him; a relation singular, we
might say solitary, in the present time ; but
which it is ever necessary to bear in mind in
estimating his literary procedure.

To justify it in this particular, mucb more
might be said, were it our chief business at
present. But what mainly concerns us herr,
is, to know that such, justified or not, is the
poet's manner of writing; which also must
prescribe for us a correspondent manner of
studying him, if we study him at all. For the
rest, on this latter point he nowhere expresses
any undue anxie'y. His works have invaria
bly been sent fi.nh without preface, withou*
note or commen of any kind ; but left, some
limes plain anc' direct, sometimes dim a.xi'f
typical, in what legree of clearness or obscu
rity he himself may have judged b' A, to b«
scanned, and g'ossed, and censur i, 'Md dis
torted, as mighi ,ilrase the innume-- .o'e multi
tude of critics to whose verdict ne 'las' been

tt

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

for a great part of his life, accused of listening
•with unwarrantable composure. Helena is no
exception to that practice, but rather among
the strong instances of it. This Interlude to
Faust presents itself abruptly, under a charac-
ter not a littler enigmatic ; so that, at first view,
we know not well what to make of it ; and only
after repeated perusals, will the scattered
glimmerings of significance begin to coalesce
into continuous light, and the whole, in any
measure, rise before us with that greater or less
degree of coherence which it may have had in
the mind of the poet. Nay, after all, no perfect
clearness may be attained, but only various
approximations to it; hints and half glances
of a meaning, which is still shrouded in vague-
ness; nay, to the just picturing of which this
very vagueness was esse::tial. For the whole
piece has a dream-like character; and, in these
cases, no prudent soothsayer will be altogether
confident. To our readers we must now en-
deavour, so far as possible, to show both the
dream and its interpretation : the former as it
stands written before us ; the latter from our
own private conjecture alone; for of those
strange German comments we yet know no-
thing, except by the faintest hearsay.

Helena forms part of a continuation to Faust :
but, happily for our present undertaking, its
connecticm with the latter work is much looser
than might have been expected. We say,
happily; because Faust, though considerably
talked of in England, appears still to be nowise
known. We have made it our duty to inspect
the English translation o[ Faust, as well as the
Extracts which accompany Retzsch's Outlines ;
and various disquisitions and animadversions,
vituperative or laudatory, grounded on these
two works ; but, unfortunately, have found
there no cause to alter the above persuasion.
Faust is emphatically a woi'k of Art; a work
matured in the mysterious depths of a vast and
wonderful mind; and bodied forth with that
truth and curious felicity of composition, in
which this man is generally admitted to have
no living rival. To reconstruct such a work
in another language; to show it in its hard yet
graceful strength; with those slight witching
traits of pathos or of sarcasm, those glimpses
of solemnity or terror, and so many reflexes
and evanescent echoes of meaning, which con-
nect it in strange union with the whole Infinite
/ of thought, — were business for a man of diflx^r-
ent powers than has yet attempted German
translation among us. In fact, Faust is to be
read not once but many times, if we would un-
derstand it : every line, every word has its pur-
port; and only in such minute inspection will
the essential significance of the poem display
itself. Perhaps it is even chiefly by following
these fainter traces and tokens, that the true
point of vision for the whole is discovered to
us; and we stand at last in the proper scene
of Faust ; a wild and wondrous region, where,
in pale light, the primeval Shapes of Chaos,
—as it were, the Foundations of Being itself, —
seem to loom forth, dim and huge, in the vague
Immensity around us; and the life and nature
of man, with its brief interests, its misery and
sin, its mad passion and poor frivolity, struts
find frets its hour, encompassed and overlooked

by that stupendous All, of which it forms an
indissoluble though so mean a fraction. He
who would study all this must for a long time,
we are afraid, be content to study it in the
original.

But our English criticisms of Faust have
been of a still more unedifying sort. Let any
man fancy the (Edipus Tyrannus discovered for
the first time, translated from an unknown
Greek manuscript, by some ready-writing
manufacturer, and "brought out" at Drury
Lane, with new music, made as "apothecaries
make new mixtures, by pouring out of one
vessel into another !" Then read the theatrical
report in the morning Papers, and the Maga-
zines of next month. Was not the whole affair
rather " heavy 1" How indifferent did the
audience sit; how little use was made of the
handkerchief, except by such as took snuflT!
Did not (Edipus somewhat remind us of a
blubbering schoolboy, and Jocasta of a decayed
milliner? Confess that the plot was mon-
strous ; nay, considering the marriage-law of
England, highly immoral. On the whole, what
a singular deficiency of taste must this Sopho-
cles have laboured under! But probably he
was excluded from the " society of the influ-
ential classes:" for, after all, the man is no?
without indications of genius: had we had the
training of him, — And so on, through all the
variations of the critical cornpipe.

So might it have fared with the ancient Gre
cian; for so has it fared with the only modern
that writes in a Grecian spirit. This treat-
ment of Faust may deserve to be mentioned,
for various reasons; not to be lamented over,
because, as in much more important instances,
it is inevitable, and lies in the nature of the
case. Besides, a better state of things is evi-
dently enough coming round. By and by, the
labours, poetical and intellectual, of the Ger-
mans, as of other nations, will appear before
us in their true shape; and Favst, among the
rest, will have justice done it. For ourselves,
it were unwise presumption, at any time, to
pretend opening the full poetical significance
oi Faust ; nor is this the place for making such
an attempt. Present purposes will be answer-
ed if we can point out some general features
and bearings of the piece; such as to exhibit
its relation with Helena; by what con*rivances
this latter has been intercalated into it, and
how far the strange picture and the strange
framing it is inclosed in correspond.

The story of Faust forms one of the most
remarkable productions of the Middle Ages;
or rather, it is the most striking embodiment
of a highly remarkable belief, which originated
or prevailed in those ages. Considered strictly,
it may take the rank of a Christian mythus, in
the same sense as the story of Prometheus, of
Titan, and the like, are Pagan ones; and to
our keener inspection, it will disclose a no less
impressive or characteristic aspect of the same
human nature, — here bright, joyful, self-confi-
dent, smiling even in its sternness; there deep,
meditative, awe-struck, austere. — in which both
they and it took their rise. To us, in these
days, it is not easy to estimate how this story
of Faust, invested with its magic and infernal
hon-ors, must have harrowed up the souls of a

GOETHE'S HELENA.

59

rude and earnest people, in an age when its
dialect was not yet obsolete, and such contracts
with the principle of Evil were thought not
only credible in general, but possible to every
individual auditor who here shuddered at the
mention of them. The day of Magic has gone
by; Witchcraft has been put a stop to by act
of parliament. But the mysterious relations
which it emblemed still continue; the Soul of
Man still fights with the dark influences of
Ignorance, Misery, and Sin; still lacerates
itself, like a captive bird, against the iron
limits which Necessity has drawn round it;
still follows False Shows, seeking peace and
ojood on paths where no peace or good is to be
found. In this sense, Faust may still be con-
sidered as true; nay, as a truth of the most
impressive sort, and one which will always
remain true. To body forth, in modern sym-
bols, a feeling so old and deep-rooted in our
whole European way of thought, were a task
not unworthy of the highest poetical genius.
In Germany, accordingly, it has several times
been attempted, and with very various success.
Klinger has produced a Romance of Fmist, fuW
of rugged sense, and here and there not with-
out considerable strength of delineation ; yet,
on the whole, of an essentially unpoetical cha-
racter; dead, or living with only a mechanical
life ; coarse, almost gross, and, to our minds,
far too redolent of pilch and bitumen. Maler
Miller's Faust, which is a Drama, must be re-
garded as a much more genial performance, so
far as it goes ; the secondary characters, the
Jews and rakish Students, often remind us of
our own Fords and Marlowes. His main per-
sons, however, Faust and the Devil, are but
inadequately conceived; Faust is little more
than self-willed, supercilious, and, alas, insol-
vent; the Devils, above all, are savage, long-
winded, and insufferably noisy. Besides, the
piece has been left in a fragmentary state; it
can nowise pass as the best work of MUller's.*
Klingemann's Faust, which also is (or lately
M'.is) a Drama, we have never seen ; and have
only heard of it as of a tawdry and hollow

♦ Frederic Muller (more commonly called Maler, or
Painter Muller) is here, so far as we know, named for
The first time to Enprlish readers. Nevertheless, in any
solid study of German literature, this autlior must take
precedence of many hundreds whose reputation has tra-
velled f:ister. But Muller has been unfortunate in his
own country, as well as here. At an early age, meeting
with no success as a poet, he quitted that art for paint-
ing ; and retired, perhaps in disgust, into Italy; where
also but little preferment seems to have awaited him.
His writings, a("ter almost half a century of neglect, were
at length brought into sight and general estimation by
Ludwig Tieck ; at a time when the author might indeed
say, that he was "old and could not enjoy it, solitary
and could not impart it," but not, unhappily, that he was
"known and did not want it," for his line genius had
yet made for itself no free way auiiil so uiany obstruc-
tions, and still continued unrewarded and unrecognised.
His paintings, chiefly o{ still-life and animals, are said
to possess a true though no very extraordinary merit :
but of his poetry we will venture to assert that it be-
speaks a genuine feeling and talent, nay, rises at tinies
even into the higher regicms of Art. His Jldam's Jiwak-
enitif!, his Satyr Mopsiis, his J^imskernen (Nutshelling),
inf'Drmi^l as they are with simple kindly strength, with
cle.ir vision, and love of nature, are incomparably the
best (ii-riuan or, indeed, inodern Idyls; his "Oenoveva"
will still stand reading, oven with that of Tieck. These
things are now acknowledged .imoiig the Oermans ; but
to ftlijller the acknowledgment is of no avail. lie died
some two years ago at Kome, where he seems to have
subsisted latterly as a sort oC picture-cicerone

article, suited for immediate use, and immedi-
ate oblivion.

Goethe, we believe, was the first who tried
this subject; and is, on all hands, considered
as by far the most successful. His manner of
treating it appears to us, so far as we can un-
derstand itj^peculiarly just and happy. He
retains the supernatural vesture of the story,
but retains it with the consciousness, on his
and our part, that it is a chimera. His art-
magic comes forth in doubtful twilight; vague
in its outline ; interwoven everywhere with
light sarcasm ; nowise as a real Object, but as
a real Shadow of an Object, which is also
real, yet lies be)-ond our horizon, and, except
in its shadows, cannot itself be seen. Nothing
were simpler than to look into this poem for a
new "Satan's Invisible World displayed," or
any effort to excite the skeptical minds of these
days by goblins, wizards, and other infernal
ware. Such enterprises belong to artists of a
different species : Goethe's Devil is a culti-
vated personage, and acquainted with the
modern sciences ; sneers at witchcraft and
the black-art, even while employing them, as
heartily as any member of the French Insti-
tute ; for he is a philosophe, and doubts most
things, nay, half disbelieves even his own ex-
istence. It is not without a cunning effort that
all this is managed; but managed, in a consi-
derable degree, it is ; for a world of magic is
opened to us which, we might almost say, we
feel to be at once true and not true.

In fact, Mephistopheles comes before us,
not arrayed in the terrors of Cocytus and Phle-
gethon, but in the natural indelible deformity
of Wickedness; he is the Devil, not of Super-
stition, but of Knowledge. Here is no cloven
foot, or horns and tail: he himself informs us
that, during the late march of intellect, the
very Devil has participated in the spirit of the
age, and laid these appendages aside. Doubt-
less, Mephistopheles "has the manners of a
gentleman ; " he " knows the world ; " nothing
can exceed the easy tact with which he ma-
nages himself; his wit and sarcasm are unli-
mited; the cool heartfelt contempt with which
he despises all things, human and divine,
might make the fortune of half a dozen " fel-
lows about town." Yet, withal, he is a devil
in very deed ; a genuine Son of Night. He
calls himself the Denier, and this truly is his
name ; for, as Voltaire did with historical
doubt, so does he with all moral appearances;
settles them with a N'eii cmyez rien. The
shrewd, all-informed intellect he has, is an at-
torney intellect ; it can contradict, but it cannot
affirm. With lynx vision, he descries at a
glance the ridiculous, the unsuitable, the bad;
but for the solemn, the noble, the worthy, he is
blind as his ancient Mother. Thus does he go
along, qualifying, confuting, despisinsr : on ail
hands detecting the false, but without force to
bring forth, or even to discern, any glimpse
of the true. Poor Devil ! what truth should
there be for him 1 To see Falsehood is his
only truth : falsehood ar.JL evil are the ""ul-e,
truth and f.'..U the exception which confirms
it. He cai. believe in nothing, but \n his own
self-conceit, and in the indestructible baseness,
folly, and hypocrisy of men. For him, virtue

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

is some bubtle of the blood : " it stands written
on his face that he never loved a living soul."
Nay, he cannot even hate : at Faust himself
he has no grudge; he merely tempts him by
way of experiment, to pass the time scientifi-
cally. Such a combination of perfect Under-
standing with perfect Selfishness, of logical
Life with moral Death; so universal a denier,
both in heart and head, — is undoubtedly a
child of Darkness, an emissary of the pri-
meval Nothing: and coming forward, as he
does, like a person of breeding, and without
any flavour of Brimstone, may stand here, in
his merely spiritual deformity, at once potent,
dangerous, and contemptible, as the best and
only genuine Devil of these latter times.

In strong contrast with this impersonation
of modern worldly-mindedness, stands Faust
himself, by nature the antagonist of it, but des-
tined also to be its victim. If Mephistopheles
represent the spirit of Denial, Faust may re-
present that of Inquiry and Endeavour: the
two are, by necessity, in conflict ; the light
and the darkness of man's life and mind. In-
trinsically, Faust is a noble being, though no
wise one. His desires are towards the high
and true; nay, with a whirlwind impetuosity
he rushes forth over the Universe to grasp all
excellence; his heart yearns towards the infi-
nite and the invisible : only that he knows not
the conditions under which alone this is to be
attained. Confiding in his feeling of himself,
he has started with the tacit persuasions, so
natural to all men, that he at least, however it
may fare with others, shall and must be happy .-
a deep-seated, though only half-conscious con-
viction lurks in him, that wherever he is not
successful, fortune has dealt with him unjustly.
His purposes are fair, nay, generous: why
should he not prosper in them ? For in all
his lofty aspirings, his strivings after truth
and more than human greatness of mind, it
has never struck him to inquire how he, the
striver, was warranted for such enterprises ;
with what faculty Nature had equipped him ;
within what limits she had hemmed him in;
by what right he pretended to be happy, or
could, some short space ago, have pretended
to he at all. Experience, indeed, will teach
him, for " Experience is the best of school-
masters ; only the schnol-fees are heavy." As
yet, too, disappointment, which fronts him on
every hand, rather maddens than instructs.
Faust has spent his youth and manhood, not
^n olheis do in the sunny crowded paths of
profit, or among the rosy bowers of pleasure,
but darkly and alone in the search of Truth :
is it fit that Truth should now hide herself,
and his sleepless pilgrimage towards Know-
ledge and Vision end in the pale shadow of
Doubt? To his dream of a glorious higher
happiness, all earthly happmess has been sa-
crificed; friendship, love, the social rewards
of ambition were cheerfully cast aside, for his
eye and his heart were bent on a region of
clear and supreme good ; and now, in its stead,
he finds isolation, silence, and despair. What
solace remains'? Virtue once promised to be
her own reward; but because she does not
Ttay him in the current coin of worldly enjoy-
;nent, he reckons her loo a delusior. j and, like

Brutus, reproaches as a shadow, what he once
worshipped as a substance. Whither shall
he now tend] For his loadstars have gone
out one by one; and as the darkness fell, the
strong and steady wind has changed into a
fierce and aimless tornado. Faust calls him-
self a monster, "without object, yet without
rest." The vehement, keen, and stormful na-
ture of the man is stung into fury, as bethinks
of all he has endured and lost; he broods in
gloomy meditation, and, like Bellerophon,
wanders apart, "eating his own heart;" or
bursting into fiery paroxysms, ciirses man's
whole existence as a mockery ; curses hope, ■
and faith, and joy, and care, and what is worst,
"curses patience more than all the rest." Had
his weak arm the power, he could smite the
Universe asunder, as at the crack of Doom,
and hurl his own vexed being along with it
into the silence of Annihilation.

Thus Faust is a man who has quitted the
ways of vulgar men, without light to guide him
on a better way. No longer restricted by the
sympathies, the common interests and common
persuasions by which the mass of mortals, each
individually ignorant, nay, it may be, stolid,
and altogether blind as to the proper aim of
life, are yet held together, and like stones in
the channel of a torrent, by their very multi-
tude and mutal collision, are made to move with
some regularity, — he is still but a slave; the
slave of impulses, which are stronger, not truer
or better, and the more unsafe that they are soli-
tary. He sees the vulgar of mankind happy ;
but happy only in their baseness. Himself he
feels to be peculiar ; the victim of a strange,
an unexampled destiny; not as other men, he
is "with them, not o/'them." There is misery
here ; nay, as Goethe has elsewhere wisely
remarked, the beginning of madness itself. It
is only in the sentiment of companionship that
men feel safe and assured: to all doubts and
mysterious " questionings of destiny," their sole
satisfying answer is, Others do and suffer the like.
Were it not for this, the dullest day-drudge of
Mammon might think himself into unspeak-
able abysses of despair; for he, too, is " fear-
fully and wonderfully made ;" Infinitude and
Incomprehensibility surround him on this hand
and that; and the vague spectre Death, silent
and sure as Time, is advancing at all moments
to sweep him away for ever. But he answers,
Others do and suffer the like; and plods along
without misgivings. Were there but One Man
in the world, he would be a terror to himself;
and the highest man not less so than the low-
est. Now it is as this One Man that Faust re-
gards himself; he is divided from his fellows;
cannot answer with them. Others do the like ; and
yet, why or how he specially is to do or suffer
will nowhere reveal itself. For he is still "in
the gall of bitterness ;" Pride and an entire
tincompromising, though secret love of Self,
are still the mainsprings of his conduct.
Knowledge with him is precious only be-
cause it is power; even virtue he would love
chiefly as a finer sort of sensu;/ity, and be-
cause it was his virtue. A rav.-.nous hunger
for enjoyment haunts him everywhere; the
stinted allotments of earthly life are as a
mockery to him : to the iron law of Force h

GOETHE'S HELENA.

61

will not yield, for his heart, though torn, is yet
unweakened, and till Humility shall open his
eyes, the soft law of Wisdom will be hidden
from him.

To invest a man of this character with su-
pernatural powers is but enabling him to re-
peat his error on a larger scale, to play the
same false game with a deeper and more
ruinous stake. Go where he may, he will " find
himself again in a conditional world;" widen
his sphere as he pleases, he will find it again
encircled by the empire of Necessity; the gay
island of Existence is again but a fraction of
the ancient realm of Night. Were he all-wise
and all-powerful, perhaps he might be content-
ed and virtuous ; scarcely otherwise. The
poorest human soul is infinite in wishes, and
the infinite Universe was not made for one,
but for all. Vain were it for Faust, by heap-
ing height on height, to struggle towards infi-
nitude; while to that law of Self-denial, by
which alone man's narrow destiny may become
an infinitude within itself, he is still a stran-
ger. Such, however, is his attempt: not in-
deed incited by hope, but goaded on by des-
pair, he unites himself with the Fiend, as
with a stronger though a wicked agency ; reck-
less of all issues, if so were that by these means
the craving of iiis heart might be stayed, and
the dark secret of Destiny unravelled or for-
gotten.

It is this conflicting union of the higher
nature of the soul with the lower elements of
human life; of Faust, the son of Light and
Free-will, with the influences of Doubt, Denial,
and Obstruction, or Mephistopheles, who is
the symbol and spokesman of these, that the
poet has here proposed to delineate. A high
problem; and of which the solution is yet far
from completed ; nay, perhaps, in a poetical
sense, is not, strictly speaking, capable of com-
pletion. For it is to be remarked that, in this
contract with the Prince of Darkness, little or
no mention or allusion is made to a Future
Life; whereby it might seem as if the action
was not intended, in the manner of the old
Legend, to terminate in Faust's perdition ; but
rather as if an altogether different end must
be provided for him. Faust, indeed, wild and
wilful as he is, cannot be regarded as a wicked,
much less as an utterly reprobate man : we do
not reckon him ill-intentioned, but misguided
and miserable; he falls into crime, not by
purpose, but by accident and blindness. To
send him to the Pit of Wo, to render such a
character the eternal slave of Mephistopheles,
would look like making darkness triumphant
over light, blind force over erring reason ; or,
at best, were cutting the Gordian knot, not
loosing it. If we mistake not, Goethe's Faust
will have a finer moral than the old nursery-
tale, or the other plays and tales that have been
founded on it. Our seared and blighted, yet
still noble Faust, will not end in the madness
of horror, but in Peace grounded on better
Knowledge. Whence that Knowledge is to
come, what higher and freer world of Art or
Religion may be hovering in the mind of the
po»?t, we will not try to surmise : perhaps in
bright aerial emblematic glimpses, he may yet
sh<iw it us, transient and afar oiT, yet clear

with orient beauty, as a Land of Wonders, and
new Poetic Heaven.

With regard to that part of the work already
finished, we must here say little more. > Faust,
as it yet stands, is, indeed, only a stating of
the difficulty; but a stating of it wisely, truly,
and with deepest poetic emphasis. For how
many living hearts, even now imprisoned in
the perplexities of Doubt, do these wild pierc-
ing tones of Faust, his withering agonies and
fiery desperation, " speak the word they have
long been waiting to hear !" A nameless pain
had long brooded over the soul: here, by some
light touch, it starts into form and voice; we
see it and know it, and see that another also
knew it. This Faust is as a mystic Oracle for
the mind; a Dodona grove, where the oaks
and fountains prophesy to us of our destiny,
and murmur unearthly secrets.

How all this is managed, and the poem so
curiously fashioned; how the clearest insight
is combined with the keenest feeling, and the
noblest and wildest imagination; by what soft
and skilful finishing these so heterogeneous
elements are blended in fine harmony, and the
dark world of spirits, with its merely meta-
physical entities, plays like a chequering of
strange mysterious shadows among the palpa-
ble objects of material life; and the whole, firm
in its details, and sharp and solid as reality,
yet hangs before us melting on all sides into
air, and free, and light, as the baseless fabric
of a vision ; all this the reader can learn fully
nowhere but, by long study, in the work itself.
The general scope and spirit of it we have
now endeavoured to sketch: the few incidents
on which, with the aid of much dialogue and
exposition, these have been brought out, are
perhaps already known to most readers, and,
at all events, need not be minutely recapitu-
lated here. Mephistopheles has promised to
himself that he will lead Faust "through the
bustling inanity of life," but that its pleasures
shall tempt and not satisfy him; "food shall
hover before his eager lips, but he shall beg
for nourishment in vain." Hitherto they have
travelled but a short way together; yet, so far,
the Denier has kept his engagement well.
Faust, endowed with all earthly, and many
more than earthly advantages, is still no nearer
contentment; nay, after a brief season of
marred and uncertain joj% he finds himself sunk
into deeper wretchedness than ever. Marga-
ret, an innocent girl whom he loves, but has
betrayed, is doomed to die, and already crazed
in brain, less for her own errors than for his:
in a scene of true pathos, he would fain per-
suade her to escape with him, by the aid of
Mephistopheles, from prison; but in the in-
stinct of her heart she finds an invincible
aversion to the Fiend; she chooses death and
ignomin)% rather than life and love, if of his
giving. At her final refusal, Mephistopheles
proclaims that " she is judged," a " voice froru
Above" that " she is saved ;" the action termi-
nates; Faust and Mephistopheles vanish from
our sight, as into boundless Space.

And now, after so long a preface, we arrive
at Helena, the " Classico-romantic Phantasma-
goria," -0 nere these Adventurers, strangely
F

63

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

altered by travel, and in altogether different
costume, have again risen into sight. Our long
preface was not needless, for Faust and Helena,
though separated by some wide and marvel-
lous interval, are nowise disconnected. The
characters may have changed by absence;
Faust is no longer the same bitter and tem-
pestuous man, but appears in chivalrous com-
posure, with a silent energy, a grave, and, as
it were, commanding ardour. Mephistopheles
alone may retain somewhat of his old spiteful
shrewdness: but still the past state of these
personages must illustrate the present; and
onl}' by what we remember of them, can we
try to interpret what we see. In fact, the style
0^ Helena is altogether new : quiet, simple, joy
ful ; passing by a short gradation from Classic
dignity into Romantic pomp; it has every-
where a full and sunny tone of colouring; re-
sembles not a tragedy, but a gay gorgeous
mask. Neither is Faust's former history al-
luded to, or any explanation given us of oc-
currences that may have intervened. It is a
light scene, divided by chasms and unknown
distance from that other country of gloom.
Nevertheless, the latter still frowns in the
back-ground; nay, rises aloft, shutting out fur-
ther view, and our gay vision attains a new
significance as it is painted on that canvas of
storm.

We question whether it ever occurred to any
English reader of Faust, that the work needed
a continuation, or even admitted one. To the
Germans, however, in their deeper study of a
favourite poem, which also they have full
means of studying, this has long been no se-
cret; and such as have seen with what zeal
most German readers cherish Favst, and how
the younger of them will recite whole scenes
of it, with a vehemence resembling that of
Gil Bias and his Figures Hibemoises, in the
streets of Oviedo, may estimate the interest
excited in that country by the following Notice
from the Author, published last year in his
Kunst nnd Allcrthum.

" Helena. Interlude in Faust.

" Faust's character, in the elevation to
which latter refinement, working on the old
rude Tradition, has raised it, represents a man
who, feeling impatient and imprisoned within
the limits of mere earthly existence, regards
the possession of the highest knowledge, the
enjoyment of the fairest blessings, as insuffi-
cient even in the slightest degree to satisfy his
longing : a spirit, accordingly, which, strug-
gling out on all sides, ever returns the more
unhappy.

"This form of mind is so accordant with
our modern disposition, that various persons
of ability have been induced to undertake the
treatment of such a subject. My manner of
attempting it obtained approval: distinguished
men considered the matter, and commented
on my performance; all which I thankfully
observed. At the same time I could not but
wonder that none of those who undertook a
continuation and completion of my Fragment,
had lighted on the thought, which seemed so
obvious, that the compoGition of a Second Part

must necessarily elevate itself altogether away
from the hampered sphere of the First, and
conduct a man of such a nature into higher
regions, under worthier circumstances.

" How I, for my part, had determined to essay
this, lay silently before my own mind, from
time to time exciting me to some progress;
while, from all- and each, I carefully guarded
my secret, still in hope of bringing the work
to the wished-for issue. Now, however, I must
no longer keep back; or, in publishing my
collective Endeavours, conceal any further se-
cret from the world; to which, on the con-
trary, I feel myself bound to submit my whole
labours, even though in a fragmentary state.

" Accordingly I have resolved that the above-
named Piece, a smaller drama, complete withia
itself, but pertaining to the Second Part of
Favst, shall be forthwith presented in the Fir&t
Portion of my Works.

" The wide chasm between that well-known
dolorous conclusion of the first part, and the
entrance of an antique Grecian Heroine, is not
yet overarched ; meanwhile, as a preamble, my
readers will accept what follows :

"The old Legend tells us, and the Puppet-
play fails not to introduce the scene, that Faust,
in his imperious pride of heart, required from
Mephistopheles the love of the fair Helena of
Greece ; in which demand the other, after some
reluctance, gratified him. Not to overlook so
important a concern in our work, was a duty
for us ; and how we have endeavoured to dis-
charge it, will be seen in this Interlude. But
what may have furnished the proximate occa-
sion of such an occurrence, and how, afler
manifold hindrances, our old magical Crafts-
man can have found means to bring back the
individual Helena, in person, out of Orcus into
Life, must, in this stage of the business, remain
undiscovered. For the present, it is enough if
our reader will admit that the real Helena may
step forth, on antique tragedy-cothurnus, before
her primitive abode in Sparta. We then re-
quest him to observe in what way and manner
Faust will presume to court favour from this
royal all-famous Beauty of the world."

To manage so unexampled a courtship will
be admitted to be no easy task; for the mad
hero's prayer must here be fulfilled to its
largest extent, before the business can proceed
a step; and the gods, it is certain, are not in
the habit of annihilating time and space, even
to "make two lovers happy." Our Marlowe
was not ignorant of this mysterious liaison of
Faust's: however, he slurs it over briefly, and
without fronting the difficulty; Helena merely
flits across the scene as an airy pageant, with-
out speech or personality, and makes the love-
sick philosopher " immortal by a kiss." Pro-
bably there are not many that would grudge
Faust such immortality ; we at least nowise
envy him : for who does not see that this, in
all human probability, is no real Helena, but
only some hollow phantasm attired in her
shape, while the true Daughter of Leda still
dwells afar off in the inane kingdoms of Dis,
and heeds not and hears not the most poten:
invocations of black-art T Another n-itter it is
to call forth the frail fair one in very deed ; not in
form only, but in soul and life, the same Heleoa

GOETHE'S HELENA.

63

whom the Son of Atreus wedded, and for whose
sake Ilion ceased lo be. For Faust must be-
hold this Wonder, not as she seemed, but as
she was; and at his unearthly desire, the Past
shall become Present; and the antique Time
must be new-created, and give back its per-
sons and circumstances, though so long since
reingulphed in the silence of the blank by-gone
Eternity! However, Mephistopheles is a cun-
ning genius; and will not start at common
obstacies. Perhaps, indeed, he is Metaphysi-
cian enough to know that Time and Space are
but quiddities, not entities ;/owis of the human
soul, Laws of Thought, which to us appear in-
dependent existences, but, out of our brains,
have no existence whatever; in which case the
whole nodus maybe more of a logical cobweb,
than any actual material perplexity. Let us
see how he unravels it, or cuts it.

The scene is Greece; not our poor oppressed
Ottr'man Morea, but the old heroic Hellas; for
the sun again shines on Sparta, and " Tynda-
rus' high House" stands here bright, massive,
and entire, among its mountains, as when
Menelaus revisited it, wearied with his ten
years of warfare, and eight of sea-roving. He-
ena appears in front of the Palace, with a
Chorus of captive Trojan maidens. These are
but Shades, we know, summoned from the deep
realms of Hades, and imbodied for the nonce :
but the Conjurer has so managed it, that they
themselves have no consciousness of this their
true and highly precarious state of existence:
the intermediate three thousand years have
been obliterated, or compressed into a point;
and these fair figures, on revisiting the upper
air, entertain not the slightest suspicion that
they had ever left it, or, indeed, that any thing
special had happened; save only that they had
just disembarked from the Spartan ships, and
been sent forward by Menelaus to provide for
his reception, which is shortly to follow. AH
these indispensable preliminaries, it would ap-
pear, Mephistopheles has arranged with con-
siderable success. Of the poor Shades, and
their entire ignorance, he is so sure that he
would not scruple to cross-question them on
this very point, so ticklish for his whole enter-
prise; nay, cannot forbear, now and then,
throwing out malicious hints to mystify Hele-
na herself, and raise the strangest doubts as to
her personal identity. Thus on one occasion,
as we shall see, he reminds her of a scandal
which had gone abroad of her being a double
personage, of her living with King Proteus in
Egypt at the very time when she lived with
Beau Paris in Troy; and, what is more extra-
ordinary still, of her having been dead, and
married to Achilles afterwards in the Island of
Leuce! Helena admits that it is the most in-
explicable thing on earth; can only conjecture
that "she a Vision was joined to him a vision;"
and then sinks into a reverie, or swoon, in the
arms of the Chorus. In this way, can the
nether-world Scapin sport with the perplexed
Beauty; and by sly practice make her show us
the secret, which is unknown to herself!

For the present, however, there is no thought
of such scruples. Helena and her maidens,
far from doubting that they are real authentic
denizens of this world, feel themselves in a

deep embarrassmen. about its cincerns. From
the dialogue, in long Alexandrines, or choral
Recitative, we soon gather that matters wear a
threatening aspect. Helena salutes her pater
nal and nuptial mansion in such style as may
beseem an erring wife, returned from so event-
ful an elopement; alludes with charitable le-
nience to her frailty; which, indeed, it would
seem, was nothing but the merest accident, for
she had simply gone to pay her vows, "accord-
ing to sacred wont," in the temple of Cytherea,
when the "Phrygian robber" seized her; and
further informs us that the Immortals still
foreshow lo her a dubious future:

For seldom, in our swift ship, did my husband deign
To look on nie ; and word of comfort spake he none.
As if a-brooding mischief, there he silent sat ;
Until, when steered into Enrotas' bending bay,
The first ships with their prows but kissed the land.
He rose, and said, as by the voice of gods inspired :
Here will I that my warriors, troop by troop, disbark;
I muster them, in battle-order, on the ocean strand.
But thou, go forward, up Eurotas' sacred bank,
Guiding the steeds along the flower-besprinkled space,
Till thou arrive on the fair plain where I.acedaemon,
Erewhile a broad fruit-bearing field, has piled its roofs
Amid the mountains, and sends up the snmke of hearths.
Then enter thou the high-towered Palace ; call the Maids
I left at parting, and the wise old Stewardess :
With her inspect the Treasures which thy father left,
And I, in war or peace still adding, have heaped up.
Thou findest all in order standing ; for it is
The prince's privilege to see, at his return,
Each household item as it was, and where it was ;
For of himself the slave hath power to alter nought.

It appears, moreover, that Manelaus has
given her directions to prepare for a solemn
Sacrifice : the ewers, the pateras, the altar, the
axe, dry wood, are all to be in readiness, only
of the victim there was no mention ; acircum
stance from which Helena fails not to draw
some rather alarming surmises. However, re
fleeting that all issues rest with the higher
Powers, and that, in any case, irresolution and
procrastination will avail her nothing, she at
length determines on this grand enterprise of
entering the palace, to make a general review
and enters accordingly. But long before any
such business could have been finished, she
hastily returns with a frustrated, r.ay, terrified
aspect; much to the astonishment of her Cho-
rus, who pressingly inquire the cause.

HELENA {who has left the door-leaves open, agitated.)
Beseems not that Jove's daughter shrink with cummon

fright,
Nor by the brief cold touch of Fear be chill'd and stunned.
Yet the Horror, which ascending, in the womb of Xig'at,
From deeps of Chaos, rolls itself together many-shaped,
Like glowing Clouds from out the mountain's fire-throat|
In threatening ghastliness, may shake even heroes'

hearts.
So have the Stygian here to-day appointed me
A welcome to my native Mansion, such that fain
From the oft-trod, long-wished-for threshold, like a guest
That has took leave, I would withdraw my steps, for ay
But no ! Retreated have I to the light, nor shall
Ye farther force rne, angry Powers, be who ye may,
New expiations will I use ; then purified,
The blaze of the Hearth may greet the Mistress as the
Lord.

PANTHALIS the CHOUAGE.*

Discover, noble queen, to us thy handmaidens.
That wait by thee in love, what misery has befallet?

* Leader of the Chorus.

«4

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

HELEKA.

What I have seen, ye too with your own eyes shall see,

If Night have not already sucked her Phantoms back

To the abysses of her wonder-bearing breast.

Yet, would ye know this thins, I '«ll '• y" '" words.

When bent on present duly, yet with anxious thought,

1 solemnly set foot [n these high royal Halls,

The silent, vacant passages astounded me ;

For tread of hasty footsteps nowhere met the ear,

Nor bustle as of busy menial-work the eye.

No maid comes forth to me, no Stewardess, such as

Still wont with friendly welcome to salute all guests,

But as, alone advancing, 1 approach the Hearth,

There, by the ashy remnant of dim outbMrnt coals,

Sits, crouching on the ground, up-muflled, some huge

Crone ;
Not as in sleep she sat, but as in drowsy muse.
With ordering voice 1 bid her rise ; nought doubting 't was
The Stewardess the King, at parting hence, had left.
But, heedless, shrunk together, sits she motionless ;
And as I chid, at last outstretched her lean right arm.
As if she beckgned me from hall and hearth away.
I turn indignant from her, and hasten out forthwith
Towards the steps whereon aloft the Thalamos
Adorned rises ; and near by it the Treasure-room ;
When lo ! the Wonder starts abruptly from the floor ;
Imperious, barring my advance, displays herself
In haggard stature, hollow bloodshot eyes ; a shape
Of hideous strangeness, to perple.x all sight and thought.
But I discourse to the air : for words in vain attenipt
To body forth to sight the form that dwells in us.
There see herself! She ventures forward to the light!
Here we are masters till our Lord and King shall come.
The ghastly births of Night, Apollo, beauty's friend,
Disperses back to their abysses, or subdues.
(PHOHCTAS enters on the threshold, between the door-
posts.)
CHORUS.

Much have I seen, and strange, though the ringlets

Youthful and thick still wave round my temples:

Terrors a many, war and its horrors

Witnessed I once in Ilion's night,

When it fell

Thorough the clanging, cloud-covered din of

Onrushing warriors, heard I th' Immortals

Shouting in anger, heard I Bellona's

Iron-toned voice resound from without

City-wards.

Ah ! the city yet stood ; with its
Bulwarks ; lUion safely yet
Towered ; but spreading from house over
House, the flame did begirdle us ;
Sea-like, red, loud, and billowy ;
Hither, thither, as tempest-floods,
Over the death-circled city.

Flying, saw 1, through heat and through
Gloom and glare of that fire-ocean.
Shapes of Gods in ttieir wralhfulnessj
Stalking grim, fierce, and terrible,
Giant-high, through the luridly
Flame-dyed dusk of that vapour.

Did I see it, or was it but
Terror of heart that fashioned
Forms so afl'righting t Know can I
Never : but here that 1 view this
Horrible Thing with my own eyes,
This of a surety believe I :
Yea, I could clutch 't in my fingers
Did not, from Shape so dangerous,
Fear at a distance keep me.

Which of old Phorcys'

Daughters then art thou 1

For I compare thee to

That generation.

Art thou belike, of thi- Graiae,

Gray-born, one eye, and one tooth

Using alternate.

Child or descendant ■}

Darest thou. Haggard,
Close by such beauty,
'I'ore the divine glance of
Pl.ii;bus, display thee ?
Bu; display as it pleases thee ;
For the uirly he heedeth not.
As his bright eye yet never did
Look on a shadow.

But as mortals, alas for it!

Law of destiny burdens us

With the unspeakable eye-sorrow

Which sin h a sight, unblessed, detestable.

Doth in lovers of beauty awaken.

Nay then, hear, since Ihou shamelessly
Com'st forth fronting us, henr only
Curses, hear all imnner of threatenings,
Out of the scornful lips of the happier
That were made by the Deities.

PlIOnCTAS.

Old is the saw, but high and true remains its sense,
That Shame and Beauty ne'er, together hand in hand,
Were seen pursue their journey over the earth's green

path.
Deep rooted dwells an ancient hatred in these two ;
So that wherever, on their way, one haps to meet
The other, each on its adversary turns his back :
Then hastens forth the faster on its separate road;
Shame all in sorrow, Beauty pert and light of mood ;
Till the hollow night of Orcus catches it at length,
If age and wrinkles have not tamed it long before.
So you, ye wantons, wafted hither from strange lands,
I find in tunmlt, like the cranes' hoarse jingling flight.
That over our heads, in long-drawn cloud, sends down
Its creaking gabble, and tempts the silent wanderer that

he look
Aloft at them a moment: but they go their way,
And he goes his; so also will it be with us.

Who then are ye ■? that here in Bacchanalian-wise,
Like drunk ones ye dare uproar at this Palace-gate 1
Who then are ye tliat at the Stewardess of the King's

House
Ye howl, as at the moon the crabbed hrood of dogs 1
Think ye 'tis hid from me what manner of thing ye arel
Ye war-begotten, fight-bred, feather-headed crew!
Lascivious crew, seducing as seduced, that waste.
In rioting, alike the soldier's and the burgher's strength !
Here seeing you gathered, seems as a cicada-swarm
Had lighted, covering the herbage of the fields.
Consumers ye of other's thrift, ye greedy-mouthed
Quick squanderers of fruits men gain by tedious toil ;
Cracked market-ware, stol'n, bought, and bartered troop

of slaves !

We have thought it right to give so much
of these singular expositions and altercations,
in the words, as far as might be, of the parties
themselves ; happy, could we, in any measure,
have transfused the broad, yet rich and chaste
simplicity of these long iambics ; or imitated
the tone as we have done the metre, of that
choral song; its rude earnestness, and tortuous,
awkward-looking, artless strength, as we have
done its dactyls and anapaests. The task was
no easy one ; and we remain, as might have
been expected, little contented with our efforts;
having, indeed, nothing to boast of, except a
sincere fidelity to the original. If the reader,
through such distortion, can obtain any glimpse
of Helena itself, he will not only pardon us,
but thank us. To our own minds, at least,
there is everywhere a strange, piquant, quite
peculiar, charm in these imitations of the old
Grecian style; a dash of the ridiculous, if we
might say so, is blended with the sublime, yet
blended with it softly, and only to temper its
austerity : for often, so graphic is the delinea

GOETHE'S HELENA.

m

tion, we could almost feel as if a vista were
opened through the long gloomy distance of
ages, and we with our modern eyes and modern
levity, beheld afar off, in clear light, the very
figures of that old grave time ; saw them again
living in their old antiquarian costume and
environment, and heard them audibly dis-
course in a dialect which had long been dead.
Of all this no man is more master than Goethe ;
as a modern-antique, his i/>/i/gc«iemustbe con-
sidered unrivalled in poetry. A similar, tho-
roughly classical spirit will be found in this
First Part of Helena; yet the manner of the
two pieces is essentially different. Here, we
should say, we are more reminded of Sophocles,
perhaps of ^Eschylus, than of Euripides: it is
more rugged, copious, energetic, inartificial;
a still more ancient style. How very primi-
tive, for instance, are Helena and Phorcyas in
their whole deportment here ! How frank and
downright in speech; above all, how minute
and specific; no glimpse of "philosophical
culture;" no such thing as a "general idea;"
thus, every different object seems a new un-
known one, and requires to be separately
stated. In like manner, what can be more
honest and edifying than the chant of the
Chorus] With what inimitable naivete they
recur to the sack of Troy, and endeavour to
convince themselves that they do actually see
this "horrible Thing;" then lament the law of
Destiny which dooms them to such " unspeaka-
ble eye-sorrow;" and, finall)', break forth into
sheer cursing ; to all which, Phorcyas answers
in the like free and plain-spoken fashion.

But to our story. This hard-tempered and
so dreadfully ugly old lady, the reader cannot
help suspecting, at first sight, to be some
cousin-german of Mephistopheles, or, indeed,
that great Actor of all Work himself; which
latter suspicion the devilish nature of the bel-
dame, by degrees, confirms into a moral cer-
tainty. There is a sarcastic malice in the
" wise old Stewardess" which cannot be mis-
taken. Meanwhile the Chorus and the beldame
indulge still further in mutual abuse; she up-
braiding them with their giddiness and wanton
disposition; they chanting unabatedly her ex-
treme deficiency in personal charms. Helena,
however, interposes ; and the old Gorgon, pre-
tending that she has not till now recognised
the stranger to be her mistress, smooths her-
self into gentleness, aflects the greatest hu-
manity, and even appeals to her for protection
against the insolence of these young ones.
But wicked Phorcyas is only waiting her op-
portunity; still neither unwilling to wound,
nor afraid to strike. Helena, to expel some
unpleasant vapours of doubt, is reviewing her
past history, in concert with Phorcyas ; and
observes that the latter had been appointed
Stewardess by Menelaus, on his return from
his Cretan expedition to Sparta. No sooner is
Sparta mentioned, than the crone, with an ofB-
cious air of helping out the story, adds :

Wliich ihou forsookest, Ilion's tower-encircled town
Preferring, and the unexlifiusted joys of Love.

Remind me not of jnys ; an all ton heavy vvo's
Infinitude soon follow'd, crnshing breast and heart.

PHOKCTAS.
But I have heard thou livest on earth a double life;
In Ilion seen, and seen the while in Egypt too.

HELENA.

Confound not so the weakness of my weary sense ;
Here even, who or what I am, I know it not.

PHOnCTAS.
Then I have heard how, from the hollow Realm ol

Shades,
Achilles, too, did fervently unite himself to thee;
Thy earlier love reclaiming, spite of all Fate's laws.

HELENA.
To him the Vision, I a Vision joined myself:
It was a dream, the very words may teach us this.
But I am faint ; and to myself a Vision grow.

{Sinks into the arms of one division of the Chorus.)

CHORUS.
Silence! silence!
Evil-eyed, evil-tnngued. thou!
Thro' sn shrivclled-up, one-tooth'd a
Mouth, what good can come from that
Throat of horrors detestable —

— In which style they continue musically rating
her, till "Helena has recovered, and again
stands in the middle of the Chorus ;" when
Phorcyas, with the most wheedling air, hastens
to greet her, in a new sort of verse, as if no-
thing whatever had happened:

PHORCTAS.

Issues forth from passing cloud the sun of this bright day;
If when veil'd she so could charm us, now her beams in

splendour blind.
As the world doth look before thee, in such gentle wise

thou look'st.
Let them call me so unlovely, what is lovely know I well.

Come so wavering from the Void which in that faintncM

circled me,
Glad I were to rest again, a space : so weary are my

limbs.
Yet it well becometh queens, all mortals it becometh welJ,
To possess their hearts in patience, and await what can

betide.

PHORCTAS.

Whilst thou standest in thy greatness, in thy beauty here^
Says thy look that thou cnnjmandest: what command'st
thou ? Speak it out.

HELENA.

To conclude your quarrel's idle loitering be prepared :
Haste, arrange the Sacrifice, the King commanded me.

PHORCTAS.

Alt is ready in the Palace, bowl and tripod, sharp-gTOUnd

a.\e ;
For besprinkling, for befuming : now the Victim let us seo.

HELENA.

This the King appointed not.

P:iORCTAS.

SpoKe not of this 1 O word of ^ol

HELENA.
What strange sorrow overpowers thee 1

PHORCTAS.

Queen, 'tis Ihou he meant.

HELENA.

And these.

PHORCTAS.

M

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

O wo ! O wo !

PHOnCYAS

Thou fallest by the axe's stroke.

UELEITA.

Horrible, yet look'd for: hapless I!

PHOUCVAS.

Inevitable seems it me.

CHORUS.

Ah, and us f What will become of us 1

FHORCTAS.

She dies a noble death :
Ye, on the high Beam within that bears the rafters and

the roof.
As in birding-time so many woodlarks, in a row, shall

sprawl.
(HELENA and CHORUS Stand astounded and terror-struck ;
in expressive, well-concerted grouping.)

PHOnCYAS.
Poor spectres! — All like frozen statues there ye stand,
In fright to leave the Day which not belongs to you.
No man or spectre, more than you, is fund to quit
The Upper Light ; yet rescue, respite finds not one :
All kTiow it, all believe it, few delight in It.
Enough, 't is over with you ! And .so let's to work.

How the cursed old beldame enjoys the
agony of these poor Shades: nay, we suspect,
she is laughing in her sleeve at the very clas-
sicism of this drama, which she herself has
contrived, and is even now helping to enact!
Observe, she has quitted her octameter tro-
chaics again, and taken to plain blank verse;
a sign, perhap.s, that she is getting weary of
the whole classical concern ! But however
this may be, she now claps her hands ; where-
upon certain distorted dwarf figures appear at
the door, and with great speed and agility, at
her order, bring forth the sacrificial apparatus ;
on which she fails not to descant demonstra-
tively, explaining the purpose of the several
articles as they are successively fitted up before
her. Here is the "gold-horned" altar, the
"axe glitteringover its silver edge :" then there
must be " water-urns to wash the black blood's
defilement," and a " precious mat," to kneel on,
for the victim is to be beheaded queenlike. On
all hands, mortal horror! But Phorcyas hints
darkly that there is still a way of escape left ;
this, of course, every one is in deepest eager-
ness to learn. Here, one would think, she
might for once come to the point without di-
gression ; but Phorcyas has her own way of
stating a fact. She thus commences :

PHOHCYAS,

Whoso, collecting store of wealth, at home abides
To parget in due season his high dwelling's walls,
Kn(\ prudent guard his roof from inmad of the rain,
^ith him, thnnigh long sliil years of life, it shall be well.
But he who lightly, in kis folly, bent to rove,
O'ersteps with wand'ring foot his threshold's sacred line,
Will find, at his return, the ancient place, indeed
Still there, but else all alter'd, if not overthrown.

/ HELENA.

Why these trite sawsl Thou wert to teach us, not re-
prove.

PHOnCTAS.

Historical it is, is nowise a reproof.

Sea-roving, steer'd King Menelaus, brisk from bay to bay j

Descended on all ports and isles, a pliir /ering fee,
And still came back with booty, which yet moulders here,
Then by the walls of Ilion spent he ten long years ;
How many in his hrjtneward voyage were hard to know.
But all thi.s while how stands it here with Tyndarus'
High house 1 How stands it with bis own domains
around?

HELENA.

Is love of railing, then, so interwoven with thee, '
That thus, except to chide, thou canst not move thy lips 1

PHORCYAS.
So many years forsaken stood the mountain glen ;
Which, north from Sparta, towards the higher land as-
cends
Behind Taygetus; where, as yet a merry brook,
Eurotas gurgles on, and then, along our Vale,
In sep'rate streams abroad outflowing feeds your Swans,
There, backwards in the rocky hills, a daring race
Have fix'd themselves, forth issuing from Cimmerian

Night ;
An inexpugnable stronghold have piled aloft,
From which they harry land and people as they please.

HELENA.

How could they 1 All impossible it seems to me.

PHORCYAS.

Enough of time they had ! 't is haply twenty years.

HELENA.
Is One the Master? Are there Robbers many? leagued 1

PHORCYAS.
Not Robbers these : yet many, and the Master One.
Of him I suy no ill, though hither too he came.
What mi{;ht not he have took? yet did content himsell
With some small Present, so he called it, Tribute, not.

HELENA.

How looks he?

PHORCYAS.

Nowise ill ! To me he pleasant look'd.
A jocund, gallant, hardy, handsome man it is.
And rational In speech, ms of the Greeks are few.
We call the folk Barbarian ; yet I question much
If one tiiere be so cruel, as at Ilion
Full many of our best heroes man-devouring were.
I do respect his greatness, and confide in him.
And for his Tower! This with your own eyes ye shouM

see :
Another thing it is than clumsy boulder-work.
Such as our Fathers, nothing scrupling, huddled up,
Cyclopean, and like Cyclops-builders, one rude crag
On other rude crags tumbling : in that Tow'r of theirs
'Tis plumb and level all, and done by square and rule.
Look on it from without! Heav'tiward it soars on high,
.So strait, so tight of joint, and mirror-smooth as steel :
To clamber there — Nay, even your very Thought slides

down,
And then, within, such courts, broad spaces, all around,
With masonry encompass'd of every sort and use
There have ye arches, archlets, pillars, pillarlets,
Biilconies, galleries, for looking out and in,
And coats of arms.

CHORUS.

Of arms? What mean st thou?
PHORCYAS

Ajax bore
A twisted Snake on his shield, as ye yourselves have

seen.
The Seven also before Thebes bore carved work
Each on his Shield ; devices rich and full of Sense :
There saw ye moon and stars of the nightly heaven's

vault.
And goddesses, and heroes, ladcers, torches, swords.
And dangerous tools, such as in storm o'erfall good

towns.
Escutcheons of like sort our heroes also bear:

GOETHE'S HELENA.

There sfte ye lions, eagles, claws besides and bills,.
The buff ilo-hnrns, and wings, and roses, peacock's tails ;
And bandelets, gold and black and silver, blue and red.
Such like are llicre uphung in Hallri, row after row ;
In halls, so large, so lofty, boundless as the World;
There might ye dance;

CHoncs.
Ha! Tell us, are there dancers there 1

PUOnCTAS.

The best on earth ! A golden-haired, fresh, younker

band,
They breathe of youth ; Paris alone so breathed when to
Our Queen he came too near.

Thou quite dost lose
The tenor of thy story : say me thy last word.

PHORCTAS, I

Thysplf wilt say it: say in earnest audibly, Yes!
Next moment, 1 surround thee with that Tow'r.

The Step is questionable: for is not this
Phorcyas a person of the most suspicious cha-
racter; or rather, is it not certain that she is a
Turk in grain, and will almost, of a surety,
go how it may, turn good into bad] And yet,
what is to be done 1 A trumpet, said to be
that of Menelaus, sounds in the distance; at
which the Chorus shrink together in increased
terror. Phorcyas coldl\^ reminds them of Dei-
))hobus, with his slit nose, as a small token of
Menelaus' turn of thinking on these matters ;
supposes, however, that there is now nothing
for it but to wait the issue, and die with pro-
priety. Helena has no wish to die either with
propriety or impropriety; she pronounces,
though with a faltering resolve, the definitive
Yes. A burst of joy breaks from the Chorus;
thick fog rises all round; in the midst of
v/hich, as we learn from their wild tremulous
chant, they feel themselves hurried through
the air: Eurotas is swept from sight, and the
cry of its Swans fades ominously away in the
distance; for now, as we suppose, "Tyndarus'
high House," with all its appendages, is rush-
ing back into the depths of the Past; old Lacc-
dfrmon has again become new Miseira ; only
Taygetus, with another name, remains un-
changed; and the King of Rivers feeds among
his sedges quite a different race of Swans than
those of Leda ! The mist is passing away, but
yet, to the horror of the Chorus, no clear day-
light returns. Dim masses rise round them:
Phorcyas has vanished. Is it a castle 1 Is it
a cavern? They find themselves in the "In-
terior Court of the Tower, surrounded with
rich fantastic buildings of the middle ages!"

If, hitherto, we have moved along, with con-
siderable convenience, over ground singular
enough, indeed, yet, the nature of it once un-
derstood, affording firm footing and no unplea-
sant scenery, we come now to a strange mixed
element, in which it seems as if neither walk-
ing, swimming, nor even flying, could rightly
avail us. We have cheerfully admitted, and
honestly believed, that Helena and her Chorus
were Shades; but now they appear tp be
changing into mere Ideas, mere Metaphors, or
poetic Thoughts! Faust, too, for hr, as every
one sees, must be lord of this Fortress, is a

much altered man since we last met him,
Nay, sometimes we could fancy he were only
acting a part on this occasion ; were a mere
mummer, representing not so much his owu
natural personali'y, as some shadow and im-
personation of his history; not so much his
own Faustship, as the tradition of Faust's ad-
ventures, and the Genius of the People among
whom this took its rise. For, indeed, he has
strange gifts of flying through the air, and
living, in apparent friendship and content-
ment, with mere Eidolons; and, being exces-
sively reserved withal, he becomes not a little
enigmatic. In fact, our whole "Interlude"
changes its character at this point: the Greek
style passes abruptly into the Spanish; at one
bound we have left the Seven before Thebes, and
got into the Virla es Sueno. The acti« n, too, be-
comes more and more typical ; or rather, we
should say, half-typical ; for it will neither hold
rightly together as allegory nor as matter of
fact.

Thus do we see ourselves hesitating on the
verge of a wondrous region, "neither sea nor
good dry land;" full of shapes and musical
tones, but all dim, fluctuating, unsubstantial,
chaotic. Danger there is that the critic may
require "both oar and sail;" nay, it will be
well if, like that other great Traveller, he meet
not some vast vacuity, where, all unawares,

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drop
Ten thousand fathom deep ....

and so keep falling till

The strong rebulTof some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurry him
As many miles aloft ....

— Meaning, probably, that he is to be "blown
up" by nonplused and justly exasperated Re-
view-reviewers ! — Nevertheless, unappalled by
these possibilities, we venture forward into
this impalpable Limbo; and must endeavour
to render such account of the "sensible spe-
cies," and " ghosts of defunct bodies," we may
meet there, as shall be moderately satisfactory
to the reader.

In the little notice from the Author, quoted
above, we were bid specially to observe in
what way and manner Faust would presume
to court this World's-beauty. We must say,
his style of gallantry seems to us of the most
chivalrous and high-flown description, if,
indeed, it is not a little euphui^tk. In their
own eyes, Helena and her Chorus, encircled
in this Gothic Court, appear, for some minutes,
no better than captives; but, suddenly is-
suing from galleries and portals, and descend-
ing the stairs in stately procession, are seen .-v
numerous suite of Pages, whose gay habili-
ments and red downy cheeks are greatly ad-
mired by the Chorus: these bear with them a
throne and canopy, with footstools and cush
ions, and every other necessary apparatus ^f
royalty; the portable machine, as we gather
from the Chorus, is soon put together, and
Helena, being reverently beckoned into the
same, is thus forthwith constituted Sovereign
of the whole Establishment. To herself sucn
royalty still seems a little dubious; but no
sooner have the Pages, in long train, fairlj^

68

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

descended, than " Faust appears above, on the
stairs, in knightly court-dress of the middle
ages, and with deliberate dignity comes down,"
astonishing the poor " feather-headed" Chorus
with the gracefulness of his deportment and
his moie than human beauty. He leads with
him a culprit in fetters; and, by way of intro-
duction, explains to Helena that this man,
Lynceus, has deserved death by his miscon-
duct; but that to her, as Queen of the Castle,
must a])pertain the right of dooming or of par-
doning him. The crime of Lynceus is, in-
deed, of an extraordinary nature: he was
Warder of the Tower; but now, though gifted,
as his name imports, with the keenest vision, he
has failed in warning Faust that so august a
visitor was approaching, and thus occasioned
the most dreadful breach of politeness. Lyn-
ceus pleads guilty: quick-sighted as a lynx,
in usual cases, he has been blinded with ex-
cess of light, in this instance. While looking
towards the orient at the " course of morning,"
he noticed "a sun rise wonderfully in the
.south," and, all his senses taken captive by
such surpassing beauty, he no longer knew
his right hand from his left, or could move a
limb, or utter a word, to announce her arrival.
Under these peculiar circumstances, Helena
sees room for extending the royal prerogative ;
and, after expressing unfeigned regret at this
so fatal influence of her charms over the
whole male sex, dismisses the Warder with a
reprieve. We must beg our readers to keep
an eye on this Innamorato; for there may be
meaning in him. Here is the pleading, which
produced so fine an effect given in his own
words :

Let me kneel and let me view her,

Let me live, or let me die,

Sliive to this high vifoman, truer

Than a bondsman born, am I.

Watrhinff o'er the course of morning,
Eastward, as I mark it run.
Rose there, all the sky adorning,
Strangely in the South a sun.

Draws my look towards those places,
Not the valley, not the hpiirht,
Not the earth's or heaven's spaces ;
She alone the queen of light.

Eyesight truly hath been lent me.
Like the lynx on liigliest tree ;
Boots not ; for aniaze hath shent me ;
Do I dream, or do I see 1

Knew I aught? or could I ever
Thhik of tow'r or bolted gate f
Va;ionrs waver, vapours sever,
Such a goddess comes in state !

Eye and heart I must surrender
Drown'd as in a radiant sea ;
"Tiat high creature with her splendour
-*linding all hath blinded me.

I forgot the warder's duty;
Triiinpet, challenge, word of call:
Chain me, threaten : sure this beauty
Stills thy anger, saves her thrall.

Save him accordingly she did; but no soon-
er IS he dismissed, and Faust has made a re-
maric on the multitude of "arrows" which she
is darting forth on all sides, than Lynceus re-
turns in a sti' madder humour. "Re-enter

Lynceus with a chest, and men carrying other
chests behind him."

LTITCEUS.
Thou see'st me. Queen, again advanse,
The wealthy begs of thee one glance;
Ho look'd at thee, and feels e'er since
As beggar poor, and rich as prince.

What was I erst ■? What am 1 grown?
What have I meant, or done, or known 1
What boots the sharpest forct? of eyes?
Back from thy throne it baffled flies.

From Eastward marching came we on,
And soon the West was lost and won;
A long broad army forth we pass'd.
The foremost knew not of the last.

The first did fall, the second stood,
The third hew'd in with falchion good;
And still the next had prowess more,
Forgot the thousands slain before.

We stormed along, we rushed apace.
The masters we from place to place.
And where I lordly ruled to-day,
To-uiorrow another did rob and slay.

We look ; our choice was quickly made j
This snatch'd with him the fairest Maid,
That seized the .Steer for burden bent.
The horses all and sundry went.

But I did love apart to spy
Tlie rarest things could meet the eye :
Whate'er in others' hands I saw.
That was for me but chaff and straw.

For treasures did 1 keep a look.
My keen eyes pierced to every nook;
Into all pockets 1 could see.
Transparent each strong-box to me.

And heaps of gold I gained this way.
And precious Stones of clearest ray:
Now Where's the Diamond meet to shine!
'Tis meet alone for breast like thine.

So let the Pearl from depths of sea.
In curious stringlets wave on thee :
The Ruby fur some covert seeks,
'Tis paled by redness of thy cheeks.

And so the richest treasure's brought
Before thy throne, as best it ought;
Beneath thy feet here let nie lay
The fruit of many a bloody fray.

So many chests we now do bear;
More chests 1 have, and finer ware :
Think me but to be near thee worth
Whole treasure-vaults I empty forth.

For scarcely art thou hither sent.
All hearts and wills to thee are bent ;
Our riches, reason, strength, we must
Before the loveliest lay a.s dust.

All this I reckon'd great, and mine.
Now small I reckon it, and thine.
I thought it worthy, high, and good ;
'Tis naught, poor, and misunderstood.

So dwindles what my glory was,
A heap of mown and wilher'd grass :
What worth it had, and now does lack,
O, with one kind look, give it back !

FAUST.
Away ! away : take back the bold-earn'd load.
Not blamed indeed, but also not rewarded.
Her'sis already whatsoe'er our Tower
Of costliness conceals. Go heap me treasure!
On treasures, yet with Order ; let the blaze
Of Pomp unspeakable appear ; the ceilings

GOETHE'S HELENA.

Gem-fretted, shine like skies ; a Paradise
Of lifeless life create. Before her feet
Unfolding quick, let flow'ry carpet roll
Itself from flow'ry carpet, that her step
May light on softness, and her eye meet nought
But splendour blinding only not the Gods.

LYNCEUS.

Small is what our Lord doth say;
Servants do it ; 'tis but phiy :
For o'er all we do or dream
Will this Beauty reign supreme.
Is not all our host grown tame 1
Every sword is blunt and lame.
To a form of such a mould
Sun himself is dull and cold:
To the richness of that face,
What is beauty, what is grace,
Loveliness we saw or thought?
All is empty, all is imuglit.

And herewith exit Lynceus, and we see no more
of him! We have said that we thought there
might be method in this madness. In fact, the
allegorical, or at least fantastical and figura-
tive, character of the whole action is growing
more and more decided everj^ moment. He-
lena, we must conjecture, is, in the course of
this her real historical intrigue with Fatjst, to
present, at the same time, some dim adumbra-
tion of Grecian Art, and its flight to the North-
ern Nations, when driven by stress of War
from its own country. Faust's Tower will, in
this case, afibrd not only a convenient station
for lifting black-mail over the neighbouring dis-
trict, but a cunning, though vague and fluctu-
ating, emblem of the Product of Teutonic Mind;
the Science, Art, Institutions of the Northmen,
of whose Spirit and Genius he himself may in
some degree become the representative. In this
way, the e.xtravagant homage and admiration
paid to Helena are not without their meaning.
The mannerof her arrival, enveloped as she was
in thick clouds, and frightened onwards by hos-
tile trumpets, may also have more or less pro-
priety. And v/ho is Lynceus, the mad Watch-
man 1 We cannot But suspect him of being a
Schoolman Philosopher, or School Philosophy
itself, in disguise; and that this wonderful
" march" of his has a covert allusion to the
great "march of intellect," which did march
in those old ages, though only at " ordinary
time." We observe, the military, one after the
other, all fell; for discoverers, like other men,
must die ; but " still the next had prowess
more," and forgot the thousands that had sunk
in clearing the way for him. However, Lyn-
ceus, in his love of plunder, did not take "the
fairest maid," nnr "the steer" fit for burden,
but rather jewels and other rare articles of
value; in which quest his high power of eye-
sight proved of great service to him. Better
had it been, perhaps, to have done as others
did, and seized "the fairest maid," or even the
"steer" fit for burden, or one of the "horses"
•which were in such request: for, when he
quitted practical Science and the philosophy
of Life, and addicted himself to curious subtil-
ties and Metaphysical crotchets, what did it
avail him 1 At the first glance of the Grecian
beauty, he found that it was " naught, poor, and
misunderstood." His extraordinary obscura-
tion of vision on Helena's approach ; his nar-
w escape fn^^m d«ath, on that account, at the

hands of Faust; his pardon by the fair Greek;
his subsequent magnanimous offer to her, and
discourse with his master on the subject, —
might give rise to various considerations. But
we must not loiter, questioning the strange
Shadows of that strange country, who, besides,
are apt to mystify one. Our nearest business
is to get across it : we again proceed.

Whoever or whatever Faust and Helena
may be, they are evidently fast rising into
high favour with each other; as, indeed, from
so generous a gallant, and so fair a dame, was
to be anticipated. She invites him to sit with
heron the throne, so instantaneously acquired
by force of her charms; to which graceful
proposal he, after kissing her hand in knightly
wise, fails not to accede. The courtship now
advances apace. Helena admires the dialect
of Lynceus, and how " one word seemed to kiss
the other," for the Warder, as we saw, .speaks
in doggerel; and she cannot but wish that she
also had some such talent. Faust assures her
that nothing is more easy than this same prac-
tice of rhyme: it is but speaking right from
the heart, and the rest follows of course.
Withal, he proposes that they should make a
trial of it themselves. The experiment suc-
ceeds to mutual satisfaction: for not only can
they two build the lofty rhyme, in concert, with
all convenience, but, in the course of a page
or two of such crambo, many love-tokens come
to light; nay, we find by the Chorus, that the
wooing has well nigh reached a happy end:
at least, the two are "sitting near and nearer
each other, — shoulder on shoulder, knee by
knee, hand in hand, they are swaying over
the throne's upcushioned lordliness;" which,
surely, are promising symptoms.

Such ill-timed dalliance is abruptly disturb-
ed by the entrance of Phorcyas, now, as ever,
a messenger of evil, with malignant tidings
that Menelaus is at hand, with his whole force,
to Storm the Castle, and ferociously avenge
his new injuries. An immense "explosion
of signals from the towers, of trumpets, cla-
rions, military music, and the march of nume-
rous armies," confirms the news. Faust how-
ever, treats the matter coolly; chides the
unceremonious trepidation of Phorcyas, and
summons his men of war; who accordingly
enter, steel-clad, in military pomp, and quitting
their battalions, gather round him to take his
orders. In a wild Pindaric ode, delivered with
due emphasis, he directs them not so much
how they are to conquer Menelaus, whom
doubtless he knows to be a sort of dream, as
how they are respectively to manage and par-
tition the Countr}^ they shall hereby acquire.
Germanus is to have "the bays of Corinth;"
while " Achaia, with its hundred dells," is re-
commended to the care of Goth; the host of
the Franks must go towards Elis; Messene is
to be the Saxon's share; and Normann is to
clear the seas, and make Argolis great. Sparta,
however, is to continue the territory of Helena,
and be queen and patrc:-«ss of these 'nferior
Dukedoms. In all this, are we to trace some
faint changeful shadow of the National Cha-
racter, and respective Intellectual Performance
of the several European tribes 1 Or, perhaps,
of the real History of the Middle Ages ; the

70

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

irruption of the northern swarms, issuing, like
Fanst and his air-warriors, "from Cimmerian
Night," and spreading over so many fair
regions] Perhaps of both, and of more; per-
haps properly of neither: for the whole has a
chameleon character, changing hue as we look
on it. However, be this as it may, the Chorus
cannot sufficiently admire Faust's strategic
faculty; and the troops march off, without
speech indeed, but evidently in the highest
spirits. He himself concludes with another
rapid dithyrambic, describing the Peninsula
of Greece, or rather, perhaps, typically the
Region of true Poesy, "kissed by the sea-
waters," and "knit to the last mountain-
branch" of the firm land. There is a wild
glowing fire in these two odes; a musical in-
distinctness, yet enveloping a rugged, keen
sense, which, were the gift of rhyme so com-
mon as Faust thinks it, we should have plea-
sure in presenting to our readers. Again and
again, we think of Calderon and his Life a
Dream.

Faust, as he resumes his seat by Helena,
observes that " she is sprung from the highest
gods, and belongs to the first world alone. It
is not meet that bolted towers should encircle
her; and near by Sparta, over the hills, "Ar-
cadia blooms in eternal strength of youth, a
blissful abode for them two." " Let thrones
pass into groves ; Arcadianly free be such
felicity!" No sooner said, than done. Oar
Fortress, we suppose, rushes asunder like a
Palace of Air, for, "^/le scene altogether changes.
A series of Grottoes now are shtU in by close Eowers.
Shady Grove, to the foot of the Rocks tvhich encircle
the place. Faust and Ifelena are not seen. The
Chorus, scattered around, lie sleeping."

In Arcadia, the business grows wilder than
ever. Phorcyas, who has now become won-
derfully civil, and, notwithstanding her ug-
liness, stands on the best footing with the
poor light-headed Cicada-Swarm of a Chorus,
awakes them to hear and see the wonders
that have happened so shortly. It appears,
too, that there are certain " Bearded Ones" (we
suspect, Devils) waiting with anxiety, "sitting
watchful there below," to see the issue of this
extraordinary transaction ; but of these Phor-
cyas gives her silly woman no hint what-
ever. She tells them, in glib phrase, what
great things are in the wind. Faust and
Helena have been happier than mortals in
these grottoes. Phorcyas, who was in waiting,
gradually glided away, seeking " roots, moss,
and rinijs," on household duty bent, and so
" they two remained alone."

cHonus.
1 ill<'st as if within those grottoes lay whole tracts of

country,
Wood and meadow, rivers, takes: what tales thou palm'st

on us !

PHORCYAS.

Sure enough, ye foolish creatures ! These are unexplor-
ed recesses ;

Hall runs out on hall, spaces there on spaces: these I
musing traced.

Bui at once re-echoes from within a peal of laughter :

Peeping in, what is it 1 Leaps a boy from mother's breast
10 Father's,

from the Father to the Mother: such a fondling, such a
dandling.

Foolish Love's caressing, teasing ; cry of jest, and shrieJl
of pleasure.

In their turn do stun me quite.

Naked, without wings a Genius, Faun in humour with-
out coarseness.

Springs he sportful on the ground ; but the ground rever-
berating,

Darts hirri up to airy heights; and at the third, the second
gambol.

Touches he the vaulted Roof.

Frightened cries the Mother: Bound away, away,and as

thou pleasest,
But, my Son, beware of Flying; wings nor power of

flight are thine.
And the Father thus advises : in the Earth resides the

virtue
Which so fast doth send thee upwards; touch but with

thy toe the surface.
Like the earth-born old Antseus, straightway thou art

strong again.
And so skips he, hither, thither, on these jagged rocks;

from summit
Still to summit, all about, like stricken ball rebounding,

springs.

But at once in clefl of some rude cavern sinking as he

vanished.
And so seems it we have lost him. Mother mourning,

Father cheers her.
Shrug my shoulders I, and look about me. But again,

behold, what vision!
Are there treasures lying here concealed I There he is

again, and garments
Glittering, flower-bestriped has on.

Tassels waver from his arms, about his bosom flutter

breastknots.
In his hand the golden Lyre ; wholly like a little Phoebus,
Steps he light of heart upon the beetling cliffs: asto-

nifhed stand we.
And the Parents, in their rapture, fly into each other's

arms.
For what glittering 's that about his headl Were hard

to say what glitters,
Whether Jewels and gold, or Flame of atl-subduing

strength of soul.
And with such a bearing moves he, in himself this boy

announces
Future Master of all Beauty, whom the Melodies Eternal
Do inform through every fibre ; and forthwith so shall ye

hear him.
And forthwith so shall ye see him, to your uttermost

amazement.

The Chorus suggest, in their simplicity, that J
this elastic little urchin may have some rela- I
tionship to the " Son of Maia," who, in old
times, whisked himself so nimbly out of his
swaddling clothes, and stole the "'Sea-ruler's
trident" and " Hephtestos' tongs," and various
other articles before he was well span-long.
But Phorcyas declares all this to be superan-
nuated fable, unfit for modern uses. And now,
"a beautiful, purely melodious music of stringed in-
strnments resounds from the Cave. .All listen, and
soon appear deeply moved. It continues playing in
full tone ;" while Euphorion, in person, makes
his appearance, " in the costume above described ; '
larger of stature, but no less frolicsome and
tuneful.

Our readers are aware that this Euphorion,
the offspring of Northern Character wedded to
Grecian Culture, frisks it here not without re-
ference to Modern Poesy, which had a birth so
precisely similar. Sorry are we that we can-
not follow him through these fine warblings
and trippings on the light fantastic toe : to our
ears there is a quick, pure, small-toaed music

GOETHE'S HELENA.

iti them, as perhaps of elfin bells when the
Queen of Faery rides by moonlight. It is, in
truth, a jjraceful emblematic dance, this little
life of Euphorion ; full of meanings and half-
meanings. The history of Poetry, traits of in-
dividual Poets ; the Troubadours, the Three
Italians; glimpses of all things, full vision of
nothing ! Euphorion grows rapidly, and passes
from one pursuit to another. Quitting his
boyish gambols, he takes to dancing and romp-
ing with the Chorus; and this in a style of tu-
mult which rather dissatisfies Faust. The wild-
est and coyest of these damsels he seizes with
avowed intent of snatching a kiss; but, alas,
she resists, and still more singular, "Jlnshcs iip
in flame into the air :" inviting him, perhaps in
mockery, to follow her, and "catch his van-
ished purpose." Euphorion shakes off the
remnants of the flame, and now, in a wilder
humour, mounts on the crags, begins to talk
of courage and battle ; higher and higher he
rises, till the Chorus see him on the topmost
cliff, shining " in harness as for victory;" and
vet, though at such a distance, they still hear
his tones, neither is his figure diminished in
their eyes ; which indeed, as they observe, al-
ways is, and should be, the case with " sacred
Poesy," though it mounts heavenward, farther
and farther, till it "glitter like the fairest star."
But Euphorion's life-dance is near ending.
From his high peak, he catches the sound of
war, and fires at it, and longs to mix in it, let
Chorus, and Mother, and Father say what they
will.

EUPHORIOX.

And hear ye thiimlers on the ocean.

And thuniiers roll fioiri tower and wall,

And host with host in tierce commotion,

See mixing at llie trumpet's call:

And to die in strife

Is tlie law of life,

That is certain once for all.

HELENA, FAUST, and CHORUS.
What a horror ! sjioken madly !
Wilt thou die ■? then what must I ■?

EUPIIORIOX.
Shall I view it, safe and gladly ?
No! to share it will I hie.

HELE!<^A, FAUST, and CHORUS.

Fatal are such haughty things,
War is for the stout.

EUPUORIOX.

Ha! — and a pair of wings
Folds itself out!
Thither! I must! I must!
'T is my hest to fly '.

(He casts himself into the air: his Garments support
kirn for a moment , his Head radiates, a Train of Light
follows him.)

cHonus.
Icarus! earth and dust !
O, wo! thou mount'st too high.
(A beautiful Youth rushes down at the feet of the Pa-
rents ; you fancy yon recoirnise in the dead a veil-known
Form ;* hut the hndilij part instantly disappears ; the s'old

* It is perhaps in reference to this phrase, that certain
sagacious critics amons; the Germans have hit upon the
wonderful discovery of Euphorion being— Lord Byron !
A fact, if it is one, which curiously verifies the author's
prediction in this passage. But unhappily, while we
fancy that wo recognise in the dead a well-known form,
" the bodily part instantly disappears ; " and the keen-

Crownlet mounts like a comet to the $Tcy , Coot, AfastM^

and Lyre, are left lying.)

HELEXA and FAUST.

Joy soon changes to wo.
And mirth to heaviest moan.

euphorion's voice (from beneath.)

Let me not to realms below
Descend, O mother, alone !

The prayer is soon granted. The Choms
chant a dirge over his remains, and then :

HELENA (to FAUST.)

A sad old saying proves itself again in me,
Good hap with beauty hath no long abode.
So with love's Band is life's asunder rent:
Lamenting both, I clasp thee in my arms
Once more, and bid thee painfully farewell.
Persephoneia take my boy, and with him me.

(She embraces Faust ; her Body melts away ; Oarmenl
and_ Veil remain in his arms.)

PHORCTAS [to FAUST.)

Hold fast, what now alone remains to thee

That Garment quit not. They are tugging there,

These Demons at the skirt of it ; would fain

To the Nether Kingdoms lake it down. Hold fast!

The goddess is it not, whom thou hast lost,

Yet godlike is it. See thou use aright

The priceless high bequest, and soar aloft :

'T will lift thee away above the common world,

Far up to .<Ether, so thou canst endure.

We meet again, far, very far from hence.

(Helena's Garments unfold into Clouds, encirclefXIVti
raise him aloft andfloat away loith him.)

(PHORCYAS picks up euphorion's Coat, Mantle, and
Lyre from the Ground, comes forward into the Proscenium^
holds these Remaiiis aloft, and says :)

Well, fairly found be happily won!

'T is true, the Flame is lost and gone :

But well for us we have still this stuff!

A gala-dress to dub our poets of merit,

And make guild-brethren snarl and cufT;

And can't they borrow the Body and Spirit

At least, I'll lend them Clothes enough.

(Sits down in the Proscenium at the foot of a pillar)

The rest of the personages are now speedily
disposed of Panthalis, the Leader of the
Chorus, and the only one of them who has
shown any glimmerings of Reason, or of aught
beyond mere sensitive life, mere love of Plea-
sure and fear of Pain, proposes that, being now
delivered from the soul-confusing spell of the
"Thessalian Hag," they should forthwith re-
turn to Hades, to bear Helena company. But
none will volunteer with her; so she goes her
self The Chorus have lost their tasfe for
Asphodel Meadows, and playing so subordinate
a part in Orcus : they prefer abiding in the
Light of Day, though, indeed, under rather
peculiar circumstances ; being no longer " Pei
sons," they say, but a kind of Occult Qualities,
tis we conjecture, and Poetic Inspirations, re-
siding in various natural objects. Thus, ow-
division become a sort of invisible Hama
dryads, and have their being in Trees, and
their joy in the various movements, beauties.

est critic finds that he can see no deeper into e. millstone
than another man. Some n//i(sior! to our English Poet
there is, or may be, here and in the page that precedes,
and the page ihat follows; but Euphorion is no image
of any person : least of all, one would think, of Georga
Lord Byron.

72

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and products of trees. A second change into
Echoes; a third, into the Spirit of Brooks;
and a fourth take up their abode in Vineyards,
and delight in the manufacture of Wine. No
sooner have these several parties made up their
m;nd.s, than the Curlain fulls ; and Phorcyas " in
the I'rosccnium rises in gigantic size ; but steps down
from her rothurni, lays her Mask and Veil aside,
and shows herself as Mephistopheles, in order, so
far as may be necessary, to comment on the piece,
by way of Epilogue."

Such is Helena the interlude in Faust. We
have all the desire in the world to hear
Mephisto's Epilogue: but far be it from us to
take the word out of so gifted a mouth ! In
the way of commentary on Helena, we ourselves
have little more to add. The reader sees, in
general, that Faust is to save himself from the
straits and fetters of Worldly Life in the loftier
regions of Art, or in that temper of mind by
which alone those regions can be reached,
and permanently dwelt in. Further, also, that
this doctrine is to be stated emblematically and
parabolically ; so that it might seem as if, in
Goethe's hands, the History of Faust, com-
mencing among the realities of every-day
existence, superadding to these certain spiritual
agencies, and passing into a more aerial charac-
ter as it proceeds, may fade away, at its termi-
nation, into a phantasmagoric region, where
symbol and thing signified are no longer
clearly distinguished; and thus the final result
be curiously and significantly indicated, rather
than directly exhibited. With regard to the
special purport of Euphorion, Lynceus, and
the rest, we have nothing more to say at pre-
sent; nay, perhaps we may have already said
too much. For it must not be forgotten by the
commentator, and will not, of a surety, be for-
gotten by Mephistopheles, whenever he may
please to deliver his Epilogue, that Helena is
not an Allegory, but a Phantasmagory ; not a
type of one thing, but a vague, fluctuating,
fitful adumbration of many. This is no Pic-
ture painted on canvas, with mere material
colours, and steadfastly abiding our scrutiny;
but rather it is like the Smoke of a Wizard's
Cauldron, in which as we gaze on its flicker-
ing tints and wild splendours, thousands of
strangest shapes unfold themselves, yet no one
will abide with us; and thus, as Goethe says
elsewhere, " we are reminded of Nothing and
of All."

Properly speaking, Helena is what the Ger-
mans call a Mdhnhen (Fabulous Tale), a
species of fiction they have particularly ex-
celled in, and of which Goethe has already
produced more than one distinguished speci-
men. Some day we purpose to translate for
our readers, that little piece of his, deserving
to be named, as it is, " The Miihrchen," and
which we must agree with a great critic in
reckoning the "Tale of all Tales." As to the
composition of this Helena, we cannot but per-
ceive it to be deeply-studied, appropriate, and

successful. It is wonderful with what fidelit)
the Classical style is maintniiied tlirouirhou
the earlier part of the poem; ho\r skilfully ,
is at once united to the Romantic style of the
latter part, and made to re-appear, at intervals,
to the end. And then the small half-secret
touches of sarcasm, the curious little traits by
which we get a peep behind the curlain !
Figure, for instance, that so transient allusion
to these "Bearded Ones sitting watchful there
below," and then their tugging at Helena's Man-
tle to pull it down with them. By such light
hints does Mephistopheles point out our
Whereabout; and ever and anon remind us,
that not on the firm earth, but on tiie wide and
airy Deep, has he spread his strange pavilion,
where, in magic light, so many wonders are
displayed to us.

Had we chanced to find that Goethe, in other
instances, had ever M'ritten one line without
meaning, or many lines without a deep and
true meaning, we should not have thought this
little cloud-picture worthy of such minute de-
velopment, or such careful study. In that
case, too, we should never have seen the true
Helena of Goethe, but some false one of our
own too indolent imagination ; for this Drama,
as it grows clearer, grows also more beautiful
and complete ; and the third, the fourth perusal
of it pleases far better than the first. Few living
artists would deserve such faith from us; but
few also would so well reward it.

On the general relation of Helena to Faust,
and the degree of fitness of the one for the
other, it were premature to speak more ex-
pressly at present. We have learned, on
authority which we may justly reckon the best,
that Goethe is even now engaged in preparing
the entire Second Part of Faust, into which
this Helena passes as a component part. With
the third Licferwig of his Works, we under-
stand, the beginning of that Second Part is to
be published: we shall then, if need be, feel
more qualified to speak.

For the present, therefore, we take leave of
Helena and Faust, and of their Author : but with
regard to the latter, our task is nowise ended;
indeed, as yet, hardly begun, for it is not in the
province of the Muhrchen, that Goethe will ever
become most interesting to English rea.lers.
But, like his own Euphorion, though he rises
aloft into ^ther, he derives, Antaeus-like, his
strength from the earth. The dullest plodder
has not more practical understanding, or a
sounder or more quiet character, than this
most aerial and imaginative of poets. We
hold Goethe to be the Foreigner, at this era,
who, of all others, the best, and the best by
many degrees, deserves our study and appre-
ciation. What help we individually can give
in such a matter, we shall consider it a duty
and a pleasure to have in readiness. We
purpose to return, in our next Number, to the
consideration of his Works and Character is
general.

GOETHE.

GOETHE.*

[Foreign Review, 1828.]

It is not on this "Second Portion" of Goethe's
works, which at any rate contains nothing new
to us, tnat we mean at present to dwell. In our
last Number, we engaged to make some survey
of his writings and character in general ; and
must now endeavour, with such insight as we
have, to fulfil that promise.

We have already said that we reckoned this
no unimportant subject; and few of Goethe's
readers can need to be reminded that it is no
easy one. We hope also that our pretensions
in regard to it are not exorbitant; the sum of
our aims being nowise to solve so deep and
pregnant an inquiry, but only to show that an
inquiry of such a sort lies ready for solution ;
courts the attention of thinking men among us,
nay, merits a thorough investigation, and must
sooner or later obtain it. Goethe's literary
history appears to us a matter, beyond most
others, of rich, subtile, and manifold signifi-
cance; which will require rnd reward the best
study of the best heads, and to the right expo-
sition of which not one but many judgments
will be necessary.

However, we need not linger, preluding on
our own inabilitj'^, and magnifying the difficul-
ties Ave have so courageously volunteered to
front. Considering the highly complex aspect
which such a mind of itself presents to us ;
and, still more, taking into account the state
of English opinion in respect of it, there cer-
tainly seem few literary questions of our time
so perplexed, dubious, perhaps hazardous, as
this of the character of Goethe; hut few also
on which a well-founded, or even a sincere,
word would be more likely to profit. For our
countrymen, at no time indisposed to foreign
excellence, but at all times cautious of foreign
singularity, have heard much of Goethe; but
heard, for the most part, what excited and per-
plexed rather than instructed them. Vague
rumors of the man have, for more than half a
century, been humming through our eajs :
from time to time, we have even seen some
distorted, mutilated transcript of his own
thoughts, which, all obscure and hieroglyphi-
cal as it might often seem, failed not to emit
here and there a ray of keenest and purest
sense ; travellers also are still running to and
fro, importing the opinions or, at worst, the
gossip of foreign countries: so that, by one
means or another, many of us have come to
understand, that considerably the most dis-
tinguished poet and thinker of his age is called
Goethe, and lives at Weimar, and must, to all
appearance, be an extremely surprising cha-

*Ooethe^s Sdinmtliche Tf'erke. VoUsfiivdige Jliis/rabe
letiter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete
Edition, will) his final Corrections.) Zweile Lieferung,
Bde. vi.— X. Cotta : Stuttgard and Tubingen. 1827.
10

racter: but here, unhappily, onr knowledge
almost terminates; and still must Curiosity,
must ingenuous love of Information and mere
passive Wonder alike inquire: What manner
of man is this] How shall we interpret, how
shall we even see him ? What is his spiritual
structure, what at least are the outward form
and features of his mind? Has he any real
poetic worth ; and if so, how much ; how much
to his own people, how much to us 7

Reviewers, of great and of small character,
have manfully endeavoured to satisfy the Bri-
tish world on these points: but which of us
could believe their report? Did it not rather
become apparent, as we rellccted on the mat-
ter, that this Goethe of theirs was not the real
man, nay, could not be any real man whatever ?
For what, after ail, were their portraits of him
but copies, with some retouchings and orna-
mental appendages, of our grand English
original Picture of the German generically? —
In itself such a piece of art, as national por-
traits, under like circumstances, are wont to be;
and resembling Goethe, as some unusually ex-
pressive Sign of the Saracen's Head may re-
semble the present Sultan of Constantinople!

Did we imagine that much information, or
any very deep sagacity were required for
avoiding such mistakes, it would ill become
us to step forward on this occasion. But
surely it is given to every man, if he will but
take heed, to know so much as whether or not
he knows. And nothing can be plainer to us
than that if, in the present business, we can
report aught from our own personal vision and
clear hearty belief, it will be a useful novelty
I in the discussion of it. Let the reader be
patient with us then ; and according as he finds
that we speak honestly and earnestly, or loosely
and dishonestl}', consider our statement, or dis-
miss it as unworthy of consideration.

Viewed in his merely external relations,
Goethe exhibits an appearance such as seldom
occurs in the history of letters, and indeed,
from the nature of the ca.se, can seldom occur.
A man, who, in early life, rising almost at a
single bound into the highest reputation over
all Europe ; by gradual advances, fixing him-
self more and more firmly in the reverence of
his countrymen, ascends silently through many
vicissitudes to the supreme intellectual place
among them; and now, after half a century,
distinguished by convulsions, political, moral>
and poetical, still reigns, full of years and
honours, with a soft undisputed sway ; still
labouring in his vocation, still forwarding, as
with knightly benignity, whatever can profit
the culture of his nation: such a man might
justly attract our notice, were it only by the
singularity of his fortune. Supremacies of

74

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

this sort are rare in modern times; so univer-
sal, and of such contmviance, they are almost
unexampled. For the age of the Prophets and
Theoldgic Doctors had long since passed
away; and now it is by much slighter, by
transient and mere earthly ties, that bodies of
men connect themselves with a man. The
wisest, most melodious voice cannot in these
days pass for a divine one; the word Inspira-
tion still lingers, but only in the shape of a
poetic figure, from which the once earnest,
awful, and soul-subduing sense has vanished
without return. The polity of Literature is
called a Republic; oftener it is an Anarchy,
where, by strength or fortune, favourite after
favourite rises into splendour and authority,
but like Masaniello, while judging the people,
is on the third day deposed and shot. Nay,
few such adventurers can attain even this
painful pre-eminence; for at most, it is clear,
any given age can have but one first man ;
many ages have only a crowd of secondary
men, each of whom is first in his own eyes :
and seldom, at best, can the "Single Person"
long keep his station at the head of this wild
commonwealth; most sovereigns are never
universally acknowledged, least of all in their
lifetimes ; few of the acknowledged can reign
peaceably to the end.

Of such a perpetual dictatorship Voltaire
among the French gives the last European
instance; but even with him it was perhaps a
much less striking aflair. Voltaire reigned
over a sect, less as their lawgiver than as their
general; for he was at bitter enmity with the
great numerical majority of his nation, by
whom his services, far from being acknow-
ledged as benefits, were execrated as abomina-
tions. But Goethe's object has, at all times,
been rather to unite than to divide ; and though
he has not scrupled, as occasion served, to
speak forth his convictions distinctly enough
on many delicate topics, and seems, in general,
to have paid little court to the prejudices or
private feelings of any man or body of men,
we see not at present that his merits are any-
where disputed, his intellectual endeavours
controverted, or his person regarded otherwise
than with affection and respect. In later years,
too, the advanced age of the poet has invested
him with another sort of dignity; and the ad-
miration to which his great qualities give him
claim, is tempered into a milder, grateful feel-
ing, almost as of sons and grandsons to their
common father. Dissentients, no doubt, there
are-and must be; but, apparently, their cause
is not pleaded in words : no man of the small-
est note speaks on that side; or at most, such
men may question, not the worth of Goethe,
but the cant and idle affectation with which, in
many quarters, this must be promulgated and
bepraised. Certainly there is not, probably
there never was, in any European country, a
writer who, with so cunning a style, and so
deep, so abstruse a sense, ever found so many
readers. For, from the peasant to the king,
from the callow dilettante and innamorato, to
th° j^rave transcendental philosopher, men of
Uil dcg ees and dispositions are familiar with
the wi. tings of Goethe: each studies them
with afftction, with a faith which, " where it

cannot unriddle, learns to trust;" each takes
with him what he is adequate to carry, and de-
parts thankful for his own allotments. Two
of Goethe's intensest admirers are Schelling
of Munich, and a worthy friend of ours in
Berlin; one of these among the deepest men
in Europe, the other among the shallowest.

All this is, no doubt, singular enough ; and a
proper understanding of it would throw light
on many things. Whatever we may think of
Goethe's ascendency, the existence of it re-
mains a highly curious fact; and to trace its
history, to discover by what steps such in-
fluence has been attained, and how so long
preserved, were no trivial or unprofitable in-
quiry. It would be worth while to see so
strange a man for his own sake ; and here we
should see, not only the man himself, and his
own progress and spiritual development, but
the progress also of his nation ; and this at no
sluggish or even quiet era, but in limes marked
by strange revoluiions of opinions, by angry
controversies, 'high enthusiasm, novelty of en-
terprise, and doubtless, in many respects, by
rapid advancement : for that the Germans have
been, and still are, restlessly struggling for-
ward, with honest unwearied efibrt, sometimes
with enviable success, no one, who knows
them, will deny; and as little, that in every
province of Literature, of Art, and humane
accomplishment, the influence, often the direct
guidance of Goethe may be recognised. The
history of his mind is, in fact, at the same time,
the history of German culture in his day;
for whatever excellence this individual might
realize has sooner or later been acknowledged
and appropriated by his country; and the title
of Mwiiigctcs, which his admirers give him, is
perhaps, ih sober strictness, not unmerited.
Be it for good or for evil, there is certainly no
German, since the days of Luther, whose life
can occupy so large a space in the intellectual
history of that people.

In this point of view, were it in no other,
Goethe's JUichtung mid Wiihrhcit, so soon as it
is completed, may deserve to be reck'oned one
of his most interesting works. We speak not
of its literary merits, though in that respect,
too, we must say that few Autobiographies
have come in our way. where so difficult a
matter was so successfully handled; where
perfect knowledge could be found united so
kindly with perfect tolerance; and a personal
narrative, moving along in soft clearness,
showed us a man, and the objects that en-
vironed him, under an aspect so verisimilar,
yet so lovely, with an air dignified and earnest,
yet graceful, cheerful, even gay: a story as of
a Patriarch to his children ; such indeed, as
few men can be called upon to relate, and few,
if called upon, could relate so well. What
would we give for such an Autobiography of
Shakspeare, of Milton, even of Pope or Swift!
TJirhiuns mill Wiilirheit has been censured con-
siderably in England ; but not, we are inclined
to believe, with any insiglit into its proper
ineaning. The misfortune of the work among
us was, that we did not know the narrator be-
fore his narrative; and could not judge what
sort of narrative, he was bound to give, in these
circumstances, or whether he was bound t«

GOETHE.

75

give any at all. We say nothing; of his situa-
tion; heard only the sound of his voice; and
hearing it, never douhted that he must be per-
orating in official garments from the rostrum,
instead of speaking trustfully by the fireside.
For the chief ground of offence seemed to be,
that the story was not noble enough ; that it
entered on details of too poor and private a
nature; verged here and there towards garru-
lity; was not, in one word, written in the style
of what we call a genllemnn. Whether it might
be written in the style of a man, and how far
these two styles might be compatible, and
what might be their relative worth and prefer-
ableness, was a deeper question, to which ap-
parently no heed had been given. Yet herein
lay the very cream of the matter; for Goethe
was not writing to " persons of quality"' in
England, but to persons of heart and head in
Europe : a somewhat different problem perhaps,
and requiring a somewhat different solution.
As to this ignobleness and freedom of detail,
especially, we may say, that, to a German, few
accusations could appear more surprising than
this, which, with us, constitutes the head and
front of his offending. Goeihe, in his own
country, far from being accused of undue
familiarity towards his readers, had, up to that
date, been labouring under precisely the oppo-
site charge. It was his stateliness, his reserve,
his indifference, his contempt for the public,
that were censured. Strange, almost inexpli-
cable, as many of his worUs might appear;
loud, sorrowful, and altogether stolid as might
be the criticisms they underwent, no word of
explanation could be wrung from him. ; he had
never even deigned to write a preface. And
in later and juster days, when the study of
Poetry came to be prosecuted in another spirit,
and it was found that Goethe was standing, not
like a culprit to plead for himself before the
literary /.'/e^cia/is, but like a higher teacher and
preacher, speaking for truth, to whom both
plehcims and pnh-icians were bound to give all
ear, the outward difliculty of interpreting his
works began indeed to vanish ; but enough still
remained, nay, increased curiosity had given
rise to new difliculties, and deeper inquiries.
Not only what were these works, but hotc did
they originate, became questions for the critic.
Yet several of Goethe's chief productions, and,
of his smaller poems, nearly the whole, seemed
so intimately interwoven with his private his-
tory, that without some knowledge of this, no
answer to such questions could be given. Nay,
commentaries have been written on single
pieces of his, endeavouring, by way of guess,
to supply this deficiency.* We can thus judge
whether, to the Germans, such minuteness of
exposition in this Dichtuns. und Wuhrheit may
have seemed a sin. Few readers of Goethe,
we believe, but would wish rather to see it ex-
tended than curtailed.

It is our duty also to remark, if any one be
still unaware of it, that the Memoirs of Goethe,
published some years ago in London, can have
no real concern with this autobiography. The
rage of hunger is an excuse for much ; other-

wise that German translator, whom indignant
Reviewers have proved to know «o German,
were a highly reprehensible man. His work,
it appears, is done from the French, and shows
subtractions, and, what is worse, additions.
But the unhappy Dragoman has already been
chastised, perhaps too sharply. If warring
with the reefs and breakers and cross eddies
of Life, he still hover on this side the shadow
of Night, and any word of ours might reach
him, we would rather say : Courage, Brother!
Grow honest, and times will mend!

It would appear, then, that for inquirers intc
Foreign Literature, for all men, anxious to see
and understand the European; world as it lies
around them, a great problem is presented in
this Goethe ; a singular, highly significant phe-
nomenon, and now, also, means more or less
complete for ascertaining its significance. A
man of wonderful, nay unexampled reputation
and intellectual influence among forty millions
of reflective, serious, and cultivated men, in-
vites us to study him ; and to determine for
ourselves whether and how far such influence
has been salutary, such reputation merited.
That this call will one day be answered, that
Goethe will be seen and judged of in his real
character among us, appears certain enough.
His name, long familiar everywhere, has now
awakened the atteution of critics in all Eu-
ropean countries to his works : he is studied
wherever true study exists; eagerly studied
even in France ; nay, some considerable know-
ledge of his nature and spiritual importance
seems already to prevail there.*

For ourselves, meanwhile, in giving all due
weight to so curious an exhibition of opinion,
it is doubtless our part, at the same time, to
beware that we do not give it too much. This
universal sentiment of admiration is wonder-
ful, is interesting enough; but it must not
lead us astray. We English stand as yet
without the sphere of it; neither will we plunge
blindly in, but enter considerately, or, if we see
good, keep aloof from it altogether. Fame, we
may understand, is no sure test of merit, but
only a probability of such: it is an accident,
not a property, of a man ; like light, it can
give little or nothing, but at most may show
what is given ; often, it is but a false glare, daz-
zling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual,
extrinsic splendour the brightness and mani-
fold glance of the diamond to the pebbles of no
value. A man is in all cases simply the man,
of th« same intrinsic worth and weakness,
whether his worth and weakness lie hidden in
the depths of his own consciousness, or Je be-
trumpeted and beshouted from end to end of
the habitable globe. These are plain truths,
which no one should lose sight of: though,
whether in love or in anger, for praise or foi
condemnation, most of us are too apt to forget
them. But lea^t of all can it become the critic
to " f )llow a multitude to do evil," even when
that evil is excess of admiration; on the con-
trary, it will behove him to lift up his voice,
how feeble soever, how unheeded soever,
against the common delusion; from which, if

♦ See, in particular. Dr. Kannengiesser {/efrer Goethe's
Bausreise in M'intcr, 1820.

* Witness Le. Tasse, Drame par Duval, and ttie CrUl
cisms on it. See also the Essays in the Globe. Nos 5\
64. (1826.)

76

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRi TINGS.

he can save, or help to save, any mortal, his
endeavours will have been repaid.

With these things in some measure before
us, we must remind our readers of another in-
tluence at work in this affair, and one acting,
as we think, in the contrary direction. That
pitiful enough desire for " originality," which
lurks and acts in all minds, will rather, we
imagine, lead the critic of Foreign Literature
to adopt the negative than the affirmative with
regard to Goethe. If a writer, indeed, feel that
he is writing for England alone, invisibly and
inaudibly to the rest of the Earth, the tempta-
tions m.ay be pretty equally balanced; if he
write for some small conclave, which he mis-
takenly thinks the representative of England,
thej'' may sway this way or that, as it chances.
But writing in such isolated spirit is no long-
er possible. Traffic, with its swift ships, is
uniting all nations into one; Europe at large
is becoming more and more one public: and
in this public, the voices for Goethe, compared
with those against him, are in the proportion,
as we reckon them, both as to the number and
value, of perhaps a hundred to one. We take
in, not Ger^nany alone, but France and Italy;
not the Schlegels and Schellings, but the Man-
zonis and de Staels. The bias of originality,
therefore, may lie to the side of the censure :
and whoever among us shall step forward,
with such knowledge as our common critics
have of Goethe, to enlighten the European
public, by contradiction in this matter, displays
a heroism, which, in estimating his other
merits, ought nowise to be forgotten.

Our own view of the case coincides, we con-
fess, in some degree with that of the majority.
We reckon that Goethe's fame has, to a conside-
rable extent, been deserved; that his influence
has been of high benefit to his own country;
nay more, that it promises to be of benefit to
us, and to all other natioris. The essential
grounds of this opinion, which to explain
minutely were a long, indeed boundless task,
we may state without manj' words. We find,
then, in Goethe, an Artist, in the high and an-
cient meaning of that term; in the meaning
which it may have borne long ago among the
masters of Italian painting, and the fathers of
Poetry in England ; we say that we trace in the
creations of this man, belonging in every sense
to our own time, some touches of that old,
divine spirit, which had long passed away from
among us, nay, which, as has often been la-
boriously demonstrated, was not to return to
this world any more.

Or perhaps we come nearer our meaning, if
we say that in Goethe we discover by far the
most striking instance, in our time, of a writer
who is, in strict speech, what Philosophy can
call a Man. He is neither noble nor plebeian,
neither liberal nor servile, nor infidel, nor de-
votee; but the best excellence of all these,
joined in pure union; "a clear and universal
Man." Goethe's poetry is no separate faculty,
no menial handicraft; but the voice of the
whole harmonious manhood : na}'' it is the very
harmony, the living and life-giving harmony
of that rich manhood which forms his poetry.
All good men may be called poets in act, or in
word; all good poets are so in both. But

Goethe besides appears to us a person of thai
deep endowment, and giftel vision, of that ex-
perience also and sympathy in the ways of all
men, which qualify him to stand forth, not only
as the literary ornament, but in many respects
too as the Teacher and exemplar of his age.
For, to say nothing of his natural gifts, he has
cultivated himself and his art, he has studied
how to live and write, with a fidelity, an un-
wearied earnestness, of which there is no other
living instance; of which, among British
poets especially, Wordsworth alone offers any
resemblance. And this in our view is the re-
sult: To our minds, in these soft, melodious
imaginations of his, there is embodied the Wis-
dom which is proper to this time; the beauti-
ful, the religious Wisdom, which may still,
with something of its old impressiveness, speak
to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbe-
lieving, utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses
of the Unseen but not unreal W"orld, that so
the Actual and the Ideal may again meet to-
gether, and clear Knowledge be again wedded
to Religion, in the life and JDUsiness of men.

Such is our conviction or persuasion with
regard to the poetry of Goethe. Could we de-
monstrate this opinion to be true, could we
even exhibit it with that degree of clearness
and consistency which it has attained in our
own thoughts, Goethe were, on our part, suffi-
ciently recommended to the best attention of
all thinking men. But, unhappily, it is not a
subject susceptible of demonstration : the merits
and characteristics of a Poet are not to be set
forth by logic ; but to be gathered by personal,
and as, in this case, it must be, by deep and
careful inspection of his works. Nay, Goethe's
world is every way so difl"erent from ours; it costs
us such effort, we have so much to remember and
so much to forget, before we can transfer our-
selves in any measure into his peculiar point of
vision, that a right study of him, for an English-
man, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind,
becomes unusually difficult ; for a fixed, decided,
contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible.
To a reader of the first class, helps may be
given, explanations will remove many a diffi-
culty; beauties that lay hidden may be made
apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual
position, will at length guide him into the proper
track for such an inquir3^ All this, however,
must be a work of progression and detail. To
do our part in it, from time to time, must rank
among the best duties of an English Foreign
Review. Meanwhile, our present endeavour
limits itself within far narrower bounds. We
cannot aim to make Goethe known, but only to
prove that he is worthy of being known; at
most, to point out, as it were afar off, the path
by which some knowledge of him may be ob-
tained. A slight glance at his general literary
character and procedure, and one or two of
his chief productions, which throw light on
these, must for the present suffice.

A French diplomatic personage, co:ittm-
plating Goethe's physiognomy, is said to have
observed: Voild vn hommc qui a eu beat<ro;ip de
rhagrivs. A truer version of the matter, Goeihe
himself seems to think, would have been:
Here is a man who has struggled toughly; who
has cs sich recht sauer wcrden lassen. Goetho's

GOETHE.

77

life, wl :ther as a writer and thinker, or as a
living, .i^tive man, has indeed been a life of
effort, <;;" earnest toilsome endeavour after all
excellence. Accordingly, his intellectual pro-
gress, his spiritual and moral history, as it may
be gathered from his successive works, fur-
nishes, with us, no small portion of the plea-
sure and profit we derive from perusing them.
Participating deeply in all the influences of
his age, he has from the first, at every new-
epoch, stood forth to elucidate the new circuin-
stances of the time: to offer the instruction, the
solace, which that time required. His literary
life divides itself into two portions widely dif-
ferent in character: the products of the first,
once so new and original, have long, either
directly or through the thousand, thousand
imitations of them, been familiar tons; with
the products of the second, equally original,
ar.c, in our day, far more precious, we are yet
little acquainted. These two classes of works
stand curiously related with each other; at first
view, in strong contradiction, yet, in truth,
connected together by the strictest sequence.
For Goethe has not only suffered and mourned
in bitter agony under the spiritual perplexities
of his tiine ; but he has also mastered these, he
is above them, and has shown others how to
rise above them. At one time, we found him
in darkness, and now, he is in light; he was
once a;i Unbeliever; and now he is a Believer;
and he believes, moreover, not by denying his
unbelief, but by following it out; not by stop-
ping short, still less turning back, in his inqui-
ries, but by resolutely prosecuting them. This,
it appears to us, is a case of singular interest,
and rarely exemplified, if at all, elsewhere, in
these our days. How has this man, to\whotn
the world once offered nothing but blackness,
denial, and despair, attained to that better
vision which now shows it to him, not tolerable
only, but full of solemnity and loveliness 1
How has the belief of a Saint been united in
this hi^hand true mind with the clearness of a
Skeptic ; the devout spirit of a Fenelon made
to blend in soft harmony with the gayety, the
sarcastn, the shrewdness of a Voltaire?

Goethe's two earliest works are Goctz von
Bcvlirhiiif^cn and The Sorrows of Werter. The
boundless influence and popularity they gained,
both at home and abroad, is well known. It
was they that established almost at once his
literary fame in his own country; and even
determined his subsequent private history, for
they brought him into contact with the Duke
of Weimar; in connection with whom, the Poet,
engaged in manifold duties, political as well as
literary, has lived for fifty-fmtr years, and still,
in honourable retirement, continues to live.*
Their effects over Europe at large were not less
strilcing than in Germany.

"It would be difficult," observes a writer on
this subject, " to naine two books which have
exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent
literature of Europe than these two perform-
ances of a young author; his first-fruits, the

* Sincf ilih aluive was writtnn, ttiat wnrlliy Prinro,
Wdrlliy. we liavo iin(ier«lrvo(l. in all rpspecls. exemplary
in wlKilevpr roiircri'ed Literature and tlie Arts, lias lieeii
callcl snildenly awl v. lie dieii on his road from Uerlin,
near Tiirsaii, on tlie Mlh of .June.

produce of his twenty-fourth year. Wirter
appeared to seize the hearts of men in all
quarters of the world, and to utter tor them the
word which they had long been waiting to hear.
As usually happens, too, this same word, once
uttered, was soon abundantly repeated ; spoken
in all dialects, and chanted through all notes
of the gamut, till the sound of it had grown a
weariness rather than a pleasure. Skeptical
sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship,
suicide, and desperation, became the staple of
literary ware; and though the epidemic, after
a long course of years, subsided in Germany,
it reappeared with various modifications in
other countries, and everywhere abundant
traces of its good and bad effects are still to be
discerned. The fortune oi IkrJichingcn with the
Iron Hand, though less sudden, was by no
means less exalted. In his own country, Goetz,
though he now stands solitary and childless,
became the parent of an innumerable progeny,
of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and po-
etico-antiquarian performances ; which, though
long ago deceased, made noise enough in their
day and generation: and with ourselves, his
influence has been perhaps still more remark-
able. Sir Walter Scott's fii-st literary enter-
prise was a translation oC Goetz von Berlirhingcn ;
and, if genius could be communicated like in-
struction, we might call this work of Goethe's
the prime cause of Mariuion and the Lady of
the Lake, with all that has followed from the
same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed
that has lighted on the right soil! For if not
firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and
broader than any other tree ; and all the nations
of the earth are still yearly gathering of its
fruit.

" But overlooking these spiritual genealogies,
which bring little certainty and little profit, it
may be sufficient to observe of EerUchingen and
Werter, that they stand prominent among the
causes, or at the very least, among the signals
of a great change in modern literature. The
former directed men's attention with a new
force to the picturesque effects of the Past;
and the latter, for the first time, attempted the
more accurate delineation of a class of feelings
deeply important to modern minds, but for
which our elder poetry offered no exponent,
and perhaps could offer none, because they
are feelings that arise from Passion incapable
of being converted into Action, an J belong
chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated, and
unbelieving as ourowm. This, notwithstanding
the dash of falsehood which may exist in Wer-
ter itself, and the boundless delirium of extra-
vagance which it called forth in others, is a
high praise M'hich cannot justly be denied it.
The English reader ought also to understand
that our curi-ent version of Werter is mutilated
and inaccurate: it comes to us through the
all-subduing medium of the French, shorn of
its caustic strength, with its melancholy ren-
dered maudlin, its hei-o i-educed from the state-
ly gloom of a broken-hearted poet to the tear-
ful wrangling of a dyspeptic tailor."*

To the same dark, wayward mood, which,
in Werter, pours itself forth ;n bitter wailings

* German Romance rol. iv. pp. 5-
a 2'

78

CARLYLE S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

overhuman life ; and, in Bcrlkhingen, appears as
a fond and sad looking back into the Past, be-
long various other productions of Goethe's;
for example, the MitscJmldigcn, and the first
idea of Fuust, which, however, was not realized
in actual composition, till a calmer period of
his history. Of this early "harsh and crude,"
yet fervid and genial period, Wertcr may stand
here as the representative ; and, viewed in its
external and internal relation, will help to il-
lustrate both the writer and the public he was
writing for.

At the present day, it would be difficult for
us, satisfied, nay, sated to nausea, as we have
been with the doctrines of Sentimentality, to
estimate the boundless interest which Weiier
must have excited when first given to the
world. It was then new in all senses; it was
wonderful, yet wished for, botK in its own
country and in every other. The literature
of Germany had as yet but partially awakened
from its long torpor: deep learning, deep re-
flection, have at no time been wanting there:
but the creative spirit had for above a century
been almost extinct. Of late, however, the
Ramlers, Rabeners, Gellerts, had attained to no
inconsiderable polish of style ; Klopstock's
Messias had called forth the admiration, and
perhaps stili more the pride, of the country, as
a piece of art ; a high enthusiasm was abroad ;
Lessing had roused the minds of men to a
deeper and truer interest in literature, had
even decidedly begun to introduce a heartier,
warmer, and more expressive style. The
Germans were on the alert; in expectation, or
at least in full readiness for some far bolder
impulse ; waiting for the Poet that might speak
to them from the heart to the heart. It was in
Goethe that sdch a Poet was to be given them.

Nay, the literature of other countries, placid
self-satisfied as they might seem, was in an
equally expectant condition. Everywhere, as
in Germany, there was polish and languor,
external glitter and internal vacuity; it was
not fire, but a picture of fire, at which no soul
could be warmed. Literature had sunk from
its former vocation: it no longer held the mir-
ror up to nature; no longer reflected, in many-
coloured expressive symbols, the actual pas-
sions, the hopes, sorrows, joys of Living men ;
but dwelt in a remote conventional world, in
Casllcs of Olruiitn, in Epigoniads and Leoiiifhiscs,
among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high,
stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and
elocution were nowise the least important
qualities. Men thought it right that the heart
should swell into magnanimity with Caracta-
cus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many
an Eliza and Adelaide; but the heart was in
no haste either to swell or to melt. Some
pulses of heroioal sentiment, a few «i/natural
tears might, with conscientious readers, be ac-
tually squeezed forth on such occasions: but
they came only from the surface of the mind;
nay, had the conscientious man considered of
the matter, he would have found that they
•lUght not to have come at all. Our only Eng-
lish poet of the period was Goldsmith ; a pure,
clear, genuine spirit, had he been of depth or
strength sufficient: his Vicar of Wakefield re-

mains the best of all modern Idyls; but it i
and was nothing more. And consider ouf
leading writers ; consider the poetry of Gray,
and the prose of Johnson. The first a labo-
rious mosaic, through the hard, stiflT linea-
ments of which little life or true grace could
be expected to look : real feeling, and all free-
dom of expressing it, are sacrificed to pomp,
to cold splendour; for vigour we have a cer-
tain mouthing vehemence, too elegant indeed
to be tumid, yet essentially foreign to the
heart, and seen to extend no deeper than the
mere voice and gesture. Were it not for his
Letters', which are full of warm, exuberant
power, we might almost doubt whether Gray
was a man of genius; nay, was a living man
at all, and not rather some thousand-times
more cunningly devised poetical turning-loom,
than that of Swift's Philosophers in Laputa.
Johnson's prose is true, indeed, and sound,
and full of practical sense: few men have
seen more clearly into the motives, the inte
rests, the whole walk and conversation of the
living busy world as it lay before him ; but
farther than this busy, and, to most of us,
rather prosaic world, he seldom looked: his
instruction is for men of business, and in re-
gard to matters of business alone. Prudence
is the highest Virtue he can inculcate; and for
that finer portion of our nature, that portion
of it which belongs essentially to Literature
strictly so called ; where our highest feelings,
our best joys and keenest sorrows, our Doubt,
our Love, our Religion reside, he has no word
to utter; no remedy, no counsel to give us in
our straits ; or at most, if, like poor Boswell,
the patient is importunate, will answer: "My
dear Sir, endeavour to clear your mind of
Cant."

The turn which Philosophical speculation
had taken in the preceding age corresponded
with this tendency, and enhanced its narcotic
influences ; or was, indeed, properly speaking,
the root they had sprung from. Locke, him-
self, a clear, humble-minded, patient, reverent,
nay, religious man, had paved the M^ay for
banishing religion from the world. Mind, by
being modelled in men's imaginations into a
Shape, a Visibility; and reasoned of as if it
had been some composite, divisible and re-
unitable substance, some finer chemical salt,
or curious piece of logical joinery, — began to
lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine though
invisible character: it was tacitly figured as
something that might, were our organs fine
enough, be seen. Yet who had ever seen ii ?
Who could ever see iti Thus by degrees it
passed into a Doubt, a Relation, some faint
possibility; and at last into a highly-probable
Nonentity. Following Locke's footsteps, the
Prench had discovered that "as the stomach
secretes Chyle, so does the brain secrete
Thought." And what then was Religion, what
■was Poetry, what M'as all high and heroic,
feeling"? Chiefly a delusion ; often a false and
pernicious one. Poetiy, indeed, was still to
be preserved ; because Poetry was a useful
thing: men needed amusement, and loved to
amuse themselves with Poetry: the playhouse
was a pretty lounge of an evening; then there

GOETHE.

79

were so many precepts, satirical, didactic, so
much more impressive for the rhyme ; to say
nothing of your occasional verses, birth-day
odes, epithalamiums, epicediums, by which
"the dreg,m of existence may be so highly
sweetened and embellished." Nay, does not
Poetry, acting on the imaginations of men,
excite them to daring purposes ; sometimes, as
in the case of Tyrtgeus, to fight better; in
which wise may it not rank as a useful stimu-
lant to man, along with Opium and Scotch
Whisky, the manufacture of which is allowed
by law? In Heaven's name, then, let Poetry
be preserved.

With Religion, however, it fared somewhat
worse. In the eyes of Voltaire and his dis-
ciples. Religion was a superfluity, indeed a
nuisance. Here, it is true, his followers have
since found that he went too far ; that Religion,
being a great sanction to civil morality, is of
use for keeping society in order, at least the
lower classes, who have not the feeling of
Honour in due force; and therefore, as a con-
siderable help to the Constable and Hangman,
ought decidedly to be kept up. But such tolera-
tion is the fruit only of later days. In those
times, there was no question but how to get
rid of it, root and branch, the sooner the better.
A gleam of zeal, nay, we will call it, however
basely alloyed, a glow of real enthusiasm and
love of truth, may have animated the minds of
these men, as they looked abroad on the pesti-
lent jungle of Superstition, and hoped to clear
the earth of it for ever. This little glow, so il-
loyed, so contaminated with pride and other
poor or bad admixtures, was the last which
thinking men were to experience in Europe
for a lime. So is it always in regard to Reli-
gious Belief, how degraded and defaced soever:
the delight of the Destroyer and Denier is no
pure delight, and must soon pass away. With
bold, with skilful hand, Voltaire set his torch
to the jungle: it blazed aloft to heaven; and
the flame exhilarated and comforted the incen-
diaries ; but, unhappily, such comfort could not
continue. Ere long this flame, with its cheer-
ful light and heat, was gone: the jungle, it is
true, had been consumed ; but, with its en-
tanglements, its shelter and spots of verdure
also; and the black, chill, ashy swamp, left in
its stead, seemed for the time a greater evil
than the other.

In such a state of painful obstruction, ex-
tending itself everywhere over Europe, and
already master of Germany, lay the general
mind, when Goethe first appeared in Litera-
ture. Whatever belonged to the finer nature
of man had withered under the Harmattan
breath of Doubt, or passed away in the confla-
gration of open Infidelity; and now, where the
Tree of Life once bloomed and brought fruit
of goodliest savour, there was only barrenness
and desolation. To such as could find suffi-
cient interest in the day-labour and day-wages
of earthly existence; in the resources of the
five bodily Senses, and of Vanity, the only
mental sense which yet flourished, whidi
flourished indeed with gigantic vigour, matters
were siill not so bad. Such men helped them-
selves forward, as they will genei'ally do; and
ound the world, if not an altogether proper

sphere, (for every man, disguise it as he may
has a soul in him,) at least a tolerable enough
place ; where, by one item and another, some
comfort, or show of comfort, might from time
to time be got up, and these few years, espe-
cially since they were so few, be spent with-
out much murmuring. But to men afflicted
with the "malady of Thought," some devout-
ness of temper was an inevitable heritage : to
such the noisy forum of the world could ap-
pear but an empty, altogether insufficient con
cern ; and the whole scene of life had become
hopeless enough. Unhappily, such feelings
are yet by no means so infrequent with our-
selves, that we need stop here to depict them.
That state of Unbelief from which the Ger-
mans do seem to be in some measure deliver-
ed, still presses with incubus force on the
greater part of Europe; and nation after
nation, each in its own way, feels that tiie first
of all moral problems is how to cast it ofi^, or
how to rise above it. Governments naturally
attempt the first expedient; Philosophers, iri
general, the second.

The poet, says Schiller, is a citizen not only
of his country, but of his time. Whatever oc-
cupies and interests men in general, will in-
terest him still more. That nameless Unrest,
the blind struggle of a soul in bondage, that
high, sad, longing Discontent, which was agi-
tating every bosom, had driven Goethe almost
to despair. All felt it; he alone could give it
voice. And here lies the secret of his popu-
larity; in his deep, susceptive heart, he felt a
thousand times more keenly what every one
wps feeling; with the creative gift which be-
longed to him as a poet, he bodied it forth into
visible shape, gave it a local habitation and a
name ; and so made himself the spokesman of
his generation. IVertcr is but the cry of that
dim, rooted pain, under which all thoughtful
men of a certain age were languishing: it
paints the misery, it passionately utters the
complaint; and heart and voice, all over Eu-
rope, loudly and at once respond to it. True,
it prescribes no remedy ; for that was a far
different, far harder enterprise, to which other
years and a higher culture were required ; but
even this utterance of the pain, even this little,
for the present, is ardently grasped at, and
with eager sympathy appropriated in every
bosom. If Byron's life-weariness, his moody
melancholy, and mad, stormful indignation,
borne on the tones of a wild and quite ailless
melody, could pierce so deep into many a Bri-
tish heart, now that the whole matter ir, no
longer new, — is indeed old and trite, — we may
judge with what vehement acceptance thi?
H'erler must have been welcomed, comiirg as
it did like a voice from unknown regions, the
first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge,
which, in country after country, men's ears
have listened to, till they were deaf to all else.
For IVerler, infusing itself into the core and
whole spirit of Literature, gave birth to aVace
of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed
in every part of the world; till better light
dnwncd on them, or at worst exhausted Nature
laid herself to sleep, and it was discovered
that lamenting was an unproductive labour.
These funereal choristers, in Germany, a loud,

80

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

haggard, tumultuous, as well as tearful class,
were named the 7v>rt//H(arinfr, or Power-men ;
but have all long since, like sick children,
cried themselves to rest. Byron was our
English Sentimentalist and Power-man; the
strongest of his kind in Europe; the wildest,
the gloomiest, and it may be hoped, the last.
For what good is it to " whine, put finger i' the
eye, and sob," in such a case ] Still more, to
snarl and snap in malignant wise, " like dog
distract, or a monkey sickl" Why sliould
we quaxrel with our existence, here as it lies
before us, our field and inheritance, to make
or to mar, for better or for^ worse ; in which,
too, so many noblest men have, ever from the
beginning, warring with the very evils we war
with, both made and been what will be vene-
rated to all time 1

What fhapest thou here at the World ■? 'Tis shapen

long ago ;
The Maker shaped it, and thought it were best even so.
Th\ lot is appointed, go follow its hest ;
Thy journey's begun, thou must move and not rest ;
For sorrow and care cannot alter thy case.
And running, not raging, will win thee the race.

Meanwhile, of the philosophy which reigns
in Werter, and which it has been our lot to
hear so often repeated elsewhere, we may here
produce a short specimen. The following
passage will serve our turn ; and be, if we
mistake not, new to the mere English reader.

"That the life of man is but a dream, has
come into many a head ; and with me, too,
fjme feeling of that sort is ever at work.
When I look upon the limits within which
man's powers of action' and inquiry are hem-
med in ; when I see how all effort issues sim-
ply in procuring supply for wants, which again
have no object but continuing this poor exist-
ence of ours ; and then, that ail satisfaction
on certain points of inquiry is but a dreaming
resignation, while you paint, with many-co-
loured figures and gay prospects, the walls
you sit imprisoned by, — all this, Wilhelm,
makes me dumb. I return to my own heart,
and find there such a world ! Yet a world too,
more in forecast and dim desire, than in vision
and living power. And then all swims before
my mind's eye; and so I smile, and again go
dreaming on as others do.

" That children know not what they want, all
conscientious tutors and education-philoso-
phers have long been agreed : but that full-
grown men, as well as cliildren, stagger to and
fro along this earth; like these, not knowing
whence they come or whither they go ; aiming,
just as little, after true objects : governed just
as well by biscuit, cakes, and birch-rods : this is
what no one likes to believe ; and yet, it seems
to me; the fact is lying under our very nose.

"I M'ill confess to thee, for I know what thou
wouldstsay to me on this point, that those are the
happiest, who, like children, live from one day to
the other, carrying their dolls about with them,
to dress and undress : gliding, also, with the
highest respect, before the drawer where mam-
ma has locked the gingerbread: and, when
they do get the wished-for morsel, devouring
it with pufl-'^d-out cheeks, and crying. More! —
These are the fortunate of the earth. Well is

it likewise with those who can label their rag^
gathering employments, or perhaps their pas-
sions, v/ith pompous titles, and represent them
to mankind as gigantic undertakings for its
welfare and salvation. Happy the man who
can live in such wise ! But he who, in hi.s
iiunaiiity, observes where all this issues, who
sees how featly any small thriving citizen can
trim his patch of garden into a Paradise, and
with what unbroken heart even the unhappy
crawls along under his burden, and all are
alike ardent to see the light of this sun but
one minute longer: — yes, he is silent, and he
too forms his world out of himself, and he too
is happy because he is a man. And then, hem-
med in as he is, he ever keeps in his heart the
sweet feeling of freedom, and that this dungeon
— can be left when he likes." *

What Goethe's own temper and habit of
thought must have been, while the materials
of such a work were forming themselves with-
in his heart, might be in some degree conjec-
tured, and he has himself informed us. We
quote the following passage from his Dirhlung
und Wahrhcit. The writing of Werter, it would
seem, vindicating so gloomy, almost desperate
a state of mind m the author, was at the same
time a symptom, indeed a cause, of his now
having got delivered from such melancholy.
Far from recommending suicide to others, as
]]"erler has often been accused of doing, it was
'he first proof that Goethe himself had aban-
doned these " hypochondriacal crotchets: " the
imaginary "Sorrows" had helped to free him
from many real ones.

"Such weariness of life," he says, "has its
physical and spiritual causes; those we shall
leave to the Doctor, these to the Moralist, for
investigation; and in this so trite matter, touch
only on the main point, when that phenome-
non expresses itself most distinctly. All plea-
sure in life is founded on the regular return of
external things. The alternations of day and
night, of the seasons, of the blossoms and
fruits, and whatever else meets us from epoch
to epoch with the offer and command of en-
joyment,— these are the essential springs of
earthly existence. The more open we are to
such enjoyments, the happier we feel our-
selves; but, should the vicissitude of these ap-
pearances come and go without our taking
interest in it, should such benignant invi
tations address themselves to us in vain,
then follows the greatest misery, the heaviest
malady ; one grows to view life as a sickening
burden. We have heard of the Englishman
who hanged himself, to be no more troubled
with daily putting off and on his clothes. T
knew an honest gardener, the overseer of some
extensive pleasure-grounds, who once splenet-
ically exclaimed : Shall I ^ee these clouds for
ever passing, then, from east to west 1 It is
told of one of our most distinguished men,f
that he viewed with dissatisfaction the spring
again growing green, and wished that, by way
of change, it would for once be red. These
are specially the symptoms of life-weariness,

* Leiden des jumren Wertlier. Jim 22 Maij.

fijessing, we believ:: hut perhaps it was less the
greenness of spring that vexed him than Jacobi'a tot
lyric admiration of it. — Ed.

GOETHE.

81

which not seldom issues in suicide, and, at
this time, among men of meditative, secluded
character, was more frequent than might be
supposed.

" Nothing, however, will sooner induce this
feeling of satiety than the return of love. The
first love, it is said justly, is the only one ; for
in the second, and by the second, the highest
significance of love is in fact lost. That idea
of infinitude, of everlasting endurance, which
supports and bears it aloft, is destroyed ; it
seems transient, like all that returns. * * *

" Further, a young man soon comes to find,
if not in himself, at least in others, that moral
epochs have their course, as well as the sea-
sons. The favour of the great, the protection
of the powerful, the help of the active, the
good-will of the many, the love of the few, all
fluctuates up and down ; so that we cannot
hold it fast, any more than we can hold sun,
moon, and stars. And yet these things are
not mere natural events: such blessings flee
away from us, by our own blame or that of
others, by accident or destiny; but they flee
away, they fluctuate, and we are never sure of
them.

" But what most pains the young man of sen-
sibility is the incessant return of our faults:
for how long is it before we learn, that in cul-
tivating viur virtues, we nourish our faults
along with them 1 The former rests on the
latter, as on their roots ; and these ramify
themselves in secret as strongly and as wide
as those others in the open light. Now, as we
for the most part practise our virtues with
forethought and will, but by our faults are
overtaken unexpectedly, the former seldom
give us much joy, the latter are continually
giving us sorrow and distress. Indeed, here
lies the subtilest difliculty in Self-knowledge,
the difficulty which almost renders it impossi-
ble. But figure, in addition to all this, the heat
of youthful blood, an imagination easily fasci-
nated and paralyzed by individual objects;
further, the wavering commotions of the day,
and you will find that an impatient striving to
free one's self from such a pressure was no
unnatural state.

" However, these gloomy contemplations,
which, if a man yield to them, will lead him to
boundless lengths, could not have so decidedly
developed themselves in our young German
minds, had not some outward cause excited
and forwarded us in this sorrowful employ-
ment. Such a cause existed for us in the Lit-
erature, especially the Poetical Literature, of
England, the great qualities of which are ac-
companied by a certain earnest melancholy,
which it imparts to every one that occupies

himself with it.

• »*»*«

"In such an element, with such an environ-
ment of circumstances, with studies and tastes
of this sort, harassed by unsatisfied desires,
externally nowhere called forth to important
actinn ; with the sole prospect of dragging on a
languid, spiritless, mere civic life, we had re-
curred, in our disconsolate pride, to the thought
that life, when it no longer suited one, might
be cast aside at pleasure ; and had helped our-
selves hereby, stintedly enough, over the
11

crosses and tediums of the time. These sen-
timents were so universal, that Werter, on this
very account, could produce the greatest ef-
fect; striking in everywhere with the domi-
nant humour, and representing the interior of
a sickly, youthful heart, in a visible and pal-
pable shape. How accurately the English
have known this sorrow, might be seen from
these few significant lines, written before the
appearant3 of [Verier :

To eriefs congenial prone

More wounds than nature gave he knew,

While misery's form his fancy drew

In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own.*

" Self-murder is an occurrence in men's af-
fairs, which, how much soever it may have
already been discussed and commented upcn,
excites an interest in every mortal; and, at
every new era, must be discussed again. Mon-
tesquieu confers on his heroes and great men
the right of putting themselves to death when
they see good; observing, that it must stand
at the will of every one to conclude the Fifth
Act of his Tragedy whenever he thinks best.
Here, however, our business lies not with per-
sons who, in activity, have led an important
life, who have spent their days for some mignty
empire, or for the cause of freedom : and whom
one may forbear to censure, when, seeing the
high ideal purpose which had inspired them
vanish from the earth, they meditate pursuing
it to that other undiscovered country. Our
business here is with persons to v.'hom, pro-
perly for want of activity, and in the pedoc-
fullest condition imaginable, life has, never-
theless, by their exorbitant requisitions on
themselves, become a burden. As I myseif
was in this predicament, and know best what
pain I suflJered in it, what efforts it cost me to
escape from it, I shall not hide the specizlo^
tions, I from time to time considerately prose
cuted, as to the various modes of death one
had to choose from.

" It is something so unnatural for a man to
break loose from himself, not only to hurt, but
to annihilate himself, that he for the most part
catches at means of a mechanical sort for put-
ting his purpose in execution. When Ajax
falls on his sword, it is the weight of his body
that performs this service for him. When
the warrior adjures his armour-bearer to slay
him, rather than that he come into the hands
of the enemy, this is likewise an external force
which he secures for himself; only a moral
instead of a physical one. Women seek in
the water a cooling for their desperation ; and
the highly mechanical means of pistol- shoot-
ing insures a quick act with the small ist eflJbrt.
Hanging is a death one mentions un s-illingly,
because it is an ignoble one. In England it may
happen more readily than elsewhere, because
from youth upwards you there see that punish-
ment frequent without being specially ignomini-
ous. By poison, by opening of veins, men aim
but at parting slowly from life ; and the most re-
fined the speediest, the most painless death, by
means of an asp, was worthy of a Queen, who
had spent her life in pomp and luxurious plea
sure. All these, however, are external helps

♦ So in the original.

82

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

are enemies, with' which a man, that he may
fight against himself, makes league.

" When I considered these various methods,
and, further, looked abroad over history, I
could find among all suicides no one that had
gone about this deed with such greatness and
freedom of spirit as the Emperor Otho. This
man, beaten indeed as a general, yet nowise
reduced to extremities, determines for the good
of the Empire, which already in some measure
belonged to him, and for the saving of so many
thousands, to leave the world. With his
friends he passes a gay, festive night, and
next morning it is found that with his own
hand he has plunged a sharp dagger into his
heart. This sole act seemed to me worthy of
imitation; and I convinced myself that who-
ever could not proceed herein as Otho had
done, was not entitled to resolve on renouncing
life. By this conviction, I saved myself from
the purpose, or indeed, more properly speaking,
from the whim, of suicide, which in those fair
peaceful times had insinuated itself into the
mind of indolent youth. Among a considera-
ble collection of arms, I possessed a costly
well-ground dagger. This I laid down nightly
beside my bed ; and before extinguishing the
light, I tried whether I could succeed in send-
ing the sharp point an inch or two deep into
my breast. But as I truly never could suc-
ceed, I at last took to laughing at myself; threw
away all these hypochondriacal crotchets, and
determined to live. To do this with cheerful-
ness, however, I required to have some poetical
task given me, wherein all that I had felt,
thought, or dreamed on this weighty business,
might be spoken forth. With such view, I
endeavoured to collect the elements which for
a year or two had been floating about in me ;
I represented to myself the circumstances
which had most oppressed and afflicted me ;
but nothing of all this would take form ; there
was wanting an incident, a fable, in which I
might imbody it.

"All at once I hear tidings of Jerusalem's
death; and directly following the general
rumour, came the most precise and circum-
stantial description of the business; and in
this instant the plan of Wcilcr was invented ;
the whole shot together from all sides, and be-
came a solid mass; as the water in the vessel,
which already stood on the point of freezing,
is by the slightest motion changed at once into
firm ice."*

A wide, and every way most important, in-
terval divides Werier, with its skeptical philo-
sophy, and "hypochondriacal crotchets," from
Goethe's next novel, IVilliclm Meister^s Appren-
ticeship, published some twenty years after-
wards. This work belongs, in all senses, to
the second and sounder period of Goethe's
life, and may indeed serve as the fullest, if
perhaps not the purest, impress of it; being
written with due forethought, at various times,
during a period of no less than ten years.
Considered as a piece of Art, there were much
to be said on Meistcr ; all which, however, lies
beyond our present purpose. We are here
.<H.l!ing at the work chiefly as a document for

♦ Dicb'ine und IFahrheit, b. iii. s. 200— SfS.

the writer's history; and in this point of view,
it certainly seems, as contrasted with its
more popular precursor, to deserve our best
attention : for the problem which had been
stated in Wcrter, with despair of its solution, is
here solved. The lofty enthusiasm, which,
wandering wildly over the universe, found no
resting place, has here reached its appointed
home ; and lives in harmony with what long
appeared to threaten it with annihilation.
Anarchy has now become Peace; the once
gloomy and perturbed spirit is now serene,
cheerfully vigorous, and rich in good fruits.
Neither, which is most important of all, has
this Peace been attained by a surrender to
Necessity, or any compact with Delusion ; a
seeming blessing, such as years and dispirit-
ment will of themselves bring to most men,
and which is indeed no blessing, since even
continued battle is better than destruction or
captivity ; and peace of this sort is like that of
Galgacus's Romans, who " called it peace when
they had made a desert." Here the ardent,
high aspiring youth has grown into the calmest
man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour,
and with aspirations higher as well as clearer.
For he has conquered his unbelief; the Ideal
has been built on the actual; no longer floats
vaguely in darkness and regiqns of dreams,
but rests in light, on the firm ground of human
interest and business, as in its true scene, on
its true basis.

It is wonderful to see with what softness the
skepticism of Jarno, the commercial spirit of
Werner, the reposing, polished manhood of
Lothario and the Uncle, the unearthly enthu-
siasm of the Harper, the gay, animal vivacity
ofPhilina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual
nature of Mignon, are blended together in this
work ; how justice is done to each, how each
lives freely in his proper element, in his proper
form; and how, as Wilhelm himself, the
mild-hearted, all-hoping, all-believing Wilhelm,
struggles forward towards his world of Art
through these curiously complected influences,
all this unites itself into a multifarious, yet
so harmonious Whole, as into a clear poetic
mirror, where man's life and business in this
age, his passions and purposes, the highest
equally with the lowest, are imaged back to
us in beautiful significance. Poetry and
Prose are no longer at variance, for the poet's
eyes are opened : he sees the changes of many-
coloured existence, and sees the loveliness and
deep purport which lies hidden under the very
meanest of them ; hidden to the vulgar sight,
but clear to the poet's; because the "open
secret," is no longer a secret to hiin, and he
knows that the Universe is full of goodness;
that whatever has being has beauty.

Apart from its literary merits or demerits,
such is the temper of mind we trace in Goethe's
Meistcr, and, more or less expressly exhibited,
in all his later works. We reckon it a rare
phenomenon, this temper; and worthy, in oar
times, if it do exist, of best study from all in-
quiring men. How has such a temper been
attained in this so lofty and impetuous mind,
once, too, dark, desolate, and full of doubt,
more than any other? How may we, each of
us in his several sphere, attain it, or strengthen

GOETHE.

it, for ourselves 1 These are questions, this
last is a question, in which no one is uncon-
cerned.

To answer these questions, to begin the
answer of them, would lead us very far beyond
our present limits. It is not, as we believe,
without long, sedulous study, without learning
much, and unlearning much, that, for any man,
the answer of such questions is even to be
hoped. Meanwhile, as regards Goethe, there
is one feature of the business which, to us,
throws considerable light on his moral per-
suasions, and will not, in investigating the
secret of them, be overlooked. We allude to
tlie spirit in which he cultivates his Art; the
noble, disinterested, almost religious love with
which he looks on Art in general, and strives
towards it as towards the sure, highest, nay,
only good. We extract one passage from
Wilhcim Meister : it may pass for a piece of fine
declamation, but not in that light do we offer
it here. Strange, unaccountable as the thing
may seem, we have actually evidence before
our mind that Goethe believes in such doc-
trines, nay, has, in some sort, lived and en-
deavoured to direct his conduct by them.

"'Look at men,' continues Wilhelm, 'how
they struggle after happiness and satisfaction!
Their wishes, their toil, their gold, are ever
hunting restlessly ; and after what 1 After that
which the Poet has received from nature ; the
right enjoyment of the world: the feeling of
himself in others; the harmonious conjunction
of many things that will seldom go together.

" ' What is it that keeps men in continual dis-
content and agitation? It is that they cannot
make realities correspond with their concep-
tions, that enjoyment steals away from among
their hands, that the wished-for comes too late,
and nothing reached and acquired produces on
the heart the effect which their longing for it at
a distance led them to anticipate. Now fate
has exalted the Poet above all this, as if he
were a god. He views the conflicting tumult
of the passions ; sees families and kingdoms
raging in aimless commotion; sees those per-
plexed enigmas of misunderstanding, which
often a single syllable would explain, occa-
sioning convulsions unutterably baleful. He
has a fellow-feeling of the mournful and the
joyful in the fate of all mortals. When iheman
of the world is devoting his days to wasting
melancholy for some deep disappointment ; or,
in the ebullience of joy, is going out to meet
his happy destiny, the lightly-moved and all-
conceiving spirit of the Poet steps forth, like
the sun from night to day, and with soft transi-
tion tunes his harp to joy or wo. From his
heart, its native soil, springs the fair flower of
Wisdom ; and if others while waking dream,
and are pained with fantastic delusions from
their every sense, he passes the dream of life
like one awake, and the strangest event is to
him nothing, save a part of the past and of the
future. And thus the Poet is a teacher, a pro-
phet, a friend of gods and men. How! Thou
Avouldst have him descend from his height to
some paltry occupation T He who is fashioned,
like a bird, to hover round the world, to nestle on
the lofty summits, to feed on flowers and fruits,
exchanging gaii y one, bough for airother, he

ought also to work at the plough like an ox;
like a dog to train himself to the harness and
draught ; or, perhaps, tied up in a chain, to
guard a farm-yard by his barking 1'

" Werner, it may well be supposed, had list-
ened with the greatest surprise. ' All true,' he
rejoined, 'if men were but made like birds;
and, though they neither spun nor weaved,
could spend peaceful days in perpetual enjoy-
ment ; if, at the approach of winter, they could
as easily betake themselves to distant regions ;
could retire before scarcity, and fortify them-
selves against frost.'

"'Poets have lived so,' exclaimed Wilhelm,
' in times when true nobleness was belter re-
verenced; and so should they ever live. Suffi-
ciently provided for within, they had need of
little from without; the gift of imparting lofty
emotions, and glorious images to men, in melo-
dies and words that charmed the ear, and fixed
themselves inseparably on whatever they might
touch, of old enraptured the world, and served
the gifted as a rich inheritance. At the courts
of kings, at the tables of the great, under the
windows of the fair, the sound of them was
heard, while the ear and the soul were shut for
all beside; and men felt, as we do when de-
light comes over us, and we pause with rap-
ture if, among the dingles we are crossing, the
voice of the nightingale starts out, touching
and strong. They found a home in every ha-
bitation of the world, and the lowliness of their
condition but exalted them the more. The
hero listened to their songs, and the Conqueror
of the Earth did reverence to a Poet; for he
felt that, without poets, his own wild and vast
existence would pass away like a whirlwind,
and be forgotten for ever. The lover wished
that he could feel his longings and his joys so
variedly and so harmoniously as the Poet's in-
spired lips had skill to show them forth; and
even the rich man could not of himself discern
such costliness in his idol grandeurs, as when
they were presented to him shining in the
splendour of the Poet's spirit, sensible to all
worth, and ennobling all. Nay, if thou wilt
have it, who but the Poet was it that first form-
ed Gods for us ; that exalted us to them, and
brought them down to us V "*

For a man of Goethe's talent to write many
such pieces of rhetoric, setting forth the dignity
of poets, and their innate independence on ex-
ternal circumstances, could be no very hard
task : accordingly, we find such sentiments
again and again expressed, sometimes with
still more gracefulness, still clearer emphasis,
in his various writings. But to adopt these
sentiments into his sober practical persuasion;
in any measure to feel and believe that such
was still, and must always be, the high voca-
tion of the poet; on this ground of universal
humanity, of ancient and now almost forgotten
nobleness, to take his stand, even in these tri-
vial, jeering, withered, unbelieving days; anil
through all their complex, dispiriting, mean,
yet tumultuous influences, to "make his light
shine before men," that it might beautify even
our " rag-gathering age" with some beams of
that mild, divine splendour, which had long

♦ Wilhelm Meistci-'s Apprenticeship, book ii. chap. 9.

84

CARLYLirS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

left us — the very possibility of which was de-
nieil; heartily and in earnest to meditate all
this, was no common proceeding; to bring it
into practice, especially in such a life as his
has been, was among the highest and hardest
enterprises, which any man whatever could
engage in. We reckon this a greater novelty,
than all the novelties which as a mere writer
he ever put forth, whether for praise or cen-
sure. We have taken it upon us to say that if
such is, in any sense, the state of the case with
regard to Goethe, he deserves not mere approval
as a pleasing poet and sweet singer; but deep,
grateful study, observance, imitation, as a Mo-
ralist and Philosopher. If there be any prolm-
bibiij that such is the state of the case, we can-
not but reckon it a matter well worthy of being
inquired into. And it is for this only that we
are here pleading and arguing.

On the literary merit and meaning of Wilhelm
Mctstir we have already said that we must not
enter at present. The book has been trans-
lated into English; it underwent the usual
judgment from our Reviews and Magazines ;
was to some a stone of stumbling, to .others
foolishness, to most an object of wonder. On
the whole, it passed smoothly through the criti-
cal Assaying-house, for the Assayers have
Christian dispdsitions, and very little time; so
Mns.cr was ranked, without umbrage, among the
legal coin of the Minerva Press; and allowed
to circulate as copper currency among the rest.
That in so quick a process, a German FreuJ-
rirh d'or might not slip through unnoticed
among new and equally brilliant British brass
Farthings, there is no warranting. For our
critics can now criticise improntptw, which,
though far the readiest, is nowise the surest
plan. Meisier is the mature product of the first
genius in our times ; and must, one would think,
be different, in various respects, from the im-
mature products of geniuses who are far from
the first, and whose works spring from the
brain in as many weeks as Goethe's cost him
years.

Nevertheless, we quarrel with no man's ver-
dict; for Time, which tries all things, will try
this also, and bring to light the truth, both as
regards criticism and the thing criticised ; or
sink both into final darkness, which likewise
will be the truth as regards them. But there
is one censure which we must advert to for a
moment, so singular does it seem to us. lucis-
tcr, it appears, is a " vulgar" work ; no " gen^
tloman," we hear in certain circles, could have
written it; few real gentlemen, it is insinuated,
can like to read it; no real lady, unless pos-
sessed of considerable courage, should profess
having read it at all. Of Goethe's " gentility"
we shall leave all men to speak that have aiiy,
even the faintest knowledge of him ; and with
regard to the gentility of his readers, state only
the following fact. Most of us have heard of
the late Queen of Prussia, and know whether
or not she was genteel enough, and of real
Jadyhood : nay, if we must prove every thing,
h( r character can be read in the Life of Napo-
i_eoi!, by Sir Walter Scott, who passes for a
judge of those matters. And yet this is what we
find written in the Kunst unri Jlterlhiim for 1824.*

* Band v. s. 8.

" Books, too, have their past happiness^
which no chance can take away:

IVer vie. sehi Brud niit T/iriinen ass,
Wer nicht die kuinincrinillcn JSTilchte
SiiJ f!ciitem Bettc ineint'ttd snss,
Der ,'cennt euch -nicht, ihr himndischen Mdchte. •

"These heart-broken lines a highly noble-
minded, venerated Queen repeated in the crud-
est exile, when cast forth to boundless misery.
She made herself familiar with the Book in
which these words, with many other painful
experiences, are communicated, and drew from
it a melancholy consolation. This influence,
stretching of itself into boundless time, what is
there that can obliterate]"

Here are strange diversities of taste; "na-
tional discrepancies" enough, had we time to
investigate them ! Nevertheless, wishing each
party to retain his own special persuasions, so
far as they are honest, and adapted to his in-
tellectual position, national or individual, we
cannot but believe that there is an inward and
essential Truth in Art; a Truth far deeper
than the dictates of mere Mode, and which,
could we pierce through these dictates, would
be true for all nations and all men. To arrive
at this Truth, distant from every one at first,
approachable by most, attainable by some
small number, is the end and aim of all real
study of Poetry. For such a purpose, among
others, the comparison of English with foreign
judgment, on works that will bear judging,
forms no unprofitable help. Some day, we
may translate Friedrich Schlegel's Essay on
Meislcr, by way of contrast to our English ani-
madversions on that subject. Schlegel's praise,
whatever ours might do, rises sulRciently high :
neither does he seem, during twenty years, to
have repented of what he said ; for we observe
in the edition of his works, at present publish-
ing, he repeals the whole Character, and even
appends to it, in a separate sketch, solne new
assurances and elucidations.

It may deserve to be mentioned here that
Mcister, at its first appearance in Germany, was
received very much as it has been in England.
Goethe's knoM^n character, indeed, precluded
indifl'erence there; but otherwise it was much
the same. The whole guild of criticism was
thrown into perplexity, into sorrow ; every-
where was dissatisfaction open or concealed.
Official duty impelling them to speak, some
said one thing, some another; all felt in secret
that they knew not what to say. Till the ap-
pearance of Schlegel's Character, no word, that
we have seen, of the smallest chance to be de-
cisive, or indeed to last beyond the day, had
been uttered regarding it. Some regretted that
the fire of Wcrtcr was so wonderfully abated;
whisperings there might be about " lowness,"
" heaviness ;" some spake forth boldly in be-
half of suffering " virtue." Novalis was not
among the speakers, but he censured the work
in secret, and this for a reason which to us
will seem the strangest; for its being, as we
should say, a Benthamite work! Many are
the bitter aphorisms we find, among his Frag*

* Who never ate his l)re;id in sorrow ;

Wlio never spent tlie diirttsonie hours
WeepinR and watching for the morrow.

He knows yon not, ye unseen Powers.

Wilhelm Mcister, book ii. chap. 13.

GOETHE.

85

tnents, directed against Meisler for its prosaic,
mechanical, economical, cold-hearted, alto-
gether Utilitarian character. We English
again call Goethe a mystic : so difficult is it to
please all parties ! But the good, deep, nob!
Novalis made the fairest amends ; for notwith-
standing all this, Tieck tells us, if we remem-
ber rightly, he regularly perused Meister twice
a year.

On a somewhat different ground, proceeded
quite another sort of assault from one Pust-
kucher of Quedlinburg. Herr Pustkucher felt
afflicted, it would seem, at the want of Patriot-
ism and Religion too manifest in Meister : and
determined to take what vengeance he could.
By way of sequel to the Apprenticeship, Goethe
had announced his Wilhelm Meisters VVander-
jahre* as in a state of preparation ; bufthe
book still lingered: whereupon, in the interim,
forth comes this Pustkucher with a pseudo-
Wanderjahre of his own ; satirizing, according
to abilit)% the spirit and principles of the Ap-
prenticeship. We have seen an epigram on
Pu?tkucker and his Wandcrjahre, attributed,
with what justice we know not, to Goethe him-
self; whether it is his or not, it is written in
his name ; and seems to express accurately
enough for such a purpose the relation between
the parties, — in language which we had rather
not translate:

IVitl denn von Quedlinburg- aus

FAn neuer IViivderer traben ?
Hat dock die IVallfisck seine Laus,

Jiluss audi die meine haben.

So much for Pustkucher, and the rest. The
true Wandcrjahre has at length appeared : the
first volume has been before the world since
1821. This fragment, for it still continues
such, is in our view one of the most perfect
pieces of composition that Goethe has ever
produced. We have heard something of his
being at present engaged in extending or com-
pleting it: what the whole may in his hands
become, we are anxious to see; but the
Wnnderjahre, even in its actual state, can
hardly be called unfinished, as a piece of
writing; it coheres so beautifully within it-
self; and yet we see not whence the wonder-
cus landscape came, or whither it is stretch-
ing; but it hangs before us as a fairy region,
hiding its borders on this side in light sunny
clouds, fading away on that into the infinite
azure: already, we might almost say, it gives
us the notion of a completed fragment, or the
state in which a fragment, not meant for com-
pletion, might be left.

• But apart from its environment, and con-
sidered merely ill itself, this Wandcrjahre seems
Jo us a most estimable work. There is, in
truth, a singular gracefulness in it; a high,
melodious Wisdom; so light is it, yet so earn-

*"lVander}uhrc denotes the period which a German
artisan is, by law or iisaje, olilised to pass in travellin;.',
lo perfect himself in his craft, after the conclusion of his
Lehrjuhre (Apprenticeship), and l)efore his Mastersliip
can begin. In iniiny cnilds this cnstom is as old as their
existence, and continues still to he indispensable: it is
said 10 have oriL'inated in the frequent jimrneys of the
German Emperors to Italy, and the conseijncnt improve-
ment observed in such workmen ainon!; their menials ;is
had attended them thither. Most of the enildsare what
is c tiled gesclienktcn, that is, presenting, having presents
lo give to needy wandering brothers."

est; so calm, so gay, yet so strong and deep
for the purest spirit of all Art rests over it and
breathes through it ; " mild Wisdom is wedded
in living union to Harmony divine;" the
Thought of the Sage is melted, we might .say,
and incorporated in the liquid music of the
Poet. " It is called a Romance," observes the
English Translator; "but it treats not of ro-
mance characters or subjects ; it has less re-
lation to Fielding's Tom Jones, than to Spenser's
Faery Queen." We have not forgotten what is
due to Spenser; yet, perhaps, beside his im-
mortal allegory this Wandcrjahre may, in fact,
not unfairly be named ; and with this advan-
tage, that it is an allegory, not of the Seven-
teenth century, but of the Nineteenth ; a pic-
ture full of expressiveness, of what men are
striving for, and ought to strive for in these
actual days. "The scene," we are further
told, "is not laid on this firm earth; but in a
fair Utopia of Art and Science and free Activity;
the figures, light and aeriform, come unlocked
for, and melt away abruptly, like the pageants
of Prospero, in his Enchanted Island." We
venture to add, that, like Prospero's Island,
this too is drawn from the inward depths, the
purest sphere of poetic inspiration : ever, as
we read it, the images of old Italian Art flit
before us ; the gay tints of Titian ; the quaint
grace of Domenichino; sometimes the clear,
yet unfathomable depth of Rafaelle ; and what-
ever else we have known or dreamed of in
that rich old genial world.

As it is Goethe's moral sentiments, and cul
ture as a man, that we have made our chief
object in this survey, we would fain give some
adequate specimen of the Wandcrjahre, where,
as appears to us, these are to be traced in their
last degree of clearness and completeness.
But to do this, to find a specimen that should
be adequate, were difficult, or rather impossible.
How shall we divide what is in itself one and
indivisible? How shall the fraction of a com-
plex picture give us any idea of the so beauti-
ful whole 1 Nevertheless, we shall refer our
readers to the Tenth and Eleventh Chapters of
the Wandcrjahre ; where in poetic and symbolic
style, they will find a sketch of the nature,
objects, and present ground of Religious Belief,
which, if they have ever reflected duly on that
matter, will hardly fail to interest them. They
will find these chapters, if we mistake not,
worthy of deep consideration; for this is the
merit of Goethe: his maxims will bear study,
nay, they require it, and improve by it more
and more. They come from the depths of his
mind, and are not in their place till they have
reached the depths of ours. The wisest man,
we believe, may see in them a reflex of his own
wisdom: but to him who is still learning, they
become as seeds of knowledge; they take root
in the mind, and ramify, as we meditate them,
into a whole garden of thought. The sketch
we mentioned is far too long for being extracted
here : however, we give some scattered portions
of it, which the reader will accept with fair
allowance. As the wild suicidal Night-thoughts
of Wer'.er formed our first extract, this by way
of counterpart may be the last. We must
fancy ^ilhelm in the " Pedagogic province,'*
proceeding towards the " Chief, or the Tubik,"
H

86

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

with intent to place his son under their charge,
in tliat wonderful region, " where he was to see
so many singularities."

" Wilhelm had already noticed that in the
cut and colour of the young people's clothes, a
variety prevailed, which gave the whole tiny
population a peculiar aspect: he was about to
question his attendant on this point, when a
still stranger observation forced itself upon
him ; all the children, how employed soever,
laid down their work, and turned, with singular
yet diverse gestures, towards the party riding
past them; or rather, as it was easy to infer,
towards the Overseer, who was in it. The
youngest laid their arms crosswise over their
breasts and looked cheerfully up to the sky ;
those of middle size held their hands on their
backs, and looked smiling on the ground; the
eldest stood with a frank and spirited air; their
arms stretched down, they turned their heads
to the right, and formed themselves into a line;
whereas the others kept separate, each where
he chanced to be.

" The riders having stopped and dismounted
here, as several children, in their various
modes, were standing forth to be inspected by
the Overseer, Wilhelm asked the meaning of
these gestures; but Felix struck in and cried
gaily: 'What posture am I to take then?'
' Without doubt,' said the Overseer, ' the first
posture ; the arms over the breast, the face
earnest and cheerful towards the sky.' Felix
obeyed, but soon cried: 'This is not much to
my taste ; I see nothing up there : does it last
longl But yes !' exclaimed he joyfully, 'yon-
der are a pair of falcons flying from the west
to the east; that is a good sign tool' — 'As
thou takest it, as thou behavest,' said the other :
'Now mingle among them as they mingle.'
He gave a signal, and the children left their
postures, and again betook them to work or
sport as before."

Wilhelm a second time "asks the meaning
of these gestures;" but the Overseer is not at
liberty to throw much light on the matter;
mentions only that they are symbolical, "no-
wise mere grimaces, but have a moral purport,
which perhaps the Chikf or the Thhek may
further explain to him." The children them-
selves, it would seem, only know it in part;
" secrecy having many advantages ; for when
you tell a man at once and straight forward
the purpose of any object, he fancies there is
nothing in it." By and by, however, having
left Felix by the way, and parted with the
Overseer, Wilhelm arrives at the abode of the
Three "who preside over sacred things," and
from whom further satisfaction is to be looked
for.

"Wilhelm had now reached the gate of a
wooded vale, surrounded with high walls : on
a certain sign, the little door opened and a
man of earnest, imposing look received our
traveller. The latter found himself in a large
beautifully umbrageous space, decked with the
richest foliage, shaded with trees and bushes
cf ail sorts ; while stately walls and magnificent
buildings were discerned only in glimpses
through this thick natural boscage. A friendly
reception from the Three, who by and by ap-
peared, at last turned into a general conversa-

tion, the substance of which we now present
in an abbreviated shape.

"'Since you intrust your son to us,' said
they, ' it is fair that we admit you to a closer
view of our procedure. Of what is external
you have seen much that does not bear its
meaning on its front. What part of this do
you wish to have explained V

"'Dignified yet singular gestures of saluta-
tion I have noticed; the import of which I
would gladly learn : with you, doubtless, the
exterior has a reference to the interior, and
inversely : let me know what this reference is.'

" 'Well-formed healthy children,' replied the
Three, ' bring much into the world along with
them; nature has given to each whatever he
requires for time and duration ; to unfold this
is our duty; often it unfolds itself better of its
own accord. One thing there is, however,
which no child brings into the world with him;
and ye( it is on this one thing that all depends
for making man in every point a man. If you
can discover it yourself, speak it out.' Wil-
helm thought a little while, then shook his
head.

"The Three, after a suitable pause, ex-
claimed, 'Reverence!' Wilhelm seemed to
hesitate. ' Reverence !' cried they, a second
lime. ' All want it, perhaps yourself

"'Three kinds of gestures you have seen.;
and we inculcate a threefold reverence, which
when commingled and formed into one whole,
attains its full force and effect. The first is
Reverence for what is Above us. That pos-
ture, the arms crossed over the breast, the look
turned joyfully towards heaven ; that is what
we have enjoined on young children ; requiring
from ihein thereby a testimony that there is a
God above, who images and reveals himself in
parents, teachers, superiors. Then comes the
second ; Reverence for what is Under us.
Those hands folded over the back, and as it
were tied together, that down-turned smiling
look, announce that we are to regard ihe earth
with attentio"^ and cheerfulness: from the
bounty of the t^rth we are nourished : the earth
affords unutterable joys ; but disproportionate
sorrows she also brings us. Should one of
our children do himself external hurt, blamably
or blamelessly; should others hurt him acci-
dentally or purposely; should dead involuntary
matter do him hurt; then let him well con-
sider it; for such dangers will attend him all
his days. But from this posture we delay no',
to free our pupil, the instant we become con-
vinced that the instruction connected with it
has produced sufficient influence on him
Then, on the contrary, we bid him gathei
courage, and, turning to his comrades, range
himself along with them. Now, at last, he
stands forth, frank and bold; not selfishly
isolated; only in combination with his equals
does he front the world. Further we have
nothing to add.'

" 'I see a glimpse of it !' said Wilhelm. 'Are
not the mass of men so marred and sl,inted
because they take pleasure only in the element
of evil-wishing and evil-speaking? Whoever
gives himself to this, soon comes to be indif-
ferent towards God, contemptuous towards the
world, spiteful towards his equals ; and the Uue,

GOETHE.

87

genuine, indispensable sentiment of self-esti-
mation corrupts into self-conceit and presump-
tion. Allow me, however,' continued he, 'to
state one difficulty. You say that reverence is
not natural to man : now has not the reverence
or fear of rude people for violent convulsions
of nature, or other inexplicable mysteriously
foreboding occurrences, been herelofore re-
garded as the germ out of which a higher feel-
ing, a purer sentiment, was by degrees to be
developed]'

'"'Nature is indeed adequate to fear,' replied
they, ' but to reverence not adequate. Men fear
a known or unknown powerful being; the
strong seeks to conquer it, the weak to avoid
it: both endeavour to get quit of it, and feel
themselves happy when for a short season
they have put it aside, and their nature has in
some degree restored itself to freedom and in-
dependence. The natural man repeats this
operation millions of limes in the course of
his life; from fear he struggles to freedom;
from freedom he is driven back to fear, and so
makes no advancement. To fear is easy, but
grievous ; to reverence is difficult, but satis-
factor}'. Man does not willingly submit himself
to reverence, or rather he never so submits him-
self: it is a higher sense which must be com-
municated to liis nature ; which only in some
fiivoured individuals unfolds itself spontane-
ousl}', who on this account too have of old been
looked upon as Saints and Gods. Here lies
the worth, here lies the business of all true
Religions, whereof there are likewise only
three, according to the objects towards which
they direct our devotion.'

" The men paused; Wilhelm reflected for a
time in silence; but feeling in himself no pre-
tensions to unfold these strange words, he re-
quested the Sages to proceed with their expo-
sition. They immediately complied. 'No
Religion that grounds itself on fear,' said they,
'is regarded among us. With the reverence
to which a man should give dominion in his
mind, he can, in paying honour, keep his own
honour; he is not disunited with himself as in
the former case. The Religion, which depends
on Reverence for what is Above us, we deno-
minate the Ethnic; it is the Religion of the
Nations, and the first happy deliverance from
a degratiing fear; all Heathen religions, as we
call theni, are of this sort, whatsoever names
they may bear. The Second Religion, which
founds itself on Reverence for what is x\round
us, we denominate the Philosophical; for the
Philosopher stations himself in the middle,
and must draw down to him all that is higher,
and up to him all that is lower, and only in this
medium condition does he merit the title of
Wise. Here, as he surveys with clear sight
his relation to his equals, and therefore to the
whole human race, his relation likewise to all
other earthly circumstances and arrangements
necessary or accidental, he alone, in a cosmic
sense, lives in Truth. But now we have to
speak of the Third Religion, grounded on Re-
verence for what is Under us; this we name
the Christian; as in the Christian Religion
such a temper is the most distinctly manifest-
ed; it is a last step to which mankind were
fitted and destined to attain. But what a task

was it not only to be patient with the Earth,
and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a
higher birthplace ; but also to recognise hu-
mility and poverty, mockery and despite, dis-
grace and wretchedness, suffering and death,
to recognise these things as divine ; nay, even
on sin and crime to look not as hindrances,
but to honour and love them as furtherances,
of what is holy. Of this, indeed, we find some
traces in all ages ; but the trace is not the goal ;
and this being now attained, the human spe-
cies cannot retrograde; and we may say that
the Christian Religion, having once appeared,
cannot again vanish ; having once assumed its
divine shape, can be subject to no dissolution.'

"'To which of these Religions do you spe-
cially adhere?' inquired Wilhelm.

" ' To all the three,' replied they, ' for in their
union they produce what may properly be
called the true Religion. Out of those three
Reverences springs the highest Reverence, Re-
verence for One's self, and these again unfold
themselves from this ; so that man attains the
highest elevation of which he is capable, that
of being justified in reckoning himself the Best
that God and Nature have produced; nay, of
being able to continue on this lofty eminence,
without being again by self-conceit and pre-
sumption drawn down from it into the vulgar
level.'"

The Three undertake to admit him into the
interior of their Sanctuary ; whither, accord-
ingly, he, " at the hand of the Eldest," proceeds
on the morrow. Sorry are we that we cannot
follow them into the "octagonal hall," so full
of paintings, and the "gallery open on one
side, and stretching round a spacious, gay,
flowery garden," It is a beautiful figurative re-
presentation, by pictures and symbols of Art,
of the Fi rst and the Second Rel igions, the Ethnic
and the Philosophical ; for the former of which
the pictures have been composed from the Old
Testament ; for the latter from the New. We
can only make room for some small portions.

'"I otserve,' said Wilhelm, '^you have done
the Israelites the honour to sele'ct their history
as the groundwork of this delineation, or ra-
ther you have made it the leading object there.'

'"As you see,' replied the Eldest; 'for you will
remark, that on the socles and friezes we have
introduced another series of transactions and
occurrences, not so much of a synchronistic as
of a symphronistic kind; since, among all na-
tions, we discover records of a similar import,
and grounded on the same facts. Thus you
perceive here, while, in the main field of the
picture, Abraham receives a visit from his
gods in the form of fair youths, Apollo among
the herdsmen of Admetus is painted above on
the frieze. From which we may learn, that
the gods, when they appear to men, are com-
monly unrecognised of them.'

" The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the
most part, met with well-known objects ; but
they were here exhibitea in a 'velier, more
expressive manner, than he had been used to
see them. On some few matters, he requested
explanation, and at last could not help return-
ing to his former question : ' Why the Isra-
elitish history had been chosen in preference
to all others r

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

"The Eldest answered: 'Among all Heathen
religions, for such also is the Israelilish, this
has the most distinguished advantages; of
which I shall mention only a few. At the Eth-
nic judgment-seat, at the judgment-seat of the
God of IS'ations, it is not asked whether this is
best, the most excellent nation ; but whether it
lasts, whether it has continued. The Isra-
elitish people never was good for much, as its
own leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a
thousand times reproachfully declared; it pos-
sesses few virtues, and most of the faults of
other nations: but in cohesion, steadfastness,
valour, and, when all this would not serve, in
obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the
most ferseverant nation in the world ; it is, it
■was, and it will be, to glorify the name of Je-
hovah through all ages. We have set it up,
therefore, as the pattern figure; as the main
figure, to which the others only serve as a
frame.'

"'It becomes not me to dispute with you,'
said Wilhelm, 'since you have instruction to
impart. Open to me, therefore, the other ad-
vantages of this people, or rather of its history,
of its religion.'

"'One chief advantage,' said the other, 'is
its excellent collection of Sacred Books. These
stand so happily combined together, that even
out of the most diverse elements, the feeling
of a whole still rises before us. They are com- j
plete enough to satisfy ; fragmentary enough '
to excite ; barbarous enough to rouse ; tender
enough to appease ; and for many other con-
tradicting merits might not these Books, might
not this one Book, be praised V j

*****

" Thus wandering on, they had now reached
the gloomy and perplexed periods of the His-
tory, the destruction of the City and the Temple,
the murder, exile, slavery of whole masses of
this stiff-necked people. Its subsequent for-
tunes were delineated in a cunning allegorical
way; a real historical delineation of them
would have lain without the limits of true Art.

"At this point, the gallery abruptly termi-
nated in a closed door, and Wilhelm was sur-
prised to see himself already at the end. 'In
your historical series,' said he, ' I find a chasm.
You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem,
and dispersed the people ; yet you have not in-
troduced the divine Man who taught there
shortly before ; to whom, shortly before, they
would give no ear.'

"'To have done this, as you require it,
would have been an error. The life of that
divine Man, whom you allude to, stands in no
connection with the general history of the
world in his time. It was a private life; his
teaching was a teaching for individuals. What
has publicly befallen vast masses of people,
and the minor parts which compose them, be-
icngs to the general History of the World, to
the general Religion of the World; the Reli-
gion we have named the First. What inwardly
befalls individuals belongs to the Second Re-
ligion, the Philosophical : such a Religion
was it that Christ taught and practised, so long
as he went about on earth. For this reason,
the external here closes, and I now open to
f ou the internal.'

"A door went back, and they entered a
similar gallery; where Wilhelm soon recog
nised a corresponding series of Pictures from
the New Testament. They seemed as if by
another hand than the first: all was sofier;
forms, movements, accompaniments, light, and
colouring."

Into this second gallery, with its strange
doctrine about "Miracles and Paraliles," the
characteristic of the Philosophical Religion,
Ave cannot enter for the present, yet must give
one hurried glance. Wilhelm expresses some
surprise that these delineations terminate
"with the Supper, with the scene where the
Master and his Discipies pan." He inquires
for the remaining portion of the history.

" 'In all sorts of instruction,' said the Eldest,
'in all sorts of communication, we ate fond
of separating whatever it is possible to sepa-
rate; for by this means alone can the notion
of importance and peculiar significance arise
in the young mind. Actual experience of it-
self mingles and mixes all things together:
here, accordingly, we have entirely disjoined
that sublime Man's life from its lerniinaticm.
In life, he appears as a true Philosopher, — let
not the expression stagger you, — as a Wise
Man in the highest sense. He stands firm to
this point: he goes on his way inflexibly, and
while he exalts the lower to himself, while he
makes the ignorant, the poor, the sick, par-
takers of his wisdom, of his riches, of his
strength, he, on the other hand, in nowise con-
ceals his divine origin ; he dares to equal
himself with God, nay, to declare that he him-
self is God. In this manner is he wont, from
youth upwards, to astound his familiar friends ;
of these he gains a part to his own cause;
irritates the rest against him; and shows to
all men, who are aiming at a certain elevation
in doctrine and life, what they have to look for
from the world. And thus, for the noble por-
tion of mankind, his walk and conversation
are even more instructive and profitable than
his death : for to those trials every one is called,
to this trial but a few. Now, omitting all that
results from this consideration, do but look at
the touching scene of the Last Supper. Here
the Wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those, that
are his own, utterly orphaned behind him;
aad while he is careful for the Good, he feeds
along M'ith them a traitor, by whom he and
the Better are to be destroyed.' "

This seems to us to have "a deep, 5tiU
meaning;" and the longer and closer we ex-
amine it, the more it pleases us. Wilhelm is
not admitted into the shrine of the Third Re-
ligion, the Christian, or that of which Christ's
sufferings and death were the symbols, as his
walk and conversation had been the symbol
of the Second, or Philosophical Religion.
"That last Religion," it is said, —

'"That last Religion which arises from the
Reverence of what is Beneath us ; that venera-
tion of the contradictory, the hated, the avoided,
we give to each of our pupils, in small por-
tions, by way of outfit, along with him into
the world, merely that he may know where
more is to be had, should such a want spring
up within him. I invite you to return hither
at the end of a year, to attend our general

GOETHE.

8»

Festival, and see how far your son is advanced:
then shall you be admitted into the Sanctuary
of Sorrow.'

" ' Permit me one question,' said Wilhelm :
'as you have set up the life of this divine
Man for a pattern and example, have you like-
wise selected his sufferinf!;s, his death, as a
model of exalted patience?'

"'Undoubtedly we have,' replied the Eldest.
'Of this we make no secret; but we draw a
veil over these sufferings, even because we
reverence them so highly. We hold it a damna-
ble audacity to bring forth that torturing
Cross, and the Holy One who suffers on it, or
to expose them to the light of the Sun, which
hid its face when a reckless world forced such
a sight on it; to take these mysterious secrets,
in which the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid,
and play with them, fondle them, trick them
out, and rest not till the most reverend of all
solemnities appears vulgar and paltry. Let
so much for the present suffice — * * * The
rest we must still owe you for a twelvemonth.
The instruction, which in the interim we give
the children, no stranger is allowed to witness :
then, however, come to us, and you will hear
what our best Speakers ihinlc it serviceable to
make public on those matters.' "

Could we hope that, in its present disjointed
state, this emblematic sketch would rise before
the minds of our readers, in any measure as it
stood before the mind of the writer; that, in
considering it, they might seize only an out-
".ine of those many meanings which, at less or
greater depth, lie hidden under it, we should
anticipate their thanks for having, a first or a
second time, brought it before them. As it is,
believing that to open-minded, truth-seeking
men, the deliberate words of an open-minded,
truth-seeking man can in no case be wholly
unintelligible, nor the words of such a man as
Goethe indifferent, we have transcribed it for
their perusal. If we induce them to tarn to
the original, and study this in its completeness,
with so much else that environs it, and bears
on it, they will thank us still more. To our
own judgment, at least, there is a fine and pure
significance in this whole delineation: such
phrases even as "the Sanctuary of Sorrow,"
"the divine depth of Sorrow," have of them-
selves pathetic wisdom for us; as indeed a
tone of devoutness, of calm, mild, priestlike
dignity pervades the whole. In a time like
ours, it is rare to see, in the writings of culti-
vated men, any opinion whatever, bearing any
mark of sincerity, on such a subject as this:
yet it is and continues the highest subject, and
ihev that are highest are most fit for studying
it, and helping others to study it.

Goethe's Wnmkrjahre was published in his
seventy-second year; TFc/Vo-in his twenty-fifth:
thus in passing between these two works, and
over Mcisfers Lchrjahn; which stands nearly
midway, we have glanced over a space of
almost fifty years, including within them, of
course, whatever was most important in his
public or private history. By means of these
quotations, so diverse in their tone, we meant
to make it visible that a great change had
taken place in the moral dispositiem of the
man ; a change from inward imprisonment,
12

doubt, and discontent, into freedom, belief, and
clear activity : such a change as, in our opinion,
must take place, more or less consciously,
in every character that, especially in these
times, attains to spiritual manhood ; and in
characters possessing any thoughtfulness and
sensibility, will seldom take place Avithout a
too painful consciousness, without bitter con-
flicts, in which the character itself is too often
maimed and impoverished, and which end too
often not in victory, but in defeat, or fatal
compromise with the enemy. Too often, we
may well say; for though many gird on the
harness, few bear it warrior-like ; still fewer
putit off with triumph. Among our own poets,
Byron was almost the only man we saw faith-
fully and manfully struggling, to the end, in
this cause ; and he died while the victory was
still doubtful, or at best, only beginning to be
gained. We have already stated our opinion,
that Goethe's success in this matter has been
more complete than that of any other man in
his age; nay, that, in the strictest sense, he
may also be called the only one that has so
succeeded. On this ground, were it on no
other, w° have ventured to say, that his spiritual
history and procedure must deserve attention;
that his opinicms, his creations, his mode of
thought, his whole picture of the world as it
dwells within him, must to his contemporaries
be an inquiry of no common interest; of an
interest altogether peculiar, and not in this
degree exam pled in existing literature. These
things can be but imperfectly stated here, and
must be left, not in a state of demonstration,
but, at the utmost, of loose fluctuating proba-
bility; nevertheless, if inquired into, they will
be found to have a precise enough meaning,
and, as we believe, a highly important one.

For the rest, M'hat sort of mind it is that has
passed through this change, that has gained
this victory; how rich and high a mind ; how
learned by study in all that is wisest, by expe-
rience in "all that is most complex, the bright-
est as well as the blackest, in man's existence;
gifted with what insight, with what grace
and power of utterance, we shall not for
the present attempt discussing. All these the
reader will learn, who studies his writings with
such attention as they merit: and by no other
means. Of Goethe's dramatic, lyrical, didac-
tic poems, in their thousandfold expressiveness,
for they are full of expressiveness, we cai
here say nothing. But in every departmer'
of Literature, of Art ancient and modern, in
many provinces of Science, we shall often
meet him; and hope to have other occasions
of estimating what, in these respects, we and
all men owe him.

Two circuinstances, meanwhile we have re-
marked, which to us throw light on the nature
of his original faculty for Poetry, and go far
to convince us of the Mastery he has attained
in that art ; these we may here state briefly,
fin- the judgment of such as already know his
writings, or the help of such as are beginning
to know them. The first is his singularly em-
blematic intellect; his perpetual never-failing
tendency to transform into shape, into life, the
opinion, the feeling that may dwell in him;
which, in its widest sense, we reckon to ba
h2

90

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOTIS WRITINGS.

essentia \y the grand problem of the Poet.
We do not mean mere metaphor and rheto-
rical trope: these are but the exterior concern,
often but the scaffoidin^sf of the edifice, which
is to be built up (within our thoughts) by-
means of them. In allusions, in similitudes,
though no one known to us is happier, many
are more copious, than Goethe. But we find
this faculty of his in the very essence of his
intellect ; and trace it alike in the quiet, cun-
ning epigram, the allegory, the quaint device,
reminding us of some Quarles or Bunyan ;
and in the Faiista, the Tusxog, the Mii^noris, which,
in their pure and genuine personality, may al-
most remind us of the Jlrids and Htnvlcis of
Shakspeare. Every thing has form, every thing
has visual existence ; the poet's imagination
bodies forth the forms of things unseen, his pen
turns them to slinpc. This, as a natural endow-
ment, exists in Goethe, we conceive, to a very
high degree.

The other characteristic of his mind, which
proves to us his acquired mastery in art, as
this shows us the extent of his original capa-
city for it, is his wonderful variety, nay. uni-
versality ; his entire freedom from Mannerism.
We read Goethe for years before we come to
see wheiein the distinguishing peculiarity of
his understanding, of his disposition, even of
his way of writing, consists. It seems quite a
simple style — that of his ; remarkable chiefly
for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short, its
commonness : and yet it is the most uncom-
mon of all styles: we feel as if every one
might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable. As
hard is it to discover in his writings, — though
there also, as in every man's writings, the
character of the writer must lie recorded, —
what sort of spiritual construction he has,
what are his temper, his affections, his indivi-
dual specialities. For all lives freely within
him ; Philina and Clarchen, Mephistopheles
and Mignon, are alike indifferent, or alike dear
to him ; he is of no sect or caste : he seems
not this man or that man, but a man. We
reckon this to be the characteristic of a Mas-
ter in Art of any sort; and true especially of
all great Poets. How true is it of Shakspeare
and Homer! Who knows, or can figure what
the Man Shakspeare was, by the first, by the
twentieth perusal of his works ] He is a
Voice coming to us from the Land of Melody :
his old, brick dwelling-place, in the mere
earthly burgh of Stratford-on-Avon, offers us
the most inexplicable enigma. And what is
Homer in the Ilias? He is the witness ; he
has seen, and he reveals it; we hear and be-
lieve, but do not behold him. Now compare,
with these two poets, any other two; not of
ejual genius, for there are none such, but of
equal sincerity, who wrote as earnestly, and
from the heart, like them. Take, for instance,
Jean Paul and Lord Byron. The good Richter
begins to show himself, in his broad, massive,
kindly, quaint significance, before we have
read many pages of even his slightest work;
and to the last, he paints himself much better
than his subject. Byron may almost be said
to have painted nothing else than himself, be
h's subject what it might. Yet as a test for
the culture of a Poet, in his poetical capacity,

for his pretensions to mastery and complete-
ness in his heart, we can but reckon this
among the surest. Tried by this, there is no
living writer that approaches within many
degrees of Goethe.

Thus, it would seem, we consider Goethe to
be a richly educated Poet, no less than a richly
educated Man : a master both of Humanity,
and of Poetry; one to whom Experience has
given true wisdom, and the " Melodies Eternal "
a perfect utterance for his wisdom. Of the
particular form which this humanity, this
wisdom has assumed; of his opinions, cha-
racter, personality, — for these, with whatever
difficulty, are and must be decipherable in his
writings, — we had much to say : but this also
we must decline. In the present state of mat-
ters, to speak adequately would be a task too
hard for us, and one in which our readers
could afford little help, nay, in which many of
them might take little interest. Meanwhile,
Ave have found a brief cursory sketch on this
subject, already written in our language : some
parts of it, by way of preparation, we shall
here transcribe. It is written by a professed
admirer of Goethe; nay, as might almost seem,
by a grateful learner, whom he taught, whom
he had helped to lead out of spiritual obstruc-
tion, into peace and light. Making due allow-
ance for all this, there is little in the paper
that we object to.

"In Goethe's mind," observes he, "the first
aspect that strikes us is its calmness, then its
beauty; a deeper inspection reveals to us its
vastness and unmeasured strength. This man
rules, and is not ruled. The stern and fiery
energies of a most passionate soul lie silent
in the centre of its being; a trembling sensi-
bility has been enured to stand, without flinch-
ing or murmur, the sharpest trials. Nothing
outward, nothing inward, shall agitate or con-
trol him. The brightest and most capricious
fancy, the most piercing and inquisitive intel-
lect, the wildest and deepest imagination ; the
highest thrills of joy, the bitterest pangs of
sorrow: all these are his, he is not theirs.
While he moves every heart from its stead-
fastness, his own is firm and still : the words
that search into the inmost recesses of our
nature, he pronounces with a tone of coldness
and equanimity : in the deepest pathos he
weeps not, or his tears are like water trickling
from a rock of adamant. He is a king of
himself and of this world ; nor does he rule
it like a vulgar great man, like Napoleon or
Charles the Twelfth, by the mere brute exer-
tion of his will, grounded on no principle, or
on a false one : his faculties and feelings are
not fettered or prostrated under the iron sway
of Passion, but led and guided in kindly union
under the mild sway of Reason ; as the fierce
primeval elements of Chaos were stilled at the
coming of Light, and bound together, under
its soft vesture, into a glorious and beneficent
Creation.

"This is the true rest of man ; the dim aim
of every human soul, the full attainment of
onl}'- a chosen few. It comes not unsought to
any ; but the wise are wise because they think
no price too high for it. Goethe's inward
home has been reared hv slow and laborious

GOETHE.

9.

efforts; but it stands on no hollow or deceitful
basis : for his peace is not from blindness, but
from clear vision ; not from uncertain hope
of alteration, but from sure insight into what
cannot alter. His world seems once to have
been desolate and baleful as that of the dark-
est skeptic: but he has covered it anew with
beauty and solemnity, derived from deeper
sources, over which Doubt can have no sway.
He has acquired fearlessly, and fearlessly
searched out and denied the False; but he has
not forgotten, what is equally essential and in-
finitely harder, to search out and admit the
True. His heart is still full of warmth, though
his head is clear and cold ; the world for him
is still full of grandeur, though he clothes it
with no false colours ; his fellow-creatures are
still objects of reverence and love, though their
basenesses are plainer to no eye than to his.
To reconcile these contradictions is the task
of all good men, each for himself, in his own
way and manner; a task which, in our age,
is encompassed with difficulties peculiar to
the time ; and which Goethe seems to have ac-
complished with a success that few can rival.
A mind so in unity with itself, even though it
were a poor and small one, would arrest our
attention, and win some kind regard from us;
but when this mind ranks among the strong-
est and most complicated of the species, it
becomes a sight full of interest, a study full of
deep instruction.

"Such a mind as Goethe's is the fruit not
only of a royal endowment by nnture, but also
of a culture proportionate to her bounty. In
Goethe's original form of spirit, we discern the
highest gifts of manhood, without any defi-
ciency of the lower: he has an eye and a heart
equally for the sublime, the common, and the
ridiculous ; the elements at once of a poet, a
thinker, and a wit. Of his culture we have
often spoken already; and it deserves again to
be held up to praise and imitation. This, as
he himself unostentatiously confesses, has
been the soul of all his conduct, the great
enterprise of his life; and few that understand
him will be apt to deny that he has prospered.
As a writer, his resources have been accumu-
lated from nearly all the provinces of human
intellect and activity ; and he has trained him-
self to use these complicated instruments, with
a light expertness which we might have ad-
mired in the professor of a solitary depart-
ment. Freedom, and grace, and smiling
earnestness are the characteristics of his
v'orks : the matter of them flows along in
d-iaste abundance, in the softest combination ;
and their style is referred to by native critics
ds the highest specimen of the German tongue.
*****

" But Goethe's culture as a writer is perhaps
less remarkable than his culture as a man.
He has learned not in head only, but also in
heart; not from Art and Literature, but also
by action and passion, in the rugged school of
Experience. If asked what was the grand
characteristic of his writings, we should not
say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has
seen, and suffered, and done, speaks to us of
what it has tried and conquered. A gay de-
lineation will SIT-' us notice of dark and toil-

some experiences, of business done in the
great deep of the spirit; a maxim, trivial to the
careless eye, will rise with light and solution
over long perplexed periods of our own history.
It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the
life of one man becomes a possession to all.
Here is a mind of the most subtile and tumultu-
ous elements ; but it is governed in peaceful
diligence, and its impetuous and ethereal fa-
culties work softly together for good and noble
ends. Goethe may be called a Philosopher;
for he loves and has practised as a man the
wisdom which, as ti poet, he inculcates. Com-
posure and cheerful seriousness seem to
breathe over all his character. There is no
whining over human woes : it is understood
that we must simply all strive to alltviate or
remove them. There is no noisy battling for
opinions; but a persevering effort to make
Truth lovely, and recommend her, by a thou-
sand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his
personal manners we can easily believe the
universal report, as often given in the way of
censure as of praise, that he is a man of con-
summate breeding and the stateliest presence:
for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, we
might almost say, majestic repose, and serene
humanity, is visible throughout his works. In
no line of them does he speak with asperity of
any man : scarcely ever even of a thing. He
knows the good, and loves it; he knows the
bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither
case with violence: his love is calm and
active; his rejection is implied, rather than
pronounced ; meek and gentle, though we see
that it is thorough, and never to be revoked.
The noblest and the basest he not only seems
to comprehend, but to personate and body
forth in their most secret lineaments: hence
actions and opinions appear to him as they
are, with all the circumstances which extenu-
ate or endear them to the hearts where they
originated and are entertained. This also is
the spirit of our Shakspeare, and perhaps of
every great dramatic poet. Shakspeare is no
sectarian; to all he deals with equity and
mercy ; because he knows all, and his heart
is wide enough for all. In his mind the world
is a whole; he figures it as Providence go-
verns it; and to him it is not strange that the
sun should be caused to shine on the evil and
the good, and the rain to fall on the just and
the unjust."

Considered as a transient, far-off view of
Goethe in his personal character, all this, from
the writer's peculiar point of vision, may have
its true grounds, and wears at least the aspect
of sincerity. We may also quote tou.ething
of what follows on Goethe's character as a poet
and thinker, and the contrast he exhibits in
this respect with another celebrated, and now
altogether European author.

"Goethe," observes this critic, "has been
called the 'German Voltaire,' but it is a
name which does him wrong and describes
him ill. Except in the corresponding variety
of their pursuits and knowledge, in which, per-
haps, it does Voltaire wrong, the two cannot
he compared. Goethe is all, or the best of all,
that Voltaire was, and he is much that Voltairo
did not dream of. To say nothing of his dig

92

CaRLYle's miscellaneous writings.

nified and trutnful character as a man, he be-
longs, as a thinker and a writer, to a far higher
class than this enfant gate du monde quHl gdta.
He is not a questioner and a despiser, but a
teacher and a reverencer ; not a destroyer, but
a builder up; not a wit only, but a wise man.
Of him Montesquieu could not have said, with
even epigrammatic truth : Jl a plus que pcrsovne
Vesprit que tout le monde a. Voltaire is the cle-
verest of all past and present men ; but a great
man is something more, and this he surely
was not."

Whether this epigram, which we have seen
in some Biographical Dictionary, really be-
longs to Montesquieu, we know not; but it
does seem to us not wholly inapplicable to
Voltaire, and at all events, highly expressive
of an important distinction among men of
talent generally. In fact, the popular man,
and the man of true, at least of great origin-
ality, are seldom one and the same; we sus-
pect that, till after a long struggle on the part
of the latter, they are never so. Reasons are
obvious enough. The popular man stands on
our own level, or a hair's breadth higher; he
shows us a truth which we can see without
shifting our present intellectual position. This
is a highly convenient arrangement. The
original man, again, stands above us ; he
wishes to wrench us from our old fixtures, and
elevate us to a higher and clearer level : but
to quit our old fixtures, especially if we have
sat in (hem with moderate comfort for some
score or two of years, is no such easy business ;
accordingly we demur, we resist, we even give
battle; we still suspect that he is above us,
but try to persuade ourselves (Laziness and
Vanity earnestly assenting) that he is below.
For is it not the very essence of such a man
that he be new? And who will warrant us
that, at the same time, he shall only be an in-
lensation and continuation of the o?f/, which, in
general, is what we long and look fori No
one can warrant us. And, granting him to be
a man of real genius, real depth, and that
speaks not till after earnest meditation, what
sort of a philosophy were his, could ive esti-
mate the length, breadth, and thickness of it at
a single glance ] And when did Criticism
give two glances 1 Criticism, therefore, opens
on such a man its greater and its lesser bat-
teries, on every side: he has no security but
to go on disregarding it; and "iu the end,"
says Goethe, " Criticism itself comes to relish
that method." But now let a speaker of the
other class come forward; one of those men
that " have more than any one, the opinion
which all men have !" No sooner does he
speak, than all and sundry of us feel as if we
had bepn wishing to speak that very thing, as
if we ourselves might have spoken it; and
forthwith resounds ''•■om the united universe a
celebration of that surprising feat. What clear-
ness, brilliancy, justness, penetration ! Who
can doubt that this man is right, when so
many thousand votes are ready to back him?
Doubtless, he is right; doubtless, he is a clever
man; and his praise will long be ia all the
Magazines.

Clever men are good, but they are not the
dest. " The instruction they can give us is

like baked bread, savoury and satisfying for a
single day;" but, unhappily, "flour cannot be
sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground."
We proceed with our Critic in his contrast of
Goethe with Voltaire.

"As poets," continues he, " the two live not in
the same hemisphere, not in the same world.
Of Voltaire's poetry, it were blindness to deny
the polished, intellectual vigour, the logical
symmetry, the flashes that from time to time
give it the colour, if not the warmth, of fire : but
it is in a far other sense than this that Goethe
is a poet; in a sense of which the French
literature has never afforded any example. We
may venture to say of him, that his province is
high and peculiar; higher than any poet but
himself, for several generations, has so far
succeeded in, perhaps even has steadfastly at-
tempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it per-
petually strikes us that we are reading the
poetry of our own day and generation. No
demands are made on our credulity : the light,
the science, the skepticism of our age, is not
hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated
mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary
poetic forms ; there are no supernal, no infernal
influences, for Faust is an apparent, rather
than a real exception ; but there is the barren
prose of the nmeteenlh century, the vulgar life
which we are all leading, and it starts into
strange beauty in his hands, and we pause in
delighted wonder to behold the flowerage of
poesy blooming in that parched and rugged
soil. This is ;he end of his Mignons and
Harpers, of his Hermanns and Mcisters. Poetry,
as he views it, exists not in time or place, but
in the spirit of man; and Art with Nature is
now to perform for the poet what Nature alone
performed of old. The divinities and demons,
the witches, spectres, and fairies, are vanished
from the world, never again to be recalled : but
the Imagination, which created these, still lives,
and will for ever live, in man's soul; and can
again pour its wizard light over the Universe,
and summon forth enchantments as lovely or
impressive, and which its sister faculties will
not contradict. To say that Goethe has ac-
complished all this, would be to say that his
genius is greater than was ever given to any
man : for if it was a high and glorious mind,
or rather series of minds, that peopled the first
ages with their peculiar forms of poetry, it must
be a series of minds much higher and more
glorious that shall so people the present. The
angels and demons, that can lay prostrate our
hearts in the nineteenth century must be of ano-
ther, and more cunning fashion, than those that
subdued us in the ninth. To have attempted,
to have begun this enterprise, may be account-
ed the greatest praise. That Goethe ever me-
ditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no
direct evidence: but, indeed, such is the end and
aim of high poetry at all times and seasons;
for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but
the purest truth ; and, if he would lead captive
our whole being, not rest satisfied with a part
of it, he must address us on interests that are,
not that were, ours ; and in a dialect which finds
a response, and not a contradiction, within our
bosoms."*

* German Romance, vol. iv. pp. 17—25.

GOETHE.

93

Here, however, we must terminate our pil-
ferinss, or open robberies, and bring these
straggling lucubrations to a close. In the ex-
tracts we have given, in ilie remarks made on
them, and on ilie subject of ihem, we are aware
that we have held the attitude (jf admirers and
pleaders : neither is it unknown to us that the
critic is, in virtue of his ofhce, a judge, and not
an advocate; sits there, not to do favour, but
to dispense justice, which in most cases will
involve blame as well as praise. But we are
firm lielievers in the maxim that, for all right
judgment of an3' man or thing, it is useful, nay,
essential, to see his good qualities before pro-
nouncing on his bad. This maxim is so clear
to ourselves, that, in respect of poetry at least,
we almost think we could make it clear to other
men. In the first place, at all events, it is a
much shallower and more ignoble occupation
to detect faults than to discover beauiies. The
"critic (3y," if it do but alight on any plinth or
single cornice of a brave, stately building, shall
be able to declare, with its half-inch vision, that
here is a speck, and there an inequality; that,
in fact, this and the other individual stone are
nowise as they should be ; for all this the
"critic fly" will be sufficient: but to take in
the fair relations of the Whole, to see the build-
ing as one object, to estimate its purpose, the
adjustment of its parts, and their harmonious
co-operation towards that purpose, will requii'e
the eye and the mind of a Vitruvius, or a Pal-
ladio. But further, the faults of a poem, or
other piece of art, as we view them at first, will
by no means continue unaltered when we view
them after due and final investigation. Let us
consider what we mean by a fault. By the word
fault, we designate something thatdispleasesus,
that contradicts us. But here the question might
arise. Who are we? This fault displeases,
contradicts ws; so far is clear; and had ice, had
I, and 7ny pleasure and confirmation, been the
chief end of the poet, then doubtless he has
failed in that end, and his fault remains a fault ir-
remediably, and without defence. But who shall
say whether such really was his object, whether
such ought to have been his object? And
if it was not, and ought not to have been, what
becomes of the fault ] It must hang altogether
undecided ; we as yet know nothing of it; per- 1
haps it may not be the poet's but our own fault ;
perhaps it may be no fault whatever. To see
rightly into this matter, to determine with any
infuUihility, whether what we call a fault is in
very deed a fault, we must previously have set-
tled two points, neither of which may be so
readily settled. First, we must have made
plain to ourselves what the poet's aim really
and truly was, how the task he had to do stood
before his own eye, and how far, with such
means as it afforded him, he has fulfilled it.
Secondly, we must have decided whether and
how far this aim, this task of his, accorded, —
noi with vs, and our individual crotchets, and
the crotchets of our little senate where we give
or take the law, — but with human nature, and
the nature of things at large; with the univer-
sal principles of poetic beauty, not as they stand
writiea in our text-books, but in the hearts and
ima'i;inations of all men. Does the answer in
either case come out unfavourable; was theie

an inconsistency between the means and the
end ; a discordance between the end and truth,
there is a fault : was there not, there is no fault.

Thus it would appear that the detection of
faults, provided they be faults of any depth and
consequence, leads us of itself into that regioa
where also the higher beauties of the piece, if
it have any true beauties, essentially reside. 1:3
fact, according to our view, no man can pro-
nounce dogmatically, with even a chance of
being right, on the faults of a poem, till he has
seen its very last and highest beauty; the last
in becoming visible to any one, which few ever
look after, which indeed in most pieces it were
very vain to look after ; the beauty of the poem
as a Whole, in the strict sense; the clear view
of it as an indivisible Unity; and whether it
has grown up naturally from the general soil
of Thought, and stands- there like a thousand-
years Oak, no leaf, no bough superfluous; or
is nothing but a pasteboard Tree, cobbled to-
gether out of size and waste-paper and water-
colours ; altogether unconnected with the soil
of Thought, except by mere juxtaposition, or
at best united with it by some decayed slump
and o'cad boughs, which the more cunning De-
corationist (as in your Historic Novel) may
have selected for the basis and support of his
agglutinations. It is true, most readers judge
of a poem by pieces, they praise and blame by
pieces: it is a common practice, and for most
poems and most readers may be perfectly
sufficient ; yet we would advise no man to fol-
low this practice, who traces in himself even
the slightest capability of following a better one,
and if possible, we would advise him to prac-
tise only on worthy subjects ; to read few poems
that will not bear being studied as well as read

That Goethe has his faults cannot be doubt
ful ; fi)r we believe it was ascertained long agfj
that there is no man free from them. Neither
are we ourselves without some glimmering of
certain actual limitations and inconsistencies
by which he too, as he really lives, and writer,
and is, may be hemmed in ; which beset hitn
too, as they do meaner men ; which show us
that he too is a son of Eve. But to exhibit
these before our readers, in the present state
of matters, we should reckon no easy labour,
were it to be adequately, to be justly done;
and done any how, no profitable one. Better
is it we should first study him; better "to see
the great man before attempting to oversee him."
We are not ignorant that certain objections
against Goethe already float vaguely in the
English mind, and here and there, according to
occasion, have even come to utterance: the.sc,
as the study of him proceeds, we shall hold our-
selves ready, in due season, to discuss; but
for the present we must beg the reader to be-
lieve, on our word, that we do not reckon
them unanswerable, nay, that we reckon them
in general the most answerable things in the
world; and things which even a little increase
of knowledge will not fail to answer without
other help.

For furthering such increase of knowledge
on this matter, may we beg the reader to ac-
cept two small pieces of advice, which we
ourselves have found to lie of use in studying
Goethe. They seem applicable to tbf-. stud?

94

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of Foreign Literature generally; indeed to the
study of all Literature that deserves the name.
The first is, nowise to suppose that Poetry
is a superficial, cursory business, which may
be seen through to the very bottom, so soon
as one inclines to cast his eye on it. We
reckon it the falsest of all maxims that a true
Poem can be adequately tas!cd; can be judged
of "as men judge of a dinner," by some inter-
nal tongue, that shall decide on the matter at
once and irrevocably. Of the poetry which
supplies spouting-clubs, and circulates in cir-
culating libraries, we speak not here. That
is quite another species ; which has circulated,
and will circulate, and ought to circulate, in
all times; but for the study of which no man
is required to give rules, the rules being al-
ready given by the thing itself. We speak of
that Poetry which Masters write, which aims
not "at furnishing a languid mind M'ith fan-
tastic shows and indolent emotions,'' but at
incorporating the everlasting Reason of man
in forms visible to his Sense, and suitable to
it: and of this M'e say that to know it is no
slight task ; but rather that being the essence
of all science, it requires the purest of all study
for knowing it. "What!" cries the reader,
" are we to study Poetry ? To pore over it as
we do over Fluxions'!" Reader, it depends
upon your object: if you want only amusement,
choose your book, and you get along, without
study, excellently well. " But is not Shakspeare
plain, visible to the very bottom, wnthout
study 1" cries he. Alas, no, gentle Reader;
we cannot think so; we do not find that he is
"visible to the very bottom," even to those
that profess the study of him. It has been our
lot to read some criticisms on Shakspeare, and
to hear a great many ; but for most part they
amounted to no such "visibility." Volumes
we have seen that were simply one huge In-
terjection printed over three hundred pages.
Nine tenths of our critics have told us little
more of Shakspeare, than what honest Franz
Horn says our neighbours used to tell of him,
"that he was a great spirit, and stept majes-
tically along." Johnson's Preface, a sound
and solid piece for its purpose, is a complete
exception to this rule; and, so far as we re-
member, the only complete one. Students of
Doetry admire Shakspeare in their tenth year;
but go on admiring him more and more, un-
derstanding him more and more, till their
threescore-and-tenth. Grotius said, he read

Terence otherwise than boys do. "Happy
contractedness of youth," adds Goethe, " nay^
of men in general ; that at all moments of their
existence they can look upon themselves as
complete ; and inquire neither after the True
nor the False, nor the High nor the Deep ; but
simply after what is proportioned to them-
selves."

Our second advice we shall state in a few
words. It is to remember that a Foreigner is
no Englishman; that in judging a foreign
work, it is not enough to ask whether it is
suitable to our wo:/e>.-, but whether it is suitable
to foreign wants : above all, whether it is suit-
able to itself. The fairness, the necessity of
this can need no demonstration : yet how often
do we find it, in practice, altogether neglected!
We could fancy we saw some Bond-street
Tailor criticising the costume of an ancient
Greek; censuring the highly improper cut of
collar and lapel; lam.enting, indeed, that col-
lar and lapel were nowhere to be seen. He
pronounces the costume, easily and decisive-
ly, to be a barbarous one; to know whether it
is a barbarous one, and how barbarous, the
judgment of a Winkelmann might be required,
and he would find it hard to give a judgment.
For the questions set before the two weie radi-
cally diflerent. The Fraction asked himself:
How will this look in Almacks, and before
Lord Mahogany] The Winklemann asked
himself: How will this look in the Universe,
and before the Creator of Man 1

Whether these remarks of ours may do
any thing to forward a right appreciation of
Goethe in this country, we know not; neither
do we reckon this last result to be of any vital
importance. Yet must we believe that, in re-
commending Goethe, we are doing our part to
recommend a truer study of Poetry itself: and
happy were we to fancy that any efforts of
ours could promote such an object. Promoted,
attained it will be, as we believe, by one means
and another. A deeper feeling for Art is
abroad over Europe; a purer, more earnest
purpose in the study, in the practice of it. In
this influence we too must participate: the
time will come when our own ancient noble
Literature will be studied and felt, as well as
talked of; when Dilettantism will give place
to Criticism in respect of it; and vague won-
der end in clear knowledge, in sincere reve-
rence, and, what were best of all, in hearty
emulation.

BURNS.

95

BUHNS.*

[Edinburgh Review, 1828.]

In llie modern arrangements of society, it is
no uncommon thing that a man of genius must,
like Butler, "ask for bread and receive a
stone ;" for, in spite of our grand maxim of
supply and demand, it is by no means the
highest excellence that men are most forward
to recognise. The inventor of a spinning-
jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own
day; but the writer of a true poem, like the
apostle of a true religion, is nearly as sure of
the contrary. We do not know whether it is
not an aggravation of the injustice, that there
is generally a posthumous retribution. Robert
Burns, in the course of nature, might yet have
been living; but his short life was spent in
toil and penury; and he died, in the prime of
his manhood, miserable and neglected ; and
yet already a brave mausoleum shines over his
dust, and more than one splendid monument
has been reared in other places to his fame:
the street where he languished in poverty is
called by his name ; the highest personages in
our literature have been proud to appear as
his commentators and admirers, and here is
the tixlh narrative of his Life, that has been
given to the world !

Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologize
for this new attempt on such a subject: but his
readers, we believe, will readily acquit him;
or, at worst, will censure only the performance
of his task, not the choice of it. The character
of Burns, indeed, is a theme that cannot easily
become either trite or exhausted; and will pro-
bably gain rather than lose in its dimensions
by the distance to which it is removed by
Time. No man, it has been said, is a hero to
his valet: and this is probably true; but the
fault is at least as likely to be the valet's as
the hero's : For it is certain, that to the vulgar
eye few things are wonderful that are not
distant. It is difficult for men to believe that
the man, the mere man whom they see, nay,
perhaps, painfully feel, toiling at their side
through the poor jostlings of existence, can be
made of finer clay than themselves. Suppose
that some dining acquaintance of Sir Thomas
Lucy's, and neighbour of John a Combe's, had
snatched an hour or two from the preservation
of his game, and written us a Life of Shak-
speare! What dissertations should we not
have had, — not on Hamlet and The Tempest, hui
on the wool-trade, and deer-stealing, and the
libel and vagrant laws ! and how the Poacher
became a Player; and how Sir Thomas and
Mr. John had Christian bowels, and did not
pu~'h him to extremities! In like manner, we
believe, with respect to Burns, that till the
companions of his pilgrimage, the honourable
Excise Commissioners, and the Gentlemen of
the Caledonian Hunt, and the Dumfries Aris-

*TI)e Life of Robert Burns. By J. G. Lockhart, LL. B.

Rdinburgti, 1828.

tocracy, and all the Squires and Earls, equally
with the Ayr Writers, and the New and Old
Light Clergy, whom he had to do with, shall
have become invisible in the darkness of the
Past, or visible only by light borrowed from hi$
juxtaposition, it will be difficult to measure
him by any true standard, or to estimate what
he really was and did, in the eighteenth cen-
tury, for his country and the world. It will be
difficult, we say; but still a fair problem for
literary historians; and repeated attempts will
give us repeated approximations.

His former biographers have done some-
thing, no doubt, but by no means a great deal,
to assist us. Dr. Currie and Mr. Walker, the
principal of these writers, have both, we think,
mistaken one essentially important thing : —
Their own and the world's true relation to
their author, and the style in which it became
such men to think and to speak of such a
man. Dr. Currie loved the poet truly ; more
perhaps than he avowed to his readers, or even
to himself; yet he everywhere introduces him
with a certain patronizing, apologetic air; as
if the polite public might think it strange and
half unwarrantable that he, a man of science,
a scholar, and gentleman, should do such
honour to a rustic. In all this, however, we
readily admit that his fault was not want of
love, but weakness of faith ; and regret that
the first and kindest of all our poet's biogra-
phers should not have seen farther, or believed
more boldly what he saw. Mr. Walker offends
more deeply in the same kind: and both err
alike in presenting us with a detached cata-
logue of his several supposed attributes, vir-
tues, and vices, instead of a delineation of the
resulting character as a living unity. This,
however, is not painting a portrait; but gaug-
ing the length and breadth of the several fea-
tures, and jotting down their dimensions in
arithmetical ciphers. Nay, it is not so much
as this : for we are yet to learn by what arts or
instruments the mind comW be so measured and
ganged.

Mr. Lockhart, we are happy to say, has
avoided both these errors. He uniformly treats
Burns as the high and remarkable man the
public voice has now pronounced him to be:
and in delineating him, he has avoided the
method of separate generalities, and rather
sought for characteristic incidents, habits,
actions, sayings; in a word, for aspects which
exhibit the whole man, as he looked and lived
among his fellows. The book accordingly,
with all its deficiencies, gives more insight, we
think, into the true character of Burns, than
any prior biography : though, being written on
the very popular and condensed scheme of an
article for Constable's Misrcllanij, it has less
depth than we could have wished and expected
from a writer of sucl; power; and contains
rather more, and more multifarious, quotations^.

96

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

than belong of right to an original production.
Indeed, Mr. Lockhart's own writing is gene-
rally so good, so clear, direct, and nervous,
that we seldom wish to see it making place
for another man's. However, the spirit of the
•work is throughout candid, tolerant, and anx-
iously conciliating; compliments and praises
are liberally distributed, on all hands, to great
and small; and, as Mr. Morris Birkbeck ob-
serves of the society in the backwoods of
America, " the couriesies of polite life are
never lost sight of for a moment." But there
are better things than these in the volume;
and we can safely testify, not only that it is
easily and pleasantly read a first time, but may
even be without difficulty read again.

Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that
the problem of Burns's Biography has yet
been adequately solved. We do not allude so
much to deficiency of facts or documents, —
though of these we are still every day receiv-
ing some fresh accession, — as to the limited
and imperfect application of them to the great
end of Biography. Our notions upon this sub-
ject may perhaps appear extravagant; but if
an individual is really of consequence enough
lO have his life and character recorded for
public remembrance, we have always been of
opinion, that the public ought to be made ac-
quainted with all the inward springs and rela-
tions of his character. How did the world and
man's life, from his particular position, repre-
sent themselves to his mind? How did coex-
isting circumstances modify him from without ;
how did he modify these from within 1 With
what endeavours and what efficacy rule over
them ; with what resistance and what suffer-
ing sink under them? In one word, what and
how produced was the effect of society on him;
what and how produced was his effect on
society ? He who should answer these ques-
tions, in regard to any individual, would, as
we believe, furnish a model of perfection in
biography. Few individuals, indeed, can de-
serve such a study; and many fees will be
written, and, for the gratification of innocent
curiosity, ought to be written, and read, and
forgotten, which are not in this sense biogra-
phies. But Burns, if we mistake not, is one of
these few individuals; and such a study, at
least with such a result, he has not yet obtained.
Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can
be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them
with good-will, and trust they may meet with
acceptance from those for whom they are in-
tended.

Burns first came upon the world as a prodi-
gy; and was, in that character, entertained by
it, in the usual fashion, with loud, vague, tu-
multuous wonder, speedily subsiding into cen-
sure and neglect; till his early and most
mournful death again awakened an enthu-
siasm for him, which, especially as there was
now nothing to be done, and much to be
dpoken, has prolonged itself even to our own
lime. It is true, the "nine days" have long
since elapsed ; and the very continuance of
this clamour proves that Burns was no vulgar
wonder. Accordingly, even in sober judg-
ments, where, as years passed by, he has
come to rest more and more exclusively on his

own intrinsic merits, and may now be well
nigh shorn of that casual radiance, he appears
not only as a true British poet, but as one of
the most considerable British men of the
eighteenth century. Let it not be objected that
he did little : He did much, if we consider where
and how. If the work performed was small,
we must remember that he had his very ma-
terials to discover; for the metal he worked
in lay hid under the desert, where no eye but
his had guessed its existence; and we may al-
most say, that with his own hand he had to
construct the tools for fashioning it. For he
found himself in deepest obscurity, without
help, without instruction, without model; or
with models only of the meanest sort. An
educated man stands, as it were, in the midst
of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled
with all the weapons and engines which man's
skill has been able to devise from the earliest
time ; and he works, accordingly, with a
strength borrowed from all past ages. How
different is bis state who stands on the outside
of that storehouse, and feels that its gates must
be stormed, or remain for ever shut against
him? His means are the commonest and
rudest; the mere work done is no measure of
his strength. A dwarf behind his steam
engine may remove mountains ; but no dwarf
will hew them down with the pick-axe ; and
he must be a Titan that hurls them abroad
with his arms.

It is in this last shape that Burns presents
himself. Born in an age the most prosaic
Britain had yet seen, and in a condition the
most disadvantageous, where his mind, if it
accomplished aught, must accomplish it un- .
der the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay,
of penury and desponding apprehension of
the worst evils, and with no furtherance but
such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut,
and the rhymes of a Ferguson or Ramsay for
his standard of beauty, he sinks not under all
these impediments: Through the fogs and
darkness of that obscure region, his eagle eye
discerns the true relations of the world and -
human life ; he grows into intellectual strength, ■
and trains himself into intellectual expertness. i
Impelled by the irrepressible movement of his
inward spirit, he struggles forward into the
general view, and with haughty modesty lays
down before us, as the fruit of his labour, a
gift, which Time has now pronounced im-
perishable. Add to all this, that his darksome,
drudging childhood and youth was by far the
kindliest era of his whole life ; and that he died
in his thirty-seventh year ^ and then ask if it
be strange that his poems are imperfect, and
of small^xtent, or that his genius attained no
mastery in its art? Alas, his Sun shone as
through a tropical tornado; and the pale
Shadow of Death eclipsed it at noon ! Shroud-
ed in such baleful vapours, the genius of Burns
was never seen in clear azure splendour, en-
lightening the world: But some beams from it
did, by fits, pierce through; and it tinted those
clouds with rainbow and orient colours into a
glory and stern grandeur, which men silently
gazed on with wonder and tears !

We are anxious not to exaggerate; for it .a
exposition rather than admiration that our

BURNS.

9T

readers require of us here ; and yet to avoid
some tendency to that side is no easy matter.
We love Burns, and we pity him; and love
and pity are prone to magnify. Criticism, it
is sometimes thought, should be a cold busi-
ness; we are not so sure of this; but, at all
events, our concern with Burns is not exclu-
sively that of critics. True and genial as his
poetry must appear, it is not chiefly as a poet,
but as a man, ihat he interests and affects us.
He was often advised to write a tragedy : time
and means were not lent him for this; but
through life he enacted a tragedy, and one of
the deepest. We question whether the world
has since witnessed so utterly sad a scene;
whether Napoleon himself, left to brawl with
Sir Hudson Lowe, and perish on his rock,
"amid the melancholy main," presented to the
reflecting mind such a "spectacle of pity and
fear," as did this intrinsically nobler, gentler,
and perhaps greater soul, wasting itself away
in a hopeless struggle with base entangle-
ments, which coiled closer and closer round
him, till only death opened him an outlet.
Conquerors are a race with whom the world
could well di'^pcnse; nor can the hard intel-
lect, the unsympathizing loftiness, and high
but selfish enthusiasm of such persons, inspire
us in general vvith any affection ; at best it ma)'^
excite amazement; and their fall, like that of
a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain sad-
ness and awe. But a true Poet, a man in
whose heart resides some effluence of Wis-
dom, some tone of the "Eternal Melodies," is
the most precious gift that can be bestowed
on a generation: we see in him a freer, purer,
development of whatever is noblest in our-
selves; his life is a rich lesson to us, and we
mourn his death, as that of a benefactor who
ioved and taught us.

Such a gift had Nature in her bounty be-
sioweu on us in Robert Burns ; but with queen-
like indifference she cast it from her hand,
like a thing of no moment; and it was defaced
and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, before we
lecogniscd it. To the ill-starred Burns was
given the power of making man's life more
venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own
-.i.;.i i-.,ji given. Destiny, — for so in our igno-
rance we must speak, — his faults, the faults
of others, proved loo hard for him; and that
•^^irit. which misht have soared, could it but
have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glori-
ous faculties trodden under foot in the blos-
som, and died, we may almost say, without
ever having lived. And so kind and warm a
soul ; so full of inborn riches, of love to all
living and lifeless things! How his heart
flows out in sympathy over universal nature;
and in her bleakest provinces discerns a
beauty and a meaning! The "Daisy" falls
not unheeded under his ploughshare; nor the
ruined nest of that "wee, cowering, timorous
beastie," cast forth, after all its provident
pains, to "thole the sleety dribble, and cran-
rcuch cauld." The "hoar visage" of Winter
delights him: he dwells with a sad and oft-
returning fondness in these scenes of solemn
desolation; but the voice of the tempest be-
comes an anthem to his ears ; he loves to walk
in the sounding woods, for "it raises his
13

thoughts to Him that valketh on the wings of the
wind.'" A true Poet-soul, for it needs but to be
struck, and the sound it yields will be music!
But observe him chiefly as he mingles with
his brother men. What warm, all-compre-
hending, fellow-feeling, what trustful, bound-
less love, what generous exaggeration of the
object loved ! His rustic friend, his nut-brown
maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but
a hero and a queen, whom he prizes as the
paragons of Earth. The rough scenes of
Scottish life, not seen by him in any Arcadian
illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the
smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still
lovely to him : Poverty is indeed his compa-
nion, but Love also, and Courage ; the simple
feelings, the worth, the nobleness, that dwell
under the straw roof, are dear and venerable
to his heart; and thus over the lowest pro-
vinces of man's existence he pours the glory
of his own soul; and they rise, in shadow and
sunshine, softened and brightened into a
beauty which other eyes discern not in the
highest. He has a just self-consciousness,
which too often degenerates into pride; yet it
is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence,
no cold, suspicious feeling, but a frank and
social one. The peasant Poet bears himself,
we might say, like a King in exile: he is cast
among the low, and feels himself equal to the
highest; yet he claims no rank, that none may
be disputed to him. The forward he can re-
pel, the supercilious he can subdue; preten-
sions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail
with him ; there is a fire in that dark eye, un-
der which the "insolence of condescension"
cannot thrive. In his abasement, in his ex-
treme need, he forgets not for a moment the
majesty of Poetry and Manhood. And yet, tar
as he feels himself above common men, he
wanders not apart from them, but mixes
warmly in their interests; nay, throws himself
inlo their arms ; and. as it were, entreats them
to love him. It is moving to see how, in his
darkest despondency, this proud beins: still
seeks relief from friendship; unlDOSoms tiim-
self, often to the unworihy ; and, amid tears,
strains to his glowing heart a heart that knows
onlv the name of friendship. And yet he was
"quick to learn ;" a man of keen vision, before
whom common disguises aflicirded no conceal-
ment. His understanding saw through the
hollowness even of accomplished deceivers;
but there was a generous credulity in his
Heart. And so did our Peasant show himself
among us ; " a soul like an ^Eolian harp, in
whose strings the vulgar wind, as it passed
through them, changed itself into articulate
melody." And this was he for whom the
world found no fitter business than quarrelling
with smugglers and vintners, computing ex-
cise dues upon tallow, and gauging alebarre>?
In such toils was that mighty Spirit sorrow-
fully wasted : and a hundred years may pass
on, before another such is given us to waste.

All that remains of Burns, the Writings he
has left, seem to us, as we hinted above, no
more than a poor mutilated fraction of what
was in him; brief, brolcen glimpses of a genius
that could never show itself complete; that

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

wanted all things for completeness: culture,
leisure, true effort, nay, even length of life.
His poems are, with scarcely any exception,
mere occasional effusions, poured forth with
little premeditation, expressing, by such means
as offered, the passion, opinion, or humour of
the hour. Never in one instance was it per-
mitted him to grapple with any subject with
the full collection of his strength, to fuse and
mould it in the concentrated fire of his genius.
To try by the strict rules of Art such imperfect
fragments, would be at once unprofitable and
unfair. Nevertheless, there is something in
these poems, marred and defective as they are,
■which forbids the most fastidious student of
poetry to pass them by. Some sort of enduring
quality they must have; for, after fifty years
of the wildest vicissitudes in poetic taste, they
still continue to be read; nay, are read more
and more eagerly, more and more extensively ;
and this not only by literary virtuosos, and that
class upon whom transitory causes operate
most strongly, but by all classes, down to the
most hard, unlettered, and truly natural class,
who read little, and especially no poetry, ex-
cept because they find pleasure in it. The
grounds of so singular and wide a popularity,
which extends, in a literal sense, from the
palace to the hut, and over all regions where
the English tongue is spoken, are well worth
inquiring into. After every just deduction, it
seems to imply some rare excellence in these
works. What is that excellence]

To answer this question will not lead us far.
The excellence of Burns is, indeed, among the
rarest, whether in poetry or prose; but, at the
same time, it is plain and easily recognised :
his Sincerity, his indisputable air of Truth.
Here are no fabulous woes or joys ; no hollow
fantastic sentimentalities; no wiredrawn re-
finings, either in thought or feeling: the pas-
sion that is traced before us has glowed in a
living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in
his own understanding, and been a light to his
own steps. He does not write from hearsay,
but from sigfit and Experience ; it is the scenes
he has lived and laboured amidst, that he
describes : those scenes, rude and humble as
they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in
his soul, noble thoughts, and definite resolves ;
and he speaks forth what is in him, not from
any outward call of vanity or interest, but
because his heart is too full to be silent. He
speaks it, too, with such melody and modula-
tion as he can ; " in homely rustic jingle ;" but
it is his own, and genuine. This is the grand
secret for finding readers and retaining them :
let him who would move and convince others,
be first moved and convinced himself. Horace's
rule. Si vis mc Jfere, is applicable in a wider
sense than the literal one. To every poet, to
every writer, we might say: Be true, if you
would be believed. Let a man but speak forth
with genuine earnestness the thought, the emo-
tion, the actual condition, of his own heart;
and other men, so strangely are we all knit
together by the tie of sympathy, must and
will give heed to him. In culture, in extent
of view, we may stand above the speaker, or
below him; but in either case, his words, if
they are earnest and sincere, will find some

response within us ; for in spite of all casual
varieties in outward rank, or inward, as face
answers to face, so does the heart of man to
man.

This may appear a very simple principle,
and one which Burns had little merit in dis-
covering. True, the discovery is easy enough :
but the practical appliance is not easy; is
indeed the fundamental difficulty which all
poets have to strive with, and which scarcely
one in the hundred ever fairly surmounts. A
head too dull to discriminate the true from the
false ; a heart too dull to love the one at all
risks, and to hate the other in spite of all
temptations, are alike fatal to a writer. With
either, or, as more commonly happens, with
both, of these deficiencies, combine a love of
distinction, a wish to be original, which is sel-
dom Avanting, and we have Affectation, the
bane of literature, as Cant, its elder brother, is
of morals. How often does the one and the
other front us, in poetry, as in life ! Great
poets themselves are not always free of this
vice; nay, it is precisely on a certain sort and
degree of greatness that it is most commonly
ingrafted. A strong effort after excellence will
sometimes solace itself with a mere shadow
of success, and he who has much to unfold,
will sometimes unfold it imperfectly. Byron,
for instance, was no common man: yet if we
examine his poetry with this view, we shall
find it far enough from faultless. Generally
speaking, we should say that it is not true.
He refreshes us, not with the divine fountain,
but too often with vulgar strong waters, stimu-
lating indeed to the taste, but soon ending in dis-
like or even nausea. .Are his Harolds and
Giaours, we would ask, real men, we mean,
poetically consistent and conceivable men 1 Do
not these characters, does not the character of
their author, which more or less shines through
them all, rather appear a thing put on for the
occasion ; no natural or possible mode of
being, but something intended to look much
grander than nature ? Surely, all these storm-
ful agonies, this volcanic heroism, superhuman
contempt, and moody desperation, with so
much scowling, and teeth-gnashing, and other
sulphurous humours, is more like the brawling
of a player in some paltry tragedy, which is to
last three hours, than the bearing r,f a man in
the business of life, M^hich is to Ia:;t three-score
and ten years. To our minds, there is a taint
of this sort, something which we should cali
theatrical, false, and affected, in every one of
these otherwise powerful pieces. Perhaps Don
Jiiiin, especially the latter parts of it, is the
only thing approaching to a sinceie work, he
ever wrote; the only work where he showed
himself, in any measure, as he was ; and
seemed so intent on his subject, as, fcr mo-
ments, to forget himself. Yet Byron hated
this vice; we believe, heartily detested it: nay,
he had declared formal war against it in words
So difficult is it even for the strongest to make
this primary attainment, which might seem
the simplest of all : to 7-cad its own conscioitsnesi
wiilwut miftnkcs, without errors involuntary or
wilful! We recollect no poet of Burns's sus-
ceptibility who comes before us from the first,
and abides with us to the last, with such a total

BURNS.

99

want of affectation. He is an honest man, and
an honest writer. In his successes and his
failures, in his greatness and his littleness, he
is ever clear, simple, true, and glitters with no
lustre but his own. We reckon this to be a
great virtue ; to be, in fact, the root of most
other virtues, literary as well as moral.

It is necessary, however, to mention, that it
is to the poetry of Burns that we now allude;
to those writings which he had time to medi-
tate, and where no special reason existed to
warp his critical feeling, or obstruct his en-
deavour to fulfil it. Certain of his Letters, and
other fractions of prose composition, by no
means deserve this praise. Here, doubtless,
there is not the same natural truth of style ;
but on the contrary, something not only stiff,
but strained and twisted; a certain high-flown,
inflated tone; the stilting emphasis of which
contrasts ill with the firmness and rugged
simplicity of even his poorest verses. Thus
no man, it would appear, is altogether un-
affected. Does not Shakspeare himself some-
times premeditate the sheerest bombast ! But
even with regard to these Letters of Burns, it
is but fair to state that he had two excuses.
The first was his comparative deficiency in
language. Burns, thoiigh for most part he
writes with singular force, and even graceful-
ness, is not master of English prose, as he is
of Scottish verse; not master of it, we mean,
in proportion to the depth and vehemence of
his matter. These Letters strike us as the
effort of a man to express something which
he has no organ fit for expressing. But a
second and weightier excuse is to be found in
the peculiarity of Burns's social rank. His
correspondents are often men whose relation
to him he has never accurately ascertained;
whom therefore he is either forearming him-
self against, or else unconsciously flattering,
by adopting the style he thinks will please
them. At all events, we should remember that
these faults, even in his Letters, are not the
rule, but the exception. Whenever he writes,
as one would ever wish to do, to trusted friends
and on real interests, his style becomes simple,
vigorous, expressive, sometimes even beauti-
ful. His Letters to Mrs. Dunlop are uniform-
ly excellent.

But we return to his poetry. In addition to
its sincerity, it has another peculiar merit,
which indeed is but a mode, or perhaps a
means, of the foregoing. It displays itself in
his choice of subjects, or rather in his in-
difference as to subjects, and the power he has
of making all subjects interesting. The ordina-
ry poet, like the ordinary man, is for ever
seeking, in external circumstances, the help
which can be found only in himself In what
is familiar and near at hand, he discerns no
form or comeliness : home is not poetical but
prosaic ; it is in some past, distant, conven-
tional world, that poetry resides for him ;
were lie there and not here, were he thus and
not so, it would be well with him. Hence our
innumerable host of rose-coloured novels and
iron-mailed epics, with their locality not on the
Earth, but somewhere nearer to the Moon.
Hence our Virgins of the Sun, and our Knights
*)f the Cross, malicious Saracens in turbans.

and copper-coloured Chiefs in wampum, and so
many other truculent figures from the heroic
times or the heroic climates, who on all hands
swarm in our poetry. Peace be with them!
But yet, as a great moralist proposed preach-
ing to the men of this century, so would we
fain preach to the poets, " a sermon on the
duty of staying at home." Let them be sure
that heroic ages and heroic climates can do
little for them. That form of life has attraction
for us, less because it is better or nobler than
our own, than simply because it is different;
and even this attraction must be of the most
transient sort. For will not our own age, one
day, be an ancient one; and have as quaint
a costume as the rest; not contrasted with the
rest, therefore, but ranked along with them,
in respect of quaintnessi Does Hcmier in-
terest us now, because he wrote of what
passed out of his native Greece, and two cen-
turies before he was born; or because he
wrote of what passed in God's world, and in the
heart of man, which is the same after thirty
centuries ] Let our poets look to this : is their
feeling really finer, truer, and their vision
deeper than that of other men, they have no-
thing to fear, even from the humblest subject;
is it not so, — they have nothing to hope, but an
ephemeral favour, even from the highest.

The poet, we cannot but think, can never
have far to seek for a subject: the elements
of his art are in him, and around him on every
hand; for him the Ideal world is not remote
from the Actual, but under it and within it:
nay, he i» a poet, precisely because he can
discern it there. Wherever there is a sky
above him, and a world around him, the poet
is in his place ; for here too is man's exist-
ence, with its infinite longings and small
acquirings ; its ever-thwarted, ever-renewed
endeavours; its unspeakable aspirations, its
fears and hopes that wander through Eternity :
and all the mystery of brightness and of gloom
that it was ever made of, in any age or cli-
mate, since man first began to live. Is there
not th? fifth act of a Tragedy in every death-
bed, though it were a peasant's and a bed of
heath 1 And are wooings and weddings ob-
solete, that there can be Comedy no longer?
Or are men suddenly grown wise, that Laugh-
ter must no longer shake his sides, but be
cheated of his Farce 1 Man's life and nature
is, as it was, and as it will ever be. But the
poet must have an eye to read these things,
and a heart to understand them ; or they come
and pass away before him in vain. He is a
vates, a seer; a gift of vision has been given
him. Has life no meanings for him, which
another cannot equally decipher] then he is no
poet, and Delphi itself will not make him one.

In this respect. Burns, though not perhaps
absolutely a great poet, better manifests his
capability, better proves the truth of his genius,
than if he had, by his own strength, kept the
whole Minerva Press going, to the end of hi.s
literary course. He shows himself at least a
poet of Nature's own making; and Nature,
after all, is still the grand agent in makinjj
poets. We often hear of this and the other
external condition being requisite for the ex«
istence of a poet. Sometimes it is a certain

100

OARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

sort of training; he must have studied certain
things, studied for instance " the elder dra-
matists," and so learned a poetic language ;
as if poetr}' lay in the tongue, not in the heart.
At other times we are told, he must be bred in
a certain rank, and must be on a confidential
footing with the higher classes; because,
above all other things, he must see the world.
As to seeing the world, we apprehend this
will cause him little difficulty, if he have but
an eye to see it with. Without eyes, indeed,
the task might be hard. But happily every
poet is born in the world, and sees it, with or
against his Avill, every day and every hour he
lives. The mysterious workmanship of man's
heart, the true light and the inscrutable dark-
ness of man's destiny, reveal themselves not
only in capital cities, and crowded saloons,
but in every hut and hamlet where men have
their abode. Nay, do not the elements of all
human virtues, and all human vices; the
passions at once of a Borgia and of a Luther,
lie written, in stronger or fainter lines, in the
consciousness of every individual bosom, that
has practised honest self-examination ] Truly,
this same world may be seen in Mossgiel and
Tarbolion, if we look well, as clearly as it
ever came to light in Crockford's, or the
Tailcries itself.

But sometimes still harder requisitions are
laid on the poor aspirant to poetry; for it is
hinted that he should have been bom two cen-
turies ago ; inasmuch as poetry, soon after
that date, vanished from the earth, and became
no longer attainable by men ! Such cobweb
speculations have, now and then, overhung
the field of literature ; but they obstruct not
the growth of any plant there: the Shakspeare
or the Burns, unconsciously, and merely as
he walks onward, silently brushes them away.
Is not every genius an impossibility till he ap-
pear? Why do we call him new and original,
if ire saw where his marble was lying, and
what fabric he could rear from it? It is not
the material but the workman that is wanting.
It is not the dark phue that hinders, but the
dim eye, A Scottish peasant's life was the
meanest and rudest of all lives, till Burns be-
came a poet in it, and a poet of it; found it
a niaii'f life, and therefore significant to men.
A thousand battle-fields remain unsung; but
the Wounded ILne has not perished without its
memorial ; a balm of mercy yet breathes on
us i"rom its dumb agonies, because a poet was
there. Our HoUnween had passed and repassed,
in rude awe and laughter, since the era of the
Druids; but no Theocritus, till Burns, dis-
cerned in it the materials of a Scottish Idyl :
neither was the Holy Fair any Council of Trent,
or Roman Jt(bilce .• but nevertheless, Supersii-
tion, and Hypocrisy, and Fv7i having been pro-
pitious to him, in this man's hand it became a
poem, instinct with satire, and genuine comic
life. Let but the true poet be given us, we
repeat it, place him where and how you will,
and true poetry will not be wanting.

Independently of the essential gift of poetic
/'eeling, as we have now attempted to describe
it, a certain rugged sterling worth pervades
whatever Burns hay written : a virtue, as of
green fields and mouotain breezes, dwells in

his poetry; it is redolent of natural life, and
hardy, natural men. There is a decisive
strength in him ; and yet a sweet native
gracefulness : he is tender, and he is vehe-
ment, yet without constraint or too visible ef-
fort ; he melts the heart, or inflames it, with a
power which seems habitual and familiar to
him. We see in him the gentleness, the trem-
bling pity of a woman, with the deep earnest-
ness, the force and passionate ardour of a
hero. Tears lie in him, and consuming fire;
as lightning lurks in the drops of the summer
cloud. He has a resonance in his bosom for
every note of human feeling : the high and the
low, the sad, the ludicrous, the joyful, are wel-
come in their turns to his "lightly-moved and
all-conceiving spirit." And observe with what
a prompt and eager force he grasps his subject,
be it M'hat it may ! How he fixes, as it were,
the full image of the matter in his eye; full
and clear in every lineament ; and catches the
real type and essence of it, amid a thousand
accidents and superficial circumstances, no
one of which misleads him! Is it of reason ;
some truth to be discovered '? No sophistry, no
vain surface-logic detains him ; quick, reso-
lute, unerring, he pierces through into the
marrow of the question ; and speaks his ver-
dict Avith an emphasis that cannot be forgot-
ten. Is it of description ; some visual object
to be represented ? No poet of any age or
nation is more graphic than Burns: the cha-
racteristic features disclose themselves to him
at a glance ; three lines from his hand, and
we have a likeness. And, in that rough dia-
lect, in that rude, often awkward, metre, so
clear, and definite a likeness ! It seems a
draughtsman working with a bnrnt stick ; and
yet tlie burin of a Retzsch is not more expres-
sive or exact.

This clearness of sight we may call the
foundation of all talent; for in fact, unless we
gee our object, how shall vv^e know how to place
or prize it, in our understanding, our imagi-
nation, our affections ? Yet it is not in itself
perhaps a very high excellence; but capable
of being united indilTerently with the strong-
est, or with ordinary powers. Homer sur-
passes all men in this quality: but strangely
enough, at no great distance below him are
Richardson and Defoe. It belongs, in truth,
to what is called a lively mind: and gives no
sure indication of the higher endowments that
may exist along with it. In all the three cases
we have mentioned, it is combined with great
garrulity; their descriptions are detailed, am-
ple, and lovingly exact ; Homer's fire bursts
through, from time to time, as if by accident;
but Defoe and Richardson have no fire.
Burns, again, is not more distinguished by
the clearness Ihan by the impetuous force of
his conceptions. Of the strength, the piercing
emphasis with which he thought, his empha-
sis of expression may give an humble but the
readiest proof. Who ever uttered sharper
sayings than his ; words more memorable, now
by their burning vehemence, now by their cool
vigour and laconic pith ? A single phrase de-
picts a whole subject, a whole scene. Our
Scottish forefathers in the battle-field struggled
forward, he says, " red-wat shod : " giving, in

BURNS.

101

fiiis one word, a full vision of horror and car-
nage, perhaps too frightfully accurate for Art !

In fact, one of the leading features in the
mind of Burns is this vi2;our of his strictly
intellectual perceptions. A resolute force is
ever visible in his judgments, as in his feel-
ings and volitions. Professor Stewart says of
him, with some surprise: "All the faculties
of Burns's mind were, as far as I could judge,
equally vigorous ; and his predilection for po-
etry was rather the result of his own enthusi-
astic and impassioned temper, than of a genius
exclusively adapted to that species of compo-
sition. From his conversation I should have
pronounced him to be fitted to excel in what-
ever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert
his abilities." But this, if we mistake not, is
at all times the very essence of a truly poet-
ical endowment. Poetry, except in such cases
as that of Keats, where the whole consists in
extreme sensibility, and a certain vague per-
vading tunefulness of nature, is no separate
faculty, no organ which can be superadded to
the rest, or disjoined from them ; but rather
the result of their general harmony and com-
pletion. The feelings, the gifts, that exist in
the Poet, are those that exist, with more or
less development, in every human soul : the
imagination, which shudders at the Hell of
Dante, is the same faculty, weaker in degree,
which called that picture into being. How
does the poet speak to all men, with power, but
by being still more a man than they ? Shak-
speare, it has been well observed, in the plan-
ning and completing of his tragedies, has
shown an Understanding, were it nothing more,
which might have governed states, or indited
a Novum Organum. What Burns's force of un-
derstanding may have been, we have less
means of judging: for it dwelt among the
humblest objects, never saw philosophy, and
never rose, except for short intervals, into the
region of great ideas. Nevertheless, suffi-
cient indication remains for us in his works:
we discern the brawnj"- movements of a gigan-
tic though untutored strength, and can under-
stand how, in conversation, his quick, sure
insight into men and things may, as much as
aught else about him, have amazed the best
thinkers of his time and country.

But, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift
of Burns is fine as well as strong. The more
delicate relations of things could not well have
escaped his eye, for they were intimately pre-
sent to his heart. The logic of the senate and
the forum is indispensable, but not all-suffi-
cient; nay, perhaps the highest Truth is that
which will the most certainly elude it. For
this logic works by words, and " the highest,"
it has been said, "cannot be expressed in
words." We are not without tokens of an
openness for this higher truth also, of a keen
though uncultivated sense fir it. having exist-
ed in Burns. Mr. Stewart, it will be remem-
bered, " wonders," in the passage above quoted,
that Burns had formed some distinct concep-
(lon of the " doctrine of association." We ra-
Iher think that far subliler thincfs than the
doctrine of association had from of old been fa-
miliar to him. Here for instance :

"We know nothing," thus writes he, " ot
next to nothing, of the structure of our souls,
so we cannot account for those seeming ca-
prices in them, that one should be particularly
pleased with this thing, or struck with that,
which, on minds of a different cast, makes no
extraordinary impression. I have some fa-
vourite flowers in spring, among which are
the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove,
the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the
hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over
with particular delight. I never hear the loud
solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer
noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of
gray plover in an autumnal morning, without
feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm
of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend,
to what can this be owing! Are we a piece
of machinery, which, like the ^'Eolian. harp,
passive, takes the impression of the passing
accident; or do these workings argue some-
thing within us above the trodden clod ] I
own myself partial to such proofs of those
awful and important realities : a God that made
all things, man's immaterial and immortal na-
ture, and a world of weal or wo beyond death
and the grave."

Force and fineness of understanding are
often spoken of as something different from
general force and fineness of nature, as some-
thing partly independent of them. The neces-
sities of language probably require this; but
in truth these qualities are not distinct and in-
dependent: except in special cases, and from
special causes, they ever go together. A man
of strong understanding is generally a man of
strong character; neither is delicacy in the
one kind often divided from delicacy in the
other. No one, at all events, is ignorant that
in the poetry of Burns, keenness of insight
keeps pace with keenness of feeling; that his
lis;ht is not more pervading than his warinth.
He is a man of the most impassioned temper;
with passions not strong only, but noble, and
of the sort in which great virtues and great
poems take their rise. It is reverence, it is
Love towards all Nature that inspires him, that
opens his eyes to its beauty, and makes heart
and voice eloquent in its praise. There is a
true old saying, that "love furthers know-
ledge :" but above all, it is the living essence
of that knowledge which makes poets ; the first
principle of its existence, increase, activity.
Of Burn.s's fervid affection, his generous, all-
embracing Love, we have spoken already, as
of the grand distinction of his nature, seen
equallv in word and deed, in his Life and in
his Writings. It were easy to multiply ex-
amples. Not man only, but all that environs
man in the material and moral universe, is
lovely in his sight: " the hoary hawthorn," the
"troop of gray plover," the "solitary curlew,"
are all dear to him : all live in this Earth along
with him, and to all he is knit as in mysterious
brotherhood. How touching is it, for instance,
that, amidst the gloom of personal misery,
brooding over the wintry desolation without
him and within him, he thinks of the " ourie
cattle" and " silly sheep," and their sufferinga
in the pitiless storm!

i2

lOS

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

I thouglit me on the oiiric cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha hide this brattle

O' wintry war;
Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,

Beneath a scaur.

Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing,
That in the merry month o' spring
Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?
Where wilt thou cow'r ihy chitlering wing,

And close thy eel

The tenant of the mean hut, with its " ragged
roof and chinky wall," has a heart to pity even
these ! This is worth several homilies on
Mercy: for it is the voice of Mercy herself.
Burns, indeed, lives in sympathy ; his soul
rushes forth into all realms of being; nothing
that has existence can be indifferent to him.
The very Devil he cannot hate with right or-
thodoxy !

But fare you weel, at>ld Nicftie-ben ;
O wad ye tak a thought and men' !
Ye aihiins might, — 1 dinna ken, —

Still hae a stake;
I'm wae to think upo' yon den,

Even for your sake !

He did not know, probably, that Sterne had been
beforehand with him. "'He is the father of
curses and lies,' said Dr. Slop ; ' and is cursed
and damned already.' — 'I am sorry for it,'
quoth my uncle Toby!" — "A poet without
Love, were a physical and metaphsyical im-
possibility."

Why should we speak of Scots, wba hae m'
Wullare bled : since all know it, from the king
to the meanest of his subjects 1 This dithyram-
bie was composed on horseback; in riding in
the middle of tempests, over the wildest Gallo-
way moor, in company with a Mr. Syme, who,
observing the poel's looks, forebore to speak,
— judiciously enough, — for a man composing
Brucc's Jlddrcss might be unsafe to trifle with
Doubtless this stTn hymn was singing itself,
as he formed it, through the soul of Burns ;
but to the external ear, it should be sung with
the throat of the whirlwind. So long as there
is warm blood in the heart of Scotchman or
man, it will move in fierce thrills under this
war-ode, the best, we believe, that was ever
written by any pen.

Another wild stormful song, that dwells in
our ear and mind with a strange tenacity, is
Marpherson's Farewell. Perhaps there is some-
thing in the tradition itself that co-operates. For
was not this grim Celt, this shaggy Northland
Cacus, that " lived a life of sturt and strife, and
died by treacherie," was not he too one of the
Nimrods and Napoleons of the earth, in the
arena of his own remote misty glens, for want
of a clearer and wider one 1 Nay, was there
not a touch of grace given him 7 A fibre of
love and softness, of poetry itself, must have
lived in his savage heart; for he composed
nat air the night before his execution ; on the
wings of that poor melody, his better soul
would soar away above oblivion, pain, and all
the ignominy and despair, which, like an ava-
lanche, was hurling him to the abyss ! Here
also, as at Thebes, and in Pelops' line, was
material Fate matched against man's Free-
will ; uiatched in bitterest though obscuie duel ;

and the ethereal soul sunk not, even in its
blindness, without a cry which has survived it.
But who, except Burns, could have given
words to such a soul; words that we never
listen to without a strange half-barbarous, half-
poetic fellow-feeling '

Sue rantingly, »ae wantonly,
Sae dauntingty gaed he ;

He play'd a spring, and danced it reuTtd,
Beloio the gallows tree.

Under a lighter and thinner disguise, the
same principle of Love, which we have re-
cognised as the great characteristic of Burns,
and of all true poets, occasionally manifests
itself in the shape of Humour. Everywhere,
indeed, in his sunny moods, a full buoyant
flood of mirth rolls through the mind of Burns ;
he rises to the high, and stoops to the low, and
is brother and playmate to all Nature. We
speak not of his bold and often irresistib.e
faculty of caricature; for this is Drollery
rather than Humour: but a much tenderer
sportfulness dwells in him ; and comes forth
here and there, in evanescent and beautiful
touches ; as in his Jddress to the Mouse, or the
Farmer's Mare, or in his Elegy on Poor Mailie,
which last may be reckoned his happiest effort
of this kind. In these pieces, there are traits
of a Humour as fine as that of Sterne; yet
altogether different, original, peculiar, — the
Humour of Burns.

Of the tenderness, the playful pathos, and
many other kindred qualities of Burns's poetry,
much more might be said ; but now, with these
poor outlines of a sketch, we must prepare to
quit this part of our subject. To speak of his
individual writings, adequately, and with any
detail, would lead us far beyond our limits. As
already hinted, we can look on but few of these
pieces as, in strict critical language, deserving
the name of Poems; they are rhymed elo-
quence, rhymed pathos, rhymed sense ; yet
seldom essentially melodious, aerial, poetical.
Tarn o' Shunter itself, which enjoys so high a
favour, does not appear to us, at all decisively,
to come under this last category. It is not so
much a poem, as a piece of sparkling rhetoric ;
the heart and body of the story still lies hard
and dead. He has not gone back, much less
carried us back, into that dark, earnest won-
dering age, when the tradition was believed,
and when it took its rise ; he does not attempt,
by any new modelling of his supernatural
ware, to strike anew that deep mysterious
chord of human nature, which once responded
to such things ; and which lives in us too, and
will for ever live, though silent, or vibrating
with far other notes, and to far different issues.
Our German readers will understand us, when
we say, that he is not the Tieck but the
Musaus of this tale. Externally it is all green
and living ; yet look closer, it is no firm growth,
but only ivy on a rock. The piece does not
properly cohere; the strange chasm which
yawns in our incredulous imaginations be-
tween the Ayr public-house and the gate of
Tophet, is nowhere bridged over, nay, the iaea
of such abridge is laughed at; and thus the
Tragedy of the adventure becomes a mere
drunken phantasmagoria, painted on ale-
vaporus, and the farce alone has any reality

BURNS.

loa

We do not say that Burns should have -made
much more of this tradition; we rather think
that, for strictly poetical purposes, not much
was to be made of it. Neither are we blind to
the deep, varied, genial power displayed in
what he has actually accomplished; but we
find far more " Shakspearian" qualities, as
these of Tamo'' S/inwYfr have been fondly named,
in many of his other pieces; nay, we incline
to believe, that this latter might have been
written, all but quite as well, by a man who,
in place of genius, had only possessed talent.

Perhaps we may venture to say, that the
most strictly poetical of all his "poems" is
one, which does not appear in Currie's Edi-
tion ; but has been often printed before and
since, under the humble title of The Jolly Teg-
gars. The subject truly is among the lowest
in nature; but it only the more shows our
poet's gift in raising it into the domain of Art.
To our minds, this piece seems thoroughly
compacted ; melted together, refined ; and
poured ft)rth in one flood of true liquid har-
mony. It is light, airy, and soft of movement;
yet sharp and precise in its details ; every face
is a portrait: that raurh carlin, that wee Jpollo,
that Son of Mars, are Scottish, yet ideal ; the
scene is at once a dream, and the very Ra'g-
castle of " Poosie-Nansie." Farther, it seems
in a considerable degree complete, a real self-
supporting Whole, which is the highest merit
in a poem. The blanlcet of the night is drawn
asunder for a moment; in full, ruddy, and
flaming light, these rough tatterdemalions are
seen in their boisterous revel ; for the strong
pulse of Life vindicates its right to gladness
even here; and when the curtain closes, we
prolong the action without effort; the next day
as the last, our Caird and our ludladnionger ave
singing and soldiering; their "brats and cal-
lets" are hawking, begging, cheating; and
some other night, in new combinations, they
will wring from Fate another hour of wassail
and good cheer. It would be strange, doubt-
less, to call this the best of Burns's writings ;
we mean to say only, that it seems to us the
most perfect of its kind, as a piece of poetical
composition, strictly so called. In the Beggar',^
Opera, in the Teggar's J'ush, as other critics
have already remarked, there is nothing which,
in real poetic vigour, equals this Cantata : no-
thing, as we think, which comes within many
degrees of it.

But by far the most finished, complete, and
truly inspired pieces of Burns are, without dis-
pute, to be found among his Songs. It is here
that, although through a small aperture, his
light shines with the least obstruction; in its
highest beauty, and pure sunny clearness. The
reason may be, that Song is a brief and simple
species of composition : and requires nothingso
much for its perfection as genuine poetic feel-
ing, genuine music of heart. The song has its
rules equally with the Tragedy; rules which in
most cases are poorly fulfilled, in many cases
are not so much as felt. We might write a long
essay on the Songs of Burns ; which we reckon
by far the best that Britain has yet produced ; for,
indeed, since the era of Queen Elizabeth, we
know not that, by any other hand, aught truly
worth attention has been accomplished in this

department. True, we have songs enough
"by persons of quality;" wc have tawdry,
hollow, wine-bred, madrigals ; many a rhymed
" speech" in the flowing and watery vein of
Ossorius the Portugal Bishop, rich in sonor-
ous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps
M'ith some tint of a sentimental sensuality;
all which many persons cease not from en-
deavouring to sing: though for most part,
we fear, the music is but from the throat out-
ward, or at best from some region far enough
short of the Soul : not in which, but in a certain
inane Limbo of the Fancy, or even in some
vaporous debatable land on the outside of the
Nervous System, most of such madrigals and
rhymed speeches seem to have originated.
With the Songs of Burns we must not name
these things, independently of the clear, manly,
heartfelt sentiment that ever pervades his
poetry, his Songs are h(uiest in another point
of view: in form, as well as in spirit. They
do not affect to be set to music, but they actually
and in themselves are music ; they have re-
ceived their life, and fashioned themselves
together, in the medium of Harmony, as
Venus rose from the bosom of the sea. The
story, the feeling, is not detailed, but suggested ;
not s;/iW, or spouted, in rhetorical completeness
•and coherence; hut sung, in fitful gushes, in
glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in warbUnga
not of the voice only, but of the whole mind.
We consider this to be the essence of a song;
and that no songs since the little careless
catches, and, as it were, drops of song, which
Shakspeare has here and there sprinkled over
his plays, fulfil this condition in nearly the
same degree as most of Burns's do. Such grace
and truth of external movement, too, presup-
poses in general a corresponding force and
truth of sentiment, and inward meaning. The
Songs of Burns are not more perfect in the
former quality than in the latter. With what
tenderness he sings, yet with what vehemence
and entireness! There is a piercing wail ia
his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy : he
burns with the sternest ire, or laughs with the
loudest or slyest mirth ; and yet he is sweet
and soft, "sweet as the smile when fond lovers
meet, and soft as their parting tear!" If we
farther take into account the immense variety
of his subjects; how, from the loud flowing
revel in Willie brcivd a peek o' Maut, to the still,
rapt enthusiasm of sadness for Mary in Heaven ;
from the glad kind greeting of Jluld Langsyne,
or the comic archness of Duncan Gray, to the
fire-eyed fury of Scot?, wha hae ui' Wallace bled,
he has found a tone and words for every mood
of man's heart, — it will seem a small praise
if we rank him as the first of all our song-
writers ; for we know not where to find one
worthy of being second to him.

It is on his Songs, as we believe, that Burns's
chief influence as an author will ultimately be
found to depend: nor, if our Fletcher's aphor-
ism is true, shall we account this a small in-
fluence. " Let me make the songs of a people,''
said he, " and you shall make its laws." Surely,
if ever any Poet might have equalled himself
with Legislators, on this ground, it was Burn.s.
His songs are already part of the mother
tongue, not of Scotland only but of Britain, aad

104

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of the millions that in all the ends of the earth
speak a British language. In hut and hall, as
the heart unfolds itself in the joy and wo of
existence, the name, the voice of that joy and
that wo, is the name and voice which Burns
has given them. Strictly speaking, perhaps,
no Briiish man has so deeply affected the
thoughts and feelings of so many men tis this
solitary and altogether private individual, with
means apparently the humblest.

In another point of view, moreoVer, we in-
cline to think that Burns's influence may have
been considerable : we mean, as exerted spe-
cially on the Literature of his country, at least
on the Literature of Scotland. Among the
great changes which British, particularly Scot-
tish literature, has undergone since that period,
one of the greatest will be found to consist in
its remarkable increase of nationality. Even
the English writers, most poptilar in Burns's
time, were little distinguished for their literary
patriotism, in this its best sense. A certain
attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in good mea-
sure, taken place of the old insular home-
feeling; literature was, as it were, without any
local environment; was not nourished by the
aifections which spring from a native soil.
Our Grays and Glovers seemed to write almost
as if in vacuo; the thing written bears no mark
of place ; it is not written so much for English-
men, as for men ; or rather, which is the inev-
itable result of this, for certain Generalizations
which philosophy termed men. Goldsmith is
an exception; not so Johnson; the scene of
his Rambler is little more English than that of
his Rtisselas. But if such was, in some degree,
the case with England, it was, in the highest
degree, the case with Scotland. In fact, our
Scottish literature had, at that period, a very
singular aspect ; unexampled, so far as we
know, except perhaps at Geneva, where the
same state of matters appears still to continue.
For a long period after Scotland became Bri-
tish, we had no literature : at the date when
Addison and Steele were writing their Specta-
tors, our good Thomas Boston was writing, with
the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of
grammar and philosophy, his Fourfold State of
Man. Then came the schisms in our National
Church, and the fiercer schisms in our Body
Politic: Theologic ink, and Jacobite blood,
with gall enough in both cases, seemed to have
blotted out the intellect of the country; how-
ever, it was only obscured, not obliterated.
Lord Kames made nearly the first attempt, and
a tolerably clumsy one, at writing English ;
and ere long, Hume, Robertson, Smith, and a
whole host of followers, attracted hither the
eyes of all Europe. And yet in this brilliant
resuscitation of our "fervid genius," there was
nothing truly Scottish, nothing indigenous;
except, perhaps, the natural impetuosity of in-
tellect, which we sometimes claim, and are
sometimes upbraided with, as a characteristic
of our nation. It is curious to remark that
Scotland, so full of writers, had no Scottish
culture, nor indeed any English; our culture
was almost exclusively French. It was by
studying Racine and Voltaire, Batteux and
Boileau, that Kames had trained himself to be
a critic and philosopher: it was -the light of

Montesquieu and Mably that guided Robert*
son in liis political speculations; Quesriay's
hinip ill;:! kindled the lamp of Adam Smith
Hume wr.s too rich a man to borrow; and per-
haps he reached on the French more than he
was acted on by them: but neithei had he
aui;hl to do with Scotland; Edinburgh, equally
with La Fleche, was but the lodging and labor-
atory, in which he not so much morally Imd,
as metaphysically imcstigated. Never, perhaps,
was there a class of writers, so clear and well-
ordered, yet so totally destitute, to all appear-
ance, of any patriotic afl^eciion, nay, of any
human affection whatever. The French wits
of the period were as unpatriotic : but their
general deficiency in moral principle, not to
say their avowed sensuality and unbelief in all
virtue, strictly so called, render this account-
able enough. We hope there is a patriotism
founded on something better than prejudice i
that our country ma)'^ be dear to us, without
injury to our philosophy; that in loving and
justly prizing all other lands, we may prize
justly, and yet love before all others, our own
stern Motherland, and the venerable structure
of social and moral Life, Avhich Mind has
through long ages been building up for us
there. Surely there is nourishment for the
belter part of man's heart in all this: surely
the roots, that have fixed themselves in the
very core of man's being, maybe so cultivated
as to grow up not into briers, but into roses, in
the field of his life ! Our Scottish sages have no
such propensities: the field of their life shows
neither briers nor roses ; but only a flat, con-
tinuous thrashing-floor for Logic, whereon all
questions, from the "Doctrine of Rent," to the
" Natural History of Religion, are thrashed and
sifted with the same mechanical impartiality!
With Sir Waller Scott at the head of our
literature, it cannot be denied that much of
this evil is past, or rapidly passing away: our
chief literary men, whatever other faults they
may have, no longer live among us like a
French Colony, or some knot of Propaganda
Missionaries; but like natural-born subjects
of the soil, partak'ing and sympathizing in all
our attachments, humours, and habits. Our
literature no longer grows in water, but in
mould, and with the true racy virtues of the
soil and climate. How much of this change
mav be due to Burns, or to any other individual,
it might be difficult to estimate. Direct literary
imitation of Burns was not to be looked for.
But his example, in the fearless adoption of
domestic subjects, could not but operate from
afar; and certainly in no heart did the love of
country ever burn with a warmer glow than in
that of Burns: "a tide of Scottish prejudice,"
as he modestly calls this deep and generous
feeling, "had been poured along his veins;
and he felt that it would boil there till the flood-
gates shut in eternal rest." It seemed to him,
as if he could do so little for his country, and
and yet would so gladly have done all. One
small province stood open for him ; that of
Scottish song, and how eagerly he entered on
it; how devotedly he laboured there! In his
most toilsome journevings, this object never
quits him; it is the little happy-valley of his
careworn heart. In the gloom of his owb

BURNS.

105

affliction, he eagerly searches after some'lonely
brother of the muse, and rejoices to snatch one
other name from the oblivion that was cover-
ing it! These were early feelings, and they
abode with him to the end.

a wish, (t mind its power,)

A wish, that to my latest hour
Will strongly heave my breast;
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,
Some useful plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
Tlie rough bur Thistle spreading wide

Amang the bearded bear,
1 tiirn'd my weeding-clips aside,

And spared the symbol dear.

But to leave the mere literary character of
Burns, which has already detained us too long,
we cannot but think that the Life he willed,
and was fated to lead among his fellow-men,
is both more interesting and instructive than
any of his written works. These Poems are but
like little rhymed fragments scattered here and
there in the grand unrhymed Romance of his
earthly existence; and it is only when inter-
calated in this at their proper places, that they
attain their full measure of significance. And
this too, alas, was but a fragment! The plan
of a mighty edifice had been sketched; some
columns, porticoes, firm masses of building,
stand completed ; the rest more or less clearly
indicated ; with many a far-stretching tendency,
which only studious and friendly eyes can now
trace towards the purposed termination. For
the work is broken ofl'in the middle, almost in
the beginning; and rises among us, beautiful
and sad, at once unfinished and a ruin! If
charitable judgment was necessary in esti-
mating his poems, and justice required that
the aim and the manifest power to fulfil it
must often be accepted for the fulfilment;
much more is this the case in regard to his
life, the sum and result of all his endeavours,
where his difliculties came upon him not in
detail only, but in mass; and so much has
been left unaccomplished, nay, was mistaken,
and altogether marred.

Properly speaking, there is but one era in
the life of Burns, and that the earliest. We
have not youth and manhood; but only youth:
For, to the end, we discern no decisive change
in the complexion of his character; in his
thirty-seventh year, he is still, as it were, in
youth. With all that resoluteness of judg-
ment, that penetrating insight, and singular
maturity of intellectual power, exhibited in his
writings, he never attains to any clearness re-
garding himself; to the last he never ascertains
his peculiar aim, even with such distinctness
as is common among ordinary men ; and there-
fore never can pursue it with that singleness
of will, which insures success and some con-
tentment to such men. To the last, he wavers
between two purposes : glorying in his talent,
like a true poet, he yet cannot consent to make
this his chief and sole glory, and to follow it as
the one thing needful, through poverty or
riches, through good or evil report. Another
far meaner ambition still cleaves to him ; he
must dream and struggle about a certain "Rock
of Independence ;" which, natural and even ad-
mirable as it might be, was still but a warring
U

with the world, on the comparatively insignifi-
cant ground of his being more or less com-
pletely supplied with money, than others; of
his standing at a higher, or at a lower altitude
in general estimation, than others. For the
world still appears to him, as to the young, in
borrowed colours : he expects from it what it
cannot give to any man ; seeks for content-
ment, not within himself, in action and wise
eflbrt, but from without, in the kindness of cir-
cumstances, in love, friendship, honour, pe-
cuniary ease. He would be happy, not actively
and in himself, but passively, and from some
ideal cornucopia of Enjoyments, not earned
by his own labour, but showered on him by
the beneficence of Destiny. Thus, like a young
man, he cannot steady himself for any fixed or
systematic pursuit, but swerves to and fro,
between passionate hope, and remorseful dis-
appointment: rushing onwards with a deep
tempestuous force, he surmounts or breaks
asunder many a barrier; travels, nay, advances
fiir, but advancing only under uncertain guid-
ance, is ever and anon turned from his path:
and to the last, cannot reach the only true
happiness of a man, that of clear, decided Ac-
tivity in the sphere for which by nature and
circumstances he has been fitted and ap-
pointed.

We do not say these things in dispraise of
Burns: nay, perhaps, they but interest us the
more in his favour. This blessing is not given
soonest to the best; but rather, it is often the
greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it;
for where most is to be developed, most time
may be required to develope it. A complex
condition had been assigned him from without,
as complex a condition from within : " no
" pre-established harmony" existed between
the clay soil of Mossgiel and the empyrean
soul of Robert Burns; it was not wonderful,
therefore, that the adjustment between them
should have been long postponed, and his arm
long cumbered, and his sight confused, in so
vast and discordant an economy, as he had
been appointed steward over. Byron was, at
his death, but a year younger than Burns ;
and through life, as it might hav6 appeared,
far more simply situated ; yet in him, too, we
can trace no such adjustment, no such moral
manhood; but at best, and only a little before
his end, the beginning of what seemed such.

By much the most striking incident in
Burns's Life is his journey to Edinburgh; but
perhaps a still more important one is his resi-
dence at Irvine, so early as in his twenty-third
year. Hitherto his life had been poor and toil-
worn ; but otherwise not ungenial, and, with
all its distresses, by no means unhappy. In his
parentage, deducting outward circumstances,
he had every reason to reckon himself for-
tunate: his father was a man of thoughtful,
intense, earnest character, as the best of our
peasants are; valuing knowledge, possessing
some, and, what is far better and rarer, open
minded for more; a man with a keen insight,
and devout heart: reverent towards God,
friendly therefore at once, and fearless towards
all that God has made; in one word, though
but a hard-handed peasant, a complete and fully
unfolded Man. Such a father is seldom found

106

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

in any rank in society ; and was worth de-
scending far in society to seek. Unfortunately,
he was very poor; had he been even a little
richer, almost ever so little, the whole might
nave issued far otherwise. Mighty events turn
on a straw; the crossing of a brook decides
the conquest of the world. Had this William
Burns's small seven acres of nursery ground
anywise prospered, the boy Robert had been
sent to school; had struggled forward, as so
many weaker men do, to some university;
come forth not as a rustic wonder, but as a
regular well-trained intellectual workman, and
changed the whole course of British Literature,
— for it lay in him to have done this! But
the nursery did not prosper; poverty sank his
whole family below the help of even our cheap
Bchool-system : Burns remained a hard-worked
plough-boy, and British literature took its own
course. Nevertheless, even in this rugged
ficene, there is much to nourish him. If he
drudges, it is with his brother, and for his
father and mother, whom he loves, and would
fain shield from want. Wisdom is not ban-
ished from their poor hearth, nor the balm of
natural feeling: the solemn words, Let us wor-
ship God, are heard there from a " priest-like
father;" if threatenings of unjust men throw
mother and children into tears, these are tears
not of grief only, but of holiest affection ; every
heart in that humble group feels itself the
closer knit to every other; in their hard war-
fare they are there together, a "little band of
brethren." Neither are such tears, and the
deep beauty that dwells in them, their only
portion. Light visits the hearts as it does the
eyes of all living: there is a force, too, in this
vouth, that enables him to trample on misfor-
tune; nay, to bind it under his feet to make
him sport. For a bold, warm, buoyant humour
of character has been given him; and so the
thick-coming shapes of evil are welcomed
with a gay, triendly irony, and in their closest
pressure he bates no jot of heart or hope.
Vague yearnings of ambition fail not, as he
grows up; dreamy fancies hang like cloud-
cities around him ; the curtain of Existence is
slowly rising, in many-coloured splendour and
gloom : and the auroral light of first love is
gilding his horizon, and the music of song is
on his path ; and so he walks

in glory and in joy,

Behind his plough, upon the niouiitain side !

We know, from the best evidence, that up to
this date. Burns was happy; nay, that he was
the gayest, brightest, most fiinlaslic, fascinating
being to be found in the world; more so even
than he ever afterwards appeared. But now,
at this early age, he quits the paternal roof;
goes forth into looser, louder, more exciting
society ; and becomes initiated in those dissi-
pations, those vices, which a certain class of
philosophers have asserted to be a natural
preparative for entering on active life; a kind
of mud-bath, in which the youth is, as it were,
necessitated to steep, and, we suppose, cleanse
himself, before the real toga of Manhood can
be laid on him. We shall not dispute much
wilh this class of philosophers ; we hope they
are mistaken : for Sin and Remorse so easily

beset us at all stages of life, and are always
such indifferent company, that it seems hard
we should, at any stage, be forced and fated
not only to meet, but to yield to them ; and even
serve for a term in their leprous armada. We
hope it is not so. Clear we are, at all events,
it cannot be the training one receives in this
service, but only our determining to desert
from it, that fits us for true manly Action. We
become men, not after v.-e have been dissipated,
and disappointed in the chase of false pleasure ;
but after we have ascertained, in any way,
what impassable barriers hem us in through
this life ; how mad it is to hope for content-
ment to our infinite soul from the s^ifis of this
extremely finite world! that a man must be
sulhcient for himself; and that "for suffering
and enduring there is no remedy but striving
and doing." Manhood begins when we have
in any way made truce with Necessity ; begins,
at all events, when we have surrendered to
Necessity, as the most part only do ; but begins
joyfully and hopefully only when we have
reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in
reality, triumphed over it,, and felt that in
Necessity we are free. Surely, such lessons
as this last, which, in one shape or other, is
the grand lesson for every mortal man, are
better learned from the lips of a devout mother,
in the looks and actions of a devout father,
while the heart is yet soft and pliant, than in
collision with the sharp adamant of Fate, at-
tracting us to shipwreck us, when the heart is
grown hard, and may be broken before it will
become contrite! Had Burns continued to
learn this, as he was already learning it, in his
father'.s cottage, he would have learned it fully,
which he never did, — and been saved many a
lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and year
of remorseful sorrow.

It seems to us another circumstance of fatal
import in Burns's history, that at this time too
he became involved in the religious quarrels
of his district; that he was enlisted and feasted,
as the fighting man of the New-Light Priest-
hood, in their highly unprofitable warfare. At
the tables of these free-minded clergy, he
learned much more than was needful for him.
Such liberal ridicule of fanaticism awakened
in his mind scruples about Religion itself; and
a whole world of Doubts, which it required
quite another set of conjurors than these meu
to exorcise. We do not say that such an in-
tellect as his could have escaped similar Joul fs,
at some period of his history; or even that he
could, at a later period, have come through
them altogether victorious and unharmed: but
it seems peculiarly unfortunate that this time,
above all others, should have been fixed for the
encounter. For now, with principles assailed
by evil example from without, by "passions
raging like demons" from within, he had little
need of skeptical misgivings to whisper trea-
son in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his
retreat if he were already defeated. He loses
his feeling of innocence ; his mind is at vari-
ance with itself; the old divinity no longer pre-
sides there ; but wild Desires and wild Repent-
ance alternately oppress him. Ere long, loo,
he has committed himself before the world;
his character for sobriety, dear to a Scottish

BURNS.

107

peasant, as few corrupted worldlings can even
conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men ; and
his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve
his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. The
blackest desperation now gathers over him,
broken only by the red lightnings of remorse.
The whole labric of his life is blasted asunder;
for now not Duly his character, but his per-
sonal liberty, is to be lost; men and Fortune
are leagued for his hurt; "hungry Ruin has
him in tlie wind." He sees no escape but the
saddest of all: exile from his loved country, to
a country in every sense inhospitable and ab-
horrent to him. While the " gloomy night is
gathering fast," in mental storm and solitude,
as well as in physical, he sings his wild fare-
well to Scotland:

Farewell, my friends, farewell my foes !
My peace with these, my love witL those:
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Adieu, my iialive banks of Ayr !

Light breaks suddenly in on him in floods ;
but still a false transitory light, and no real
sunshine. He is invited to Edinburgh ; hastens
thither with anticipating heart; is welcomed
as in triumph, and with universal blandish-
ment and acclamation; whatever is wisest,
whatever is greatest, or loveliest there, gathers
round him, to gaze on his face, to show him
honour, sympathy, affection. Burns's appear-
ance among the sages and nobles of Edinburgh,
mttst be regarded as one of the most singular
phenomena in modern Literature; almost like
the appearance of some Napoleon among the
crowned sovereigns of modern Politics. For
it is nowise as a "mockery king," set there by
favour, transiently, and for a purpose, that he
will let himself be treated; still less is he a
mad Rienzi, whose sudden elevation turns his
too weak head: but he stands there on his own
basis; cool, unastonished, holding his equal
rank from Nature herself; putting forth no
claim which there is not strength in him, as
well as about him, to vindicate. Mr. Lock-
hart has some forcible observations on this
point :

"It needs no effort of imagination," says he,
" to conceive what the sensations of an isolated
set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or
professors) must have been, in the presence
of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny
stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who,
having f irced his way among them from the
plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested in
the whole strain of his bearing and conversa-
tion, a most thorough conviction that in the
society of the most eminent men of his nation,
he was exactly where he was entitled to be ;
hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting
P* even an occasional symptom of being flattered
by their notice; by turns calmly measured
himself against the most cultivated understand-
ings of his time in discussion ; overpowered
the bon 77inls of the most celebrated convivialisis
by broad floods of merriment, impregnated
with all ihe burning life of genius; astounded
bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled
folds of social reserve, by compelling them to
tremble, — nay, to tremble visibly, — beneath the
fearless touch of natural pathos; and all this

without indicating the smallest willingness U
be ranked among those professional ministers
of excitement, who are content to be paid ia
money and smiles for doing what the spectators
and auditors would be ashamed of doing ia
their own persons, even if they had the power
of doing it; and last, and probably worst of all,
who was known to be in the habit of enliven-
ing societies which they would have scorned
to approach, still more frequently than their
own, with eloquence no less magnificent; with
wit, in all likelihood still more daring; often
enough as the superiors whom he fronted
without alarm might have guessed from the
beginning, and had, ere long, no occasion to
guess, with wit pointed at themselves." — p. 131.

The farther we remove from this scene, the
more singular will it seem to us : details of the
exterior aspect of it are already full of inte-
rest. Most readers recollect Mr. Walker's per-
sonal interviews with Burns as among the
best passages of his Narrative ; a time will
come when this reminiscence of Sir Walter
Scott's, slight though it is, will also be pre-
cious.

"As for Burns," writes Sir Walter, "I may
truly say Virgiliitm vidi tantum. I was a lad
of fifteen in 1786 — 7, when he came first to
Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough
to be much interested in his poetry, and would
have given the world to know him : but I had
very little acquaintance with any literary peo-
ple ; and still less with the gentry of the west
country, the two sets that he most frequented.
Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk
of my father's. He knew Burns, and pro-
mised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but
had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise
I might have seen more of this distinguished
man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late
venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there
were several gentlemen of literary reputation,
among whom I remember the celebrated Mr.
Dugaid Stewart. Of course, we youngsters
sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing
I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's
manner, was the effect produced upon him by
a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier
lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in mi-
sery on one side, — on the other, his widow,
with a child in her arms. These lines were
written beneath :

"Cold on Canadian bills, or Minden's plain.
Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain :
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptized in tears."

"Burns seemed much affected by the print,
or rather by the ideas which it suggested to his
mind. He actually shed tears. He asked
whose the lines were, and it chanced that no-
body but myself remembered that they occur
in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called
by the unpromising title of " The Justice of
Peace." I whispered my information to a
friend present, he mentioned it to Burns, who
rewarded me with a look and a word, which,
though of mere civility, I then received and
still recollect with very great pleasure.

108

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

"Hiij! person was strong and robust; his
manners rustic, not clownish ; a sort of digni-
fied plainness and simplicity, which received
part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge
of his extraordinary talents. His features are
represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture : but to
me it conveys the idea that they are dimi-
nished, as if seen in j)erspective. I think his
countenance was more massive than it looks
in any of the portraits. I should have taken
the poet, had I not known what he was, for a
very sagacious country farmer of the old
Scotch school, i. c. none of your modern agri-
culturists who keep labourers for their drudg-
ery, but the douce gudvman who held his own
plough. There was a strong expression of
sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ;
the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical
character and temperament. It was large,
and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say lite-
rally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or
interest. I never saw such anoiher eye in a
human head, though I have seen the most dis-
tinguished men of my time. His conversa-
tion expressed perfect self-confidence, without
the slightest presumption. Among the men
who were the most learned of their time and
country, he expressed himself with perfect
firmness, but without the least intrusive for-
wardness ; and when he differed in opinion,
he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at
the same time with modesty. I do not remem-
ber any part of his conversation distinctly
enough to be quoted ; nor did I ever see him
again, except in the street, where he did not
recognise me, as I could not expect he should.
He was much caressed in Edinburgh : but
(considering what literary emoluments have
been since his day) the efforts made for his
relief were extremely trifling.

" I remember, on this occasion I mention, I
thought Burns's acquaintance with English
poetry was rather limited ; and also, that hav-
ing twenty times the abilities of Allan Kamsay
and of Ferguson, he talked of them with too
much humility as his models: there was
doubtless national predilection in his estimate.

"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I
have only to add, that his dress corresponded
with his manner. He was like a farmer
dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I
do not speak in nialam partem, when I say, I
never saw a man in company with his supe-
riors in station or information more perfectly
free from either the reality or the affectation of
embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe
it, that his address to females was extremely
deferential, and always with a turn either to
the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their
a'.'ention particularly. I have heard the late
Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not
know any thing I can add to these recollections
of forty years since." — pp. 112 — 115.

The conduct of Burns under this dazzling
Haze of favour; the calm, unaffected, manly
manner, in which he not only bore it, but esti-
mated its value, has justly been regarded as
the best proof that could be given of his real
vigour and integrity of mind. A little natural
vanity, some touches of hypocritical modesty,
aK>me glimmerings of affectation, at least some

fear of being thought affected, -ue could have
pardoned in almost any man ; but no such in-
dication is to be traced here. In his unexam-
pled situation the young peasant is not a
moment perplexed ; so many strange lights
do not confuse him, do not lead him astray.
Nevertheless, we cannot but perceive that this
winter did him great and lasting injury. A
somewhat clearer knowledge of men's affairs,
scarcely of their characters, it did afford him ;
but a sha'rper feeling of Fortune's unequal ar-
rangements in their social destiny it also left
with him. He had seen the gay and gorgeous
arena, in which the powerful are born to play
their parts; nay, had himself stood in the
midst of it; and he felt more bitterly than
ever, that here he was but a looker-on, and
had no part or lot in that splendid game. From
this time a jealous indignant fear of social
degradation takes possession of him ; and
perverts, so far as aught could pervert, his
private contentment, and his feelings towards
his richer fellows. It was clear enough to
Burns that he had talent enough to make a
fortune, or a hundred fortunes, could he but
have rightly willed this ; it was clear also that
he willed something far different, and there-
fore could not make one. Unhappy it was
that he had not power to choose the one, and
reject the other; but must halt for ever be-
tween two opinions, two objects ; making
hampered advancement towards either. But
so is it with many men: we "long for the
merchandise, yet would fain keep the price ;"
and so stand chaffering with Fate in vexatious
altercation, till the Night come, and our fair is
over!

The Edinburgh learned of that period were
in general more noted for clearness of head
than for warmth of heart: with the excep-
tion of the good old Blacklock, whose help
was too ineffectual, scarcely one among them
seems to have looked at Burns with any
true sympathy, or indeed much otherwise than
as at a highly curious thing. By the great,
also, he is treated in the customary fashiou;
entertained at their tables, and dismissed:
certain modica of pudding and praise are,
from time to time, gladly exchanged for the
fascination of his presence; which exchange
once effected, the bargain is finished, and each
party goes his several way. At the end of this
strange season. Burns gloomily sums up his
gains and losses, and meditates on the chaotic
future. In money he is somewhat richer; in
fame and the show of happiness, infinitely
richer; but in the substance of it, as poor as
ever. Nay poorer, for his heart is now mad-
dened still more with the fever of mere world-
ly Ambition ; and through long years the dis-
ease will rack him with unprofitable sufferings
and weaken his strength for all true and nobler
aims.

What Burns was next to do or avoid; how
a man so circumstanced was now to guide
himself towards his true advantage, might at
this point of time have been a question for the
wisest: and it was a question which he was
left altogether to answer for himself: of his
learned or rich patrons it had not struck any
individual to turn a thought on this 150 trivial

BURNS.

109

matter. Without claiming for Burns the praise
of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his
Excise and Farm scheme does not seem to us
a very unreasonable one ; and that we should
be at a loss, even now, to suggest one decided-
ly better. Some of his admirers, indeed, are
scandalized at his ever resolving to gaH2:e : and
would have had him apparently lie still at the
pool, till the spirit of Patronage should stir the
waters, and then heal with one plunge all his
worldly sorrows ! We fear such counsellors
knew but little of Burns ; and did not consider
that happiness might in all cases be cheaply
had by waiting for the fulfilment of golden
dreams, were it not that in the interim the
dreamer must die of hunger. It reflects credit
on the manliness and sound sense of Burns,
that he felt so early on what ground he was
standing; and preferred self-help, on the hum-
blest scale, to dependence and inaction, though
with hope of far more splendid possibilities.
But even these possibilities were not rejected
in his scheme: he might expect, if it chanced
that he hail any friend, to rise, in no long
period, into something even like opulence and
leisure; while again, if it chanced that he had
no friend, he could still live in security; and
for the rest, he "did not intend to borrow
honour from any profession." We think then
that his plan was honest and well-calculated :
all turned on the execution of it. Doubtless it
failed; yet not, we believe, from any vice in-
herent in itself. Nay after all, it was no failure
of exifrnal means, but of internal that over-
took Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the
purse, but of the soul; to his last day, he
owed no man any thing.

Meanwhile he begins well: with two good
and wise actions. His donation to his mother,
munificent from a man whose income had
lately been seven pounds a-year, was worthy
of him, and not more than worthy. Generous
also, and worthy of him, was his treatment of
the woman whose life's welfare now depended
on his pleasure. A friendly observer might
have hoped serene days for him: his mind
is on the true road to peace with itself: what
clearness he still wants will be given as he
proceeils; for the best teacher of duties, that
still lie dim to us, is the Practice of those we
see, and have at hand. Had llie "patrons of
genius," who could give him nothing, but taken
nothing from him, at least nothing more ! — the
wounds of his heart would have healed, vulgar
ambition would have died away. Toil and
Frugality would have been welcome, since
Virtue dwelt with them, and poetry would have
shone through them as of old ; and in her clear
ethereal light, which was his own by birth-
right, he might have looked down on his earth-
ly destiny, and all its obstructions, not with
patience only, but with love.

But the patrons of genius would not have it
so. Picturesque tourists,* all manner of fash-

♦TtiRi-e is one little sketch by certain " English L'entle-
irien" of ihis class, which Ihnnrli ailnpleil in Ciirrie's
Narrafivp, and since then repealed in most others, we
have all aloni; felt an iiivincil)le dispositiaii to reirard as
irn isiniry : " On a rock tint projected into the; stream
they saw a man employed in ant'iinz, of a sin'-'ular ap-
pearance, fie h 111 a cap made of fox-sliin on liis head,
a loose great-coat fixed round hiin by a belt, from which

ionable danglers after literature, and, far worse,
all manner of convivial Mecsnases, hovered
round him in his retreat; and his good as
well as his weak qualities secured them in-
fluence over him. He was flattered by their
notice ; and his warm social nature made it
impossible for him to shake them off, and hold
on his way apart from them. These men, as
we believe, were proximately the means of
his ruin. Not that they meant him any ill ;
they only meant themselves a little good; if
he sufl^ered harm, let him look to it ! But they
wasted his precious time and his preciotis
talent; they disturbed his composure, broke
down his returning habits of temperance anfl
assiduous contented exertion. Their pamper-
ing vvds baneful to him; their cruelty, which
soon followed, was equally baneful. The old
grudge against Fortune's inequality awoke
with new bitterness in their neighbourhood,
and Burns had no retreat but to the "Rock of
Independence," which is but an. air-castle, after
all, that looks well at a distance, but wil.
screen no one from real wind and wet.
Flushed with irregular excitement, exasper-
ated alternately by ccmtempt of others, and
contempt of himself. Burns was no longer
regaining his peace of mind, but fast losing it
for ever. There was a hollowness at the heart
of his life, for his conscience did not now ap-
prove what he was doing.

Amid the vapours of unwise enjoyment, of
bootless remorse, and angry discontent with
Fate, his true loadstar, a life of Poetry, with
Poverty, nay, with Famine if it must be so,
was too often altogether hidden from his eyes.
And yet he sailed a sea, where, without some
such guide, there was no right steering.
Meteors of French Politics rise before him,
but these were not his stars. An accident this,
which hastened, but did not originate, his
worst distresses. In the mad contentions of
that time, he comes in collision with certain
official Superiors ; is wounded by them ; cruel-
ly lacerated, we should say, could a dead
inechanical implement, in any case, be called
cruel: and shrinks, in indignant pain, into
deeper self-seclusion, into glooinier moodiness
than ever. His life has now lost its unity: it
is a life of fragtnents; led with little aim, be-
yond the melancholy one of securing its own
continuance, — in fits of wild false joy, when
such oflfcred, and of black despondency when
they passed away. His character before the
world begins to suffer: calumny is bu.sy with
him ; for a miserable man makes more ene-
mies than friends. Some faults he has fallen
into, and a thousand misfortunes; but deep
criminality k what he stands accused of, and
they that are vot without sin, cast the first
stone at him ! For is he not a well-wisher of
the French Revolution, a Jacobin, and there-
depended an enormous Highland broad-sword. It was
Burns." Now, we rather think, it was not Burns. Foi
to say nothing of the fo\-skin cap, loose and qi'.ito
Hibernian watch-coat with the belt, what are we to
make of this " enormous Highland broad-sword" dfl-
pending from him? More especially, as there is no
word of parish constables on the outlook to see whether,
as Dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his own midriff,
or that of the piililic! Burns, of all men. had the leas
tendency, to seek for distinction, either in his own eyci
or those of others, by such poor mummeries

no

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

fore in that one act guilty of all! These
accusations, political and moral, it has since
appeared, were false enough: but the world
hesitated little tocredit them. Nay,hisconvivial
MecEenases themselves were not the last to do
it. There is reason to believe that, in his later
years, the Dumfries Aristocracy had partly
withdrawn themselves from Burns, as from a
tainted person, no longer worthy of their ac-
quaintance. That painful class, stationed, in
all provincial cities, behind the outmost breast-
work of Gentility, there to stand siege and do
battle against the intrusion of Grocerdom, and
Grazierdom, had actually seen dishonour in
the society of Burns, and branded him with
their veto; had, as we vulgarly say, rut him !
We find one passage in this work of Mr.
Lockhart's, which will not out of our thoughts :
"A gentleman of that country, whose name
I have already more than once had occasion
to refer to, has often told ine that he was sel-
dom more grieved, than when, riding into
Dumfries one fine summer evening about this
time to attend a country ball, he saw Burns
walking alone, on the shiady side of the prin-
cipal street of the town, while the opposite
side was gay with successive groups of gen-
tlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the
festivities of the night, not one of whom ap-
peared willing to recognise him. The horse-
man dismounted, and joined Burns, who on
his proposing to cross the street said: "Nay,
nay, my young friend, that's all over now;"
and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady
Grizzel Baillie's pathetic ballad:

"His bonnet stood ance fn' fnir on his brow.
His aiild ane Innlted belter than ninny ane's new;
But nmv he lets't wear ony way it will bin?.
And casts himsell dowle upon the corn-bing.

* O were we young, as we ance hae been,
We snd hae been gallnpinz down on yon green,
And liiil(ing it ower the lily-white lea!
^nd werena my heart light I wad die."

It was little in Burns's character to let his
feelings on certain subjects escape in this
fashion. He immediately after reciting these
verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most
pleasing manner; and, taking his young friend
home with him, entertained him very agreeably
till the hour of the ball arrived."

Alas ! when we think that Burns now sleeps
"where bitter indignation can no longer lace-
rate his heart,"* and that most of these fiiir
dames and frizzled gentlemen already lie at his
side, where the breastwork of gentility is quite
thrown down, — who would not sigh over the
thin delusions and foolish toys that divide
heart from heart, and make man unmerciful
to his brother!

It was not now to be hoped that the genius
of Burns would ever reach maturity, or ac-
complish ought worthy of itself. His spirit
was jarred in its melody; not the soft breath
of natural feeling, but the rude hand of Fate,
was now sweeping over the strings. And yet
what harmonv was in him, what music even
in his discords ! How the wild tones had a

• Ubi sreva indignatio cor viterius lacerare nequit.-
Bwift'p ISpitaph.

charm for the simplest and the wisest ; and
all men felt and knew that here also was one
of the Gifted! "If he entered an inn at mid-
night, after all the inmates were in bed, the
news of his arrival circulated from the cellar
to the garret ; and ere ten minutes had elapsed,
the landlord and all his guests were assem-
bled !" Some brief, pure moments of poetic
life were yet appointed him, in the composi-
tion of his Simgs. We can understand how
he grasped at this employment; and how, too,
he spurned at all other reward for it but what
the labour itself brought him. For the soul
of Burns, though scathed and marred, was yet
living in its full moral strength, though sharply
conscious of its errors and abasement: and
here, in his destitution and degradation, was
one act of seeming nol)leness and self-devoted-
ncss left even for him to perform. He felt,
too, that with all the "thoughtless follies" that
had "laid him low," the world was unjust and
cruel to him; and he silently appealed to
another and calmer time. Not as a hired sol-
dier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the
glory of his country; so he cast from him the
poor sixpence a-day, and served zealously as
a volunteer. Let us not grudge him this last
luxury of his existence; let him not have ap-
pealed to us in vain! The money was not
necessary to him; he struggled through with-
out it; long since, these guineas would have
been gone, and now the high-mindedness of
refusing them will plead for him in all hearts
for ever.

We are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's
life; for matters had now taken such a shape
with him as could not long continue. If im-
provement was not to be looked for. Nature
could only for a limited time maintain this
dark and maddening warfare against the world
and itself. We are not medically informed
whether any continuance of years was, at this
period, probable for Burns ; whether his death
is to be loolced on as in some sense an acci-
dental event, or only as the natural conse-
quence of the long series of events that had
preceded. The latter seems to be the likelier
opinion; and yet it is by no means a certain
one. At all events, as we have said, snme
change could not be very distant. Three gates
of deliverance, it seems to us, were open for
Bnrns: clear poetical activity; madness; or
death. The first, with longer life, was still
possible, though not probable; for physical
causes were beginning to be concerned in it:
and yet Burns had an iron resolution ; could
he but have seen and felt, that not only his
highest glory, but his first duty, and the true
medicine for all his woes, lay here. The
second was still less probable; for his mind
was ever among the clearest and firmest. So
the milder third gate was opened for him: and
he passed, not softly, yet speedily, into that
still country, where the hail-storms and fire-
showers do not reach, and the heaviest-ladea
way-farer at length lays down his load!

Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and
how he sank unaided by any real help, un-
cheered by any wise sympathy, generous
minds have sometimes figured to themselves.

BURNS.

HI

wUh a reproachful sorrow, that much- might
have been done for him ; that by counsel, true
affection, and friendly ministrations, he might
have been saved to himself and the world.
We question whether there is not more tender-
ness of heart than soundness of judgment in
these suggestions. It seems dubious to us
whether the richest, wisest, most benevolent
individual, could have lent Burns any effec-
tual help. Counsel, which seldom profits any
one, he did not need ; in his understanding, he
knew the right from the wrong, as well per-
haps as any man ever did ; but the persuasion,
which would have availed him, lies not so
much in the head, as in the heart, where no
argument or expostulation could have assisted
much to implant it. As to money again, we
do not really believe that this was his essen-
tial want; or well see how any private man
cou Id, even presupposing Burns's consent, have
bestowed on him an independent fortune, with
much prospect of decisive advantage. It is a
mortifying truth, that two men in any rank of
society could hardly be found virtuous enough
to give money, and to take it, as a necessary
gift, without injury to the moral entireness of
one or both. But so stands the fact: Friend-
ship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no
longer exists; except in the cases of kindred
or other legal affinity; it is in reality no longer
expected, or recognised as a virtue among
men. A close observer of manners has pro-
nounced "Patronage," that is, pecuniary or
other economic furtherance, to be "twice
cursed;" cursing him that gives, and him that
takes ! And thus, in regard to outward mat-
ters also, it has become the rule, as in regard
to inward it always was and must be the rule,
that no one shall look for effectual help to
another; but that each shall rest cnntentei
with what help he can afford himself Such,
we say, is. the principle of modern Honour;
naturally enough growing out of that senti-
ment of Pride, which we inculcate and en-
courage as the basis of our whole social mo-
rality. Many a poet has been poorer than
Burns ; but no one was ever prouder: we may
question, whether, without great precautions,
even a pension from Royalty would not have
galled and encumbered, more than actually
assisted him.

Still less, therefore, are we disposed to join
with another class of Burns's admirers, who
accuse the higher ranks among us of having
ruined Burns by their selfish neglect of him.
We have already stated our doubts whether
direct pecuniary help, had it been offered,
would have been accepted, or could have
proved very effectual. We shall readily admit,
however, that much was to be done for Burns ;
that many a poisoned arrow might have been
'warded from his bosom; many an entanglement
in his path cut asunder by the hand of the pow-
erful; and light and heat shed on him from high
places, would have made his humble atmo-
sphere more genial ; and the softest heart then
breathing might have lived and died with some
fewer pangs. Nay, we shall grant further, and
for Burns it is granting much, that with all his
pride, he would have thanked, even with ex-
aggerated gratitude, any one who had cordially

befriended him : patronage, unless once cursed,
needed not to have been twice so. At all events,
the poor promotion he desired in his calling
might have been granted: it was his own
scheme, therefore, likelier than anyothertobe
of service. All this it might have been a luxu-
ry, nay, it was a duty, for our nobility to have
done. No part of all this, however, did any of
them do ; or apparently attempt, or wish to do ;
so much is granted against them. But what
then is the amount of their blame 1 Simply
that they were men of the world, and walked
by the principles of such men ; that they treated
Burns, as other nobles and other commoners
had done other poets ; as the English did
Shakspeare; as King Charles and his cava-
liers did Butler, as King Philip and his Gran-
dees did Cervantes. Do men gather grapes of
thorns 1 or shall we cut down our thorns for
yielding only a fenre, and haws ? How, indeed,
could the "nobility and gentry of his native
land" hold out any help to this " Scottish Bard,
proud of his name and country?" Were the
nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to
help themselves'? Had they not their game to
preserve ; their borough interests to strenj: then ;
dinners, therefore, of various kinds to eai and
give! Were their means more than adequate
to all this business, or less than adequate"?
Less than adequate in general: few of them in
reality were richer than Burns; many of them
were poorer; for sometimes they had to wring
their supplies, as with thumbscrews, from the
hard hand; and, in their need of guineas, to
forget their duty of mercy ; which Burns was
never reduced to do. Let us pity and forgive
them. The game they preserved and shot, the
dinners they ate and gave, the borough inte-
rests they strengthened, the little Babylons they
severally builded by the glory of their might,
are all melted, or melting back into the prime-
val Chaos, as man's merely selfish endeavours
are fated to do : and here was an action ex-
tending, in virtue of its worldly influence, we
may say, through all time; in virtue of its
moral nature, beyond all time, being immortal
as the Spirit of Goodness itself; this action was
offered them to do, and light was not given
them to do it. Let us pity and forgive them.
But, better than pity, let us go and do othetuHse.
Human suffering did not end with the life of
Burns; neither was the solemn mandate,
"Love one another, bear one another's bur-
dens," given to the rich only, but to all men.
True, we shall find no Burns to relieve, to as-
suage by our aid or our pity: but celestial na-
tures, groaning under the fardels of a weary
life, we shall still find; and that wretchedness
which Fate has rendered voiceless and iunclcsf, is
not the least wretched, but the most.

Still we do not think that the blame of Burns'o
failure lies chiefly with the world. The worid.
it seems to us, treated him with more, rather
than with less kindness, than it usually shows
to such men. It has ever, we fear, shown but
small favour to its Teachers; hunger and na-
kedness, perils and reviling, the prison, the
cross, the poison-chalice, have, in most times
and countries, been the market-place it has
oflered for Wisdom, the welcome with whicb
it has greeted those who have come t<> ea-

Its

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

lighten and purify it. Homer and Socrates, and
the Christian Apostles, belong to old days;
but the world's Martyrology was not completed
with these. Roger Bacon and Galileo lan-
guish in priestly dungeons, Tasso pines in the
cell of a mad-house, Camoens dies begging on
the streets of Lisbon. So neglected, so " per-
secuted they the Prophets," not in Judea only,
but in all places where men have been. We
reckon that every poet of Burns's order is, or
should be, a prophet and teacher to his age;
that he has no right therefore to expect great
kindness from it, but rather is bound to do it
great kindness; that Burns, in particular, ex-
perienced fully the usual proportion of the
world's goodness ; and that the blame of his
failure, as we have said, lies not chiefly with
the world.

Where then does it lie 1 We are forced to
answer: With himself; it is his inward, not
his outward misfortunes, that bring him to the
dust. Seldom, indeed, is it otherwise; seldom
is a life morally wrecked, but the grand cause
lies in some internal mal-arrangement, some
want less of good fortune than of good guidance.
Nature fashions no creature without implant-
ing in it the strength needful for its action and
duration; least of all does she so neglect her
masterpiece and darling, the poetic soul. Nei-
ther can we believe that it is in the power of
any external circumstances utterly to ruin the
mind of a man ; nay, if proper wisdom be given
him, even so much as to affect its essential
health and beauty. The sternest sum-total of
all worldly misfortunes is Death ; nothing more
COM lie in the cup of human wo: yet many
men, in all ages, have triumphed over Death,
and led it captive ; converting its physical vic-
tory into a moral victory for themselves, into a
seal and immortal consecration for all that
their past life had achieved. What has been
done, may be done again ; nay, it is but the
degree and not the kind of such heroism that
differs in different seasons; for without some
portion of this spirit, not of boisterous daring,
but of silent fearlessness, of Self-denial, in all
its forms, no i'ood man, in any scene or time,
has ever attained to be good.

We have already stated the error of Burns;
and mourned over it, rather than blamed it.
It was the want of unity in his purposes, of
consistency in his aims; the hapless attempt
to mingle in friendly union the common spirit
of the world with the spirit of poetry, which is
of a far different and altogether irreconcilable
nature. Burns was nothing wholly ; and Burns
could be nothing, no man formed as he was
can be any thing, by halves. The heart, not
of a mere hot-blooded, popular verse-monger,
or poetical Bi'sUinrdievr, but of a true Poet and
Singer, worthy of the old religious heroic times,
had been given him : and he fell in an age, not
of heroism and religion, but of skepticism, sel-
fishness, and triviality when true Nobleness
was little understood, and its place supplied by
a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and un-
fruitful principle of Pr'de. The influences of
that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to
5ay nothing of his highly untoward situation,
made it more than visually dilTicult for him to
Tepel or resist ; the better spirit that was with-

in him ever sternly demanded its rights, its su-
premacy; he spent his life in endeavouring to
reconcile these two ; and lost it, as he must
have lost it, without reconciling them here.

Burns was born poor ; and born also to con-
tinue poor, for he would not endeavour to be
otherwise : this it had been well could he have
once for all admitted, and considered as finally
settled. He was poor, truly; hut hundreds
even of his own class and order of minds have
been poorer, yet have suffered nothing deadly
from it: nay, his own Father had a far sorer
battle with ungrateful destiny than his was ;
and he did not yield to it, but died courageously
warring, and to all moral intents prevailing,
against it. True, Burns had little means, had
even little tinae for poetry, his only real pursuit
and vocation ; but so much the more precious
was what little he had. In all these external
respects his case was hard ; but very far from
the hardest. Poverty, incessant drudgery, and
much worse evils, it has often been the lot of
Poets and wise men to strive with, and their
glory to conquer. Locke was banished as a
traitor; and wrote his Essay on the Human
Understanding, sheltering himself in a Dutch
garret. Was Milton rich or at his ease, when
he composed Paradise Lost ? Not only low, but
fallen from a height; not only poor but im-
poverished ; in darkness and with dangers
compassed'round, he sang his immortal song,
and found fit audience, though few. Did not
Cervantes finish his work, a maimed soldier,
and in prison ] Nay, was not the Jlraucana,
which Spain acknowledges as its Epic, written
without even the aid of paper; on scraps of
leather, as the stout fighter and voyager
snatched any moment from that wild warfare?

And what then had these men, which Burns
wanted 1 Two things; both which, it seems
to us, are indispensable for such men. They
had a true, religious principle of morals ; and
a single not a double aim in their activity.
They were not self-seekers and self-worship-
pers : but seekers and worshippers of some-
thing far better than Self. Not personal
enjoyment was their object ; but a high, heroic
idea of Religion, of Patriotism, of heavenly
Wisdom in one or the other form, ever hovered
before them ; in which cause, they neither
shrunk from suffering, nor called on the earth
to witness it as something wonderful; but
patiently endured, counting it blessedness
enough so to spend and be spent. Thus the
" golden-calf of Self-love," however curiously
carved, was not their Deity; but the Invisible
Goodness, which alone is man's reasonable
service. This feeling was as a celestial foun-
tain, whose streams refreshed into gladness
and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise
too desolate existence. In a word, they willed
one thing, to which all other things were sub-
ordinated, and made subservient; and therefore
they accomplished it. The wedge will rend
rocks ; but its edge must be sharp and single:
if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces
and will rend nothing.

Part of this superiority these men owed to
their age;' in which heroism and devotedness
were still practised, or at least not yet dis-
believed in : but much of it likewise they

BURNS.

113

owed to themselvts. With Biiriib again it
was different. His morality, in most of its
practical points, is that of a mere worldly man ;
enjoyment, in a finer or a coarser shape, is the
only ihing he longs and strives for. A noble
instinct sometimes raises him above this ; but
an instinct only, and acting only for moments.
He has no Religion ; in the shallow age, where
his days were cast, Religion was not discrimi-
nated from the New and Old Light forms of
Religion ; and was, with these, becoming ob-
solete in the minds of men. His heart, indeed,
is alive with a trembling adoration, but there
is no temple in his understanding. He lives
in darkness and in the sliadow of doubt. His
religion, at best, is an anxious wish ; like that
of Rabelais, " a great Perhaps."

He loved Poetry warmly, and in his heart;
could he but have loved it purely, and with his
whole undivided heart, it had been well. For
Poetry, as Burns could have followed it, is but
another form of Wisdom, of Religion ; is itself
Wisdom and Religion. But this also was de-
nied him. His poetry is a stray vagrant gleam,
which will not be extinguished within him, yet
rises not to be the true light of his path, but is
often a wildfire that misleads him. It was not
necessary for Burns to be rich, to be, or to
seem, " independent;" but it tv.is necessary for
him to be at one with his own heart; to place
what was highest in his nature, highest also in
his life; " to seek within himself for that con-
sistency and sequence, which external events
would fur ever refuse him." He was born a
poet; poetry was the celestial element of his
being, and should have been the soul of his
whole endeavours. Lifted into that serene
ether, whither he had wings given him to
mount, he would have needed no other eleva-
tion : Poverty, neglect, and all evil, save the
desecration of himself and his Art, were a
small matter to him ; the pride and the pas-
sions of the world lay far beneath his feel ;
and he looked down alike on noble and slave,
on prince and beggar, and all that wore tiie
stamp of man, with clear recognition, with
brotherly affection, with sympathy, with pity.
Nay, we question whether fir his culture as a
Poet, poverty, and much suffering for a season,
were not absolutely advantageous. Great men,
in looking back over iheir lives, have testified
to that elfect. "I would not for much," says
Jean P;iul,"that I had been born richer." And
yet Paul's birth was poor enough ; for, in an-
other place, he adds: "The prisoner's allow-
ance is bread and water; and I had often only
the latter." But the gold that is refined in the
hottest furnace comes out the purest ; or, as
he has himself expressed it, "the canary-bird
sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in
a darkened cage."

A man like Burns might have divided his
hours between poetry and virtuous industry;
industry which all true feeling sanctions, nay
prej^criiies, and which has a beauty, for that
"?.use, beyond the pomp of thrones : but to
divide his hours between poetry and rich men's
baiiqneis, was an ill-starred and inauspicious
attempt. How could he be at ease at such
banquets? What had he to do there, mingling
his music with the coarse roar of altogether
1.5

earthly voices, and brightening the thick smoke
of intojcication with fire lent him from heaven 1
Was it his aim to cnjnij life? To-morrow he
must go drudge as an Exciseman ! We won-
der not that Burns became moody, indignant,
and at times an offender against certain rules
of society ; but rather that he did not grow
utterly frantic, and run a-nmrk against them
all. How could a man, so falsely placed, by
his own or others' fault, ever know content-
ment or peaceable diligence for an hour?
What he did, under such perverse guidance,
and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with
astonishment at the natural strength and worth
of his character.

Doubtless there was a remedy for this per-
verseness : but not in others ; only in himself;
least of all in simple increase of wealth and
worldly " respectability." We hope we have
now heard enough about the eflicacy of wealth
for poetry, and to make poets happy. Nay,
have we not seen another instance of it in
these very days? Byron, a man of an endow-
ment considerably less ethereal than that of
Burns, is born in the rank not of a Scottish
ploughman, but of an English peer: the high-
est worldly honours, the fairest worldly career,
are his by inheritance : the richest harvest of
fame he soon reaps, in another province, by
his own hand. And what does all this avail
him? Is he happy, is he good, is he true?
Alas, he has a poet's soul, and strives towards
the Infinite and the Eternal; and soon feels
that all this is but mounting to the house-top
to reach the stars ! Like Burns, he is only a
proud man; might like him have "purchased
a pocket-copy of Milton to study the character
of Satan ;" for Satan also is Byron's grand ex-
emplar, the hero of his poetry, and the model
apparently of his conduct. As in Burns's case
too, the celestial element will not mingle with
the clay of earth; both poet and man of the
world he must not be; vulgar Ambition will
not live kindly with poetic Adoration; he on-
Ho/ serve God and Mammon. Byron, like Burns,
is not happv; nay, he is the most wretched of
all men. His life is falsely arranged: the fire
that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire,
warming into beauty the products of a world;
but it is the mad fire of a volcano ; and now, —
we look sadly into the ashes of a crater, whicn,
erelong, will fill itself with snow !

Byron and Burns Avere sent forth as mis-
sionaries to their generation, to teach it a
higher Doctrine, a purer Truth: they had a
message to deliver, which, left them no rest
till it was accomplished; in dim throes of pain,
this divine behest lay smouldering within
them; for they knew not what it meant, and
felt it only in mysterious anticipation, and they
had to die without articulately uttering it.
They are in the camp of the Unconverted
Yet not as high messengers of rigorous
though benignant truth, but as soft flattering
singers, and in pleasant fellowship, will thev
live there ; they are first adulated, then perse
cuted; they accomplish little for others ; they
find no peace for themselves, but only death
and the peace of the grave. We confess, it
is not without a certain mournful awe that we
view the fate of these noble souls, so richly

K. M

114

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all
their gifts. It seems to us there is a stern
moral taught in this piece of history, — twice
told us in our own time ! Surely to men of
like genius, if there be any such, it carries
with it a lesson of deep impressive significance.
Surely it would become such a man, furnished
for the highest of all enterprises, that of being
the Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is
that he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts
it. For the words of Milton are true in all
times, and were never truer than in this: "He
who would write heroic poems, must make his
whole life a heroic poem." If he cannot first
so make his life, then let him hasten from this
arena ; for neither its lofty glories, nor its
fearful perils, are for him. Let him dwindle
into a modish ballad-monger; let him worship
and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time
will not fail to reward him, — if, indeed, he can
endure to liv^e in that capacity ! Byron and
Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the
fire of their own hearts consumed them; and
better it was for them that they could not. For
it is not in the favour of the great, or of the
small, but in a life of truth, and in the inex-
pugnable citadel of his own soul, that a
Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let
the great stand aloof from him, or know how
to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of
•v/ealth with favour and furtherance for litera-
ture ; like the costliest flower-jar enclosing the
loveliest amaranth. Yet let not the relation
be mistaken. A true poet is not one whom
they can hire by money or flattery to be a min-
ister of their pleasures, their writer of occa-
sional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he
cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their
partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no
such union be attempted! Will a Courser of
the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-
horse 1 His hoofs are of fire, and his path is
through the heavens, bringing light to all
lands; will he lumber on mud highways, drag-
ging ale for earthly appetites, from door to
doorl

But we must stop short in these considera-
tions, which would lead us to boundless lengths.
We had something to say on the public moral
character of Burns ; but this also we must for-
bear. We are far from regarding him as
guilty before the world, as guiltier than the

average; nay, from doubting that he is less
guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a
tribunal far more rigid than that where the
Plebiscita of common civic reputations are pro-
nounced, he has seemed to us even there less
worthy of blame than of pity and wonder.
But the world is habitually unjust in its judg-
ments of such men ; unjust on many grounds,
of which this one may be stated as the sub-
stance : It decides, like a court of law, by dead
statutes; and not positively but negatively,
less on what is done right, than on what is, or
is not, done wrong. Not the few inches of re-
flection from the mathematical orbit, which
are so easily measured, but the nitio of these
to the whole diameter, constitutes the real
aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its
diameter the breadth of the solar system ; or
it may be a city hippodrome; nay, the circle
of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or
paces. But the inches of deflection only are
measured ; and it is assumed that the diameter
of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will
yield the same ratio when compared with
them. Here lies the root of many a blind,
cruel condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Rous-
seaus, which one never listens to with ap-
proval. Granted, the ship comes into harbour
with shrouds and tackle damaged; and the
pilot is therefore blameworthy; for he has not
been all-wise and all-powerful ; but to know
how blameworthy, tell us first whether his
voyage has been round the Globe, or only to
Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs.

With our readers in general, with men of
right feeling anywhere, we are not required to
plead for Burns. In pitying admiration, he
lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler
mausoleum than that one of marble; neither
will his Works, even as they are, pass away
from the memory of men. While the Shak-
speares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers
through the country of Thought, bearing fleets
of traflickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on
their waves; this little Valclusa Fountain will
also arrest our eye : For this also is of Nature's
own and most cunning workmanship, bursts
from the depths of the earth, with a full gush-
ing current, into the light of day; and often
will the traveller turn aside to drink of its
clear waters, and muse among its rock? and
pines !

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

116

THE LIFE OF HEINE/

[Foreign Review, 1828.]

Thb labours and merits of Heyne being better
known, and more justly appreciated in England,
than those of almost any other German, Avhe-
ther scholar, poet, or philosopher, we cannot
but believe that some notice of his life may be
acceptable to most readers. Accordingly, we
here mean to give a short abstract of this vo-
lume, a miniature copy of the "biographical
portrait," but must first say a few words on the
portrait itself, and the limner by whom it has
been drawn.

Professor Heeren is a man of learning, and
known far out of his own Hanoverian circle, —
indeed, more or less to all students of histor)%
— by his researches on Ancient Commerce, a
voluminous account of which from his hand
enjoys considerable reputation. He is evi-
dently a man of sense and natural talent, as
well as learning; and his gifts seem to lie
round him in quiet arrangement, and very
much at his own command. Nevertheless, we
cannot admire him as a writer; we do not
even reckon that such endowments as he has
are adequately represented in his books. His
style both of diction and thought is thin, cold,
formal, without force or character, and pain-
fully reminds us of' college lectures. He can
work rapidly, but with no freedom, and, as it
were, only in one attitude, and at one sort of
labour. Not that we particularly blame Pro-
fessor Heeren for this, but that we think he
might have been something better: These
"fellows in buckram," very numerous in cer-
tain walks of literature, are an unfortunate,
rather than a guilty class of men ; they have
fallen, perhaps unwillingly, into the plan of
writing by pattern, and can now do no other;
for, in their minds, the beautiful comes at last
to be simply synonymous with the neat. Every
sentence bears a family-likeness to its precur-
sor; most probably it has a set number of
clauses; (three is a favourite number, as in
Gibbon, for " the muses delight in odds;") has
also a given rhythm, a known and foreseen
music, simple but limited enough, like that of
ill-bred fingers drumming on a table. And
then it is strange how soon the outward rhythm
carries the inward along with it; and the
thought moves with the same stinted, ham-
strung rub-a-dub as the words. In a state of
perfection, this species of writing comes to
resemble power-loom weaving: it is not the
mind that is at work, but some scholastic ma-
chinery which the mind has of old constructed,
and is from afar observing. Shot follows shot
from the unwearied shuttle; and so the web is

♦ Chri.ilian Gotllnb Hcyve. hiorrraphisch dnrrrrstrllt rov
Jlrnold Heriiiavn I.iidtrirr Ifrerev. (Christ inn Gnttloli
Hryne, l)iosrnpliicaIly portrayed by Arnold Ilerinaiiii
Luilwig Hreren.) Giittingcn.

woven, ultimately and properly, indeed, by the
wit of man, yet immediately, and in the mean-
while, by the mere aid of time and steam.

But our Professor's mode of speculation is
little less intensely academic than his mode of
writing. We fear he is something of what the
Germans call a Klcinstddter ,■ — mentally as well
as bodily, a "dweller in a little town." He
speaks at great length, and with undue fond-
ness,of the " Georgia Augusta," which, afterall,
is but the University of Gdttingen, an earthly,
and no celestial institution : it is nearly in vain
that he tries to contemplate Heyne as a Euro-
pean personage, or even as a German one; be-
yond the precincts of the Georgia Augusta, his
view seems to grow feeble and soon die away
into vague inanity; so we have not Heyne, the
man and scholar, but Heyne, the Gottingen
Professor. But neither is this habit of mind
any strange or crying sin, or at all peculiar to
Giittingen,; as, indeed, most parishes of Eng-
land can produce more than one example to
show. And yet it is pitiful, when an establish-
ment for universal science, which ought to be
a watch-tower where a man might see all the
kingdoms of the world, converts itself into a
■workshop, whence he sees nothing but his tool-
box and bench, and the world, in bioken
glimpses, through one patched and highly dis-
coloured pane !

Sometimes, indeed, our worthy friend rises
into a region of the moral sublime, in which it
is difficult for a foreigner to follow him. Thus
he says, on one occasion, speaking of Heyne:
" Immortal are his merits in regard to the cata-
logues"— of the Gottingen library. And, to
cite no other instance, except the last and best
one, we are informed, that, when Heyne died,
" the guardian angels of the Georgia Augusta
waited in that higher world to meet him wiih
blessings." By day and night! There is no
such guardian angel, that we know of, for the
University of Gottingen; neither does it need
one, being a good solid seminary of itself, with
handsome stipends from Government. We had
imagined, too, that if anybody welcomed peo-
ple into heaven, it would he St. Peter, or af
least some angel of old standing, and not a
mere mushroom, as this of Giittingen must be,
created since the year 1739.

But we are growing very ungrateful to the
good Heeren, who meant no harm by these
flourishes of rhetoric, and, indeed, does not
often indulge in them. The grand questions
with us here are. Did he know the truth in this
matter? and was he disposed to tell it honestly 1
To both of which questions we can answer
without reserve, that all appearances are in
his favour. He was Heyne's pupil, colleague,
son-in-law, and so knew him intimately for

116

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

thirty years: he has every feature also of a
just, quiet, truth-loving man ; so that we see
little reason to doubt the authenticity, the inno-
cence, of any statement in his volume. What
more have we to do with him then, but to take
thankfully what he has been pleased and able
to give us, anil, with all despatch, communi-
cate it to our readers.

H^yne's Life is not without an intrinsic, as
■well as an external interest; for he had much
to struggle with, and he struggled with it man-
fully; thus his history has a value independent
of his fame. Some account of his early years
we are happily enabled to give in his own
words ; we translate a considerable part of this
passage, autobiography being a favourite sort
of reading with us.

He was born at Chemnitz, in Upper Saxony,
in September, 1729; the eldest of a poor w^eav-
er's family, poor almost to the verge of desti-
tution.

"My good father, George Heyne," says he,
"was a native of the principality of Glogau, in
Silesia, from the little village of Gravenschutz.
His youth had fallen in those times when the
Evangelist party of that province were still
exposed to the oppressions and persecutions
of the Romish Church. His kindred, enjoying
the blessing of contentment in an humble but
independent station, felt, like others, the influ-
ence of this proselytizing bigotr}^ and lost their
domestic peace by means of it. Some went
over to the Romish faith. My father left his
native village, and endeavoured, by the labour
of his hands, to procure a livelibood in Saxony.
* What will it profit a man if he gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul!' was the thought
which the scenes of his youth had stamped the
most deeply on his mind ; but no lucky chance
favoured his enterprises or endeavours to bet-
ter his condition, ever so little. On the con-
trary, a series of perverse incidents kept him
continually below the limits even of a moder-
ate sufficiency. His old age was thus left a
prey to poverty, and to her companions, timid-
ity and depression of mind. Manufactures, at
that time, were visibly declining in Saxony;
and the misery among the working classes, in
districts concerned in the linen trade, was
unusually severe. Scarcely could the labour
of the hands suffice to support the labourer him-
self, still less his family. The saddest aspect
which the decay of civic society can exhibit
has always appeared to me to be this, when
honourable, honour-loving, conscientious dili-
gence cannot, by the utmost efforts of toil, ob-
tain the necessaries of life, or when the work-
ing man cannot even find work; but must
stand with fcjlded arms, lamenting his forced
idleness, through which himself and his family
are verging to starvation, or it may be, actually
suffering the pains of hunger.

"It was in the extremest penury that I was
born and brought up. The earliest compa-
nion of my childhood was Want; and my
first impressions came from the tears of my
mother, who had not bread for her children.
How often have I seen her on Saturday-nights
wringing her hands and we^piig, when she
had come back with what the hard toil, nay,
/)fton the sleepless nights, of her husband had

produced, and could find none to buy it!
Sometimes a fresh attempt was made through
me or my sister; I had to return to the pur-
chasers with the same piece of ware, to see
whether we could not possibly get rid of it.
In that quarter there is a class of so-called
merchants, who, however, are in fact nothing
more than forestallers, that buy up the linen
made by the poorer people at the lowest
price, and endeavour to sell it in other dis-
tricts at the highest. Often have I seen one
or other of these petty tyrants, with all the
pride of a satrap, throw back the piece of
goods offered him, or imperiously cut off some
trifle from the price and wages required for it.
Necessity constrained the poorer to sell the
sweat of his brow at a gro^rhcn or two less,
and again to make good the deficit by starving.
It was the view of such things that awakened
the first sparks of indignation in my young
heart. The show of pomp and plenty among
these purse-proud people, who fed themselves
on the extorted crumbs of so many hundreds,
far from dazzling me into respect or fear, filled
me with rage against them. The first time I
heard of tyrannicide at school, there rose
vividly before me the project to become a
Brutus on all those oppressors of the poor,
who had so often cast my father and mother
into straits: and here, for the first time, was
an instance of a truth, which I have since had
frequent occasion to observe, that if the un-
happy man armed with feeling of his wrongs,
and a certain strength of soul, does not risk
the utmost and become an open criminal, it is
merely the beneficent result of those circum-
stances in which Providence has placed him,
thereby fettering his activity, and guarding
him from such destructive attempts. That
the oppressing part of mankind should be se-
cured against the oppressed was, in the plan
of inscrutable wisdom, a most important ele-
ment of the present system of things.

"My good parents did what 'hey could, and
sent me to a child's school in the suburbs; I
obtained the praise of learning very fast and
being very fond of it. My schoolmaster had
two sons, lately returned from Leipzig, a cou-
ple of depraved fellows, who took all pains to
lead me astray; and, as I resisted, kept me
for a long time, by threats and mistreatment
of all sorts, extremely miserable. So early as
my tenth year, to raise the money for my school
wages, I had given lessons to a neighbour's
child, a little girl, in reading and writing. As
the common school-course could take me no
farther, the point now was to get a private
hour and proceed into Latin. But for that
purpose a gu.'er grosrhen weekly was required :
this my parents had not to give. Many a day
I carried this grief about with me: however, I
had a godfather, who \vas in easy circum-
stances, a baker, and my mother's half-brother.
One Saturday I was sent to this man to fetch
a loaf. With wet eyes I entered his house,
and chanced to find my godfather himself
there. Being questio-ned why I was crying, I
tried to answer, but a whole stream of tears
broke loose, and scarcely could I make the
cause of my sorrow intelligible. My magnani-
mous godfather offered to pay the v/eekly

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

llr

grosrhcn out of his own pocket ; and only this
condition was imposed on me, that I should
come to him every Sunday, and repeat what
part of the Gospel I had learned by heart.
This latter arrangement had one good effect
for me, — it exercised my memory, and I
learned to recite without hashfulness.

"Drunk with joy, I started off with my loaf;
tossing it up time after time into the air, and
barefoot as I was, I capered aloft after it. But
hereupon my loaf fell into a puddle. This
misTortui-e again brought me a little to reason ;
m) mother heartily rejoiced at the good news ;
m; father was less content. Thus passed a
cotiple of years ; and my schoolmaster inti-
mated what I myself had long known, that I
could now learn no more from him.

"This then was the time when I must leave
school, and betake me to the handicraft of
my father. Were not the artisaa under op-
pressions of so many kinds, robbed of the
fruits of his hard toil, and of so many advan-
tages to which the useful citizen has a natural
claim; I should sdll say, — Had I but continued
in the station of my parents, what thousand-
fold vexations would at this hour have been
unknown to me ! My father could not but be
anxious to have a grown-up son for an assist-
ant in his labour, and looked upon my repug-
nance to it with great dislike. I again longed
to get into the grammar-school of the town ;
but for this all means were wanting. Where
was a gulden of quarterly fees, where were
books and a blue cloak to be come at ; how
wistfully my look often hung on the walls of
the school when I learned it !

"A clergyman of the suburbs was my se-
cond godfather; his name was Sebastian Sey-
del ; my schoolmaster, who likewise belonged
to his congregation, had told him of me ; I
was sent for, and at^ter a short examination, he
promised me that I should go to the town-
school ; he himself would bear the charges.
Who can express my happiness, as I then felt
it! I was despatched to the first teacher, ex-
amined, and placed with approbation in the
second class. Weakly from the first, pressed
down with sorrow and want, without any
cheerful enjoyment of childhood or youth, I
was still of very small stature; my class-fel-
lows judged by externals, and had a very slight
opinion of me. Scarcely by various proofs
of diligence, and by the praises I received,
could I get so far that they tolerated my being
put beside them.

"And certainly my diligence was not a little
hampered! Of his promise, the clergyman,
indeed, liept so much, that he paid my quar-
terly fees, provided me with a coarse cloak,
and gave me some useless volumes that were
lying on his shelves ; but to furnish me with
school-books he could not resolve. I thus
found myself under the necessity of borrow-
ing a class-fellow's books, and daily copying
a part of them before the lesson. On the other
hand, the honest man would have some hand
himself in my instruction, and gave me from
time to time some hours in Latin. In his
youth he had learned to make Latin verses:
scarcely was Erasmus de. Civilitatc Moruiii got
over, when I too must take to verse-making;

all this before I had read any authors, or could
possibly possess any store of words. The
man Avas withal passionate and rigorous; in
every point repulsive ; with a moderate income
he was accused of avarice ; he had the st ff-
ness and self-will of an old bachelor, an.l at
the same time the vanity of aiming to be a
good Latinist, and, what was more, a Latin
verse-maker, and consequently a literary cler-
gyman. These qualities of his all contributed
to overload my youth, and nip away in the bud
every enjoyment of its pleasures."

In this plain but somewhat leaden style does
Heyne proceed, detailins the crosses and losses
of his school-years. We cannot pretend that
the narrative delights us much; nay, that it is
not rather bald and barren for such a narra-
tive: but its fidelity may be relied on ; and it
paints the clear, broad, strong, and somewhat
heavy nature of the Avriter, perhaps better
than description could do. It is curious, for
instance, to see with how little of a purely hu-
mane interest he looks back to his childhood :
how Heyne the man has almost grown into a
sort of teachinjj-machine, and sees in Heyne
the bo)' little else than the incipient Gerund-
grinder, and tells us little else but how this
wheel after the other was developed in him,
and he came at last lo grind in complete per-
fection. We could have wished to get some
view into the interior of that poor Chemnitz
hovel, with its unresting loom and cheerless
hearth, its squalor and devotion, its affection
and repining; and the fire of natural genius
struggling into flame amid such incumbrances,
in an atmosphere so damp and close! But of
all this we catch few farther glimpses ; and
hear only of Fabricius and Owen and Pasor,
and school-examinations, and rectors that had
been taught by Ernesti. Neither, in another
respect, not of omission but of commission,
can this piece of writing altogether content
us. We must object a little to the spirit of it
as too narrow, too intolerant. Sebastian Sey-
del must have been a very meager man ; but
is it right, that Heyne, of all others, should
speak of him with asperity] Without ques-
tion the unfortunate Seydel meant nobly, had
not thrift stood in his way. Did he not pay
down his gulden every quarter regularly, and
give the boy a blue cloak, though a coarse
one T Nay, he bestowed old books on him,
and instruction, according to his gift, in the
mystery of verse-inaking. And was not all
this something? And if thrift and charity
had a continual battle to fight, was not this
belter than a Hat surrender on the part of the
latter? The other pastors of Chemniiz are
all quietly forgotten: why should Sebastian
be remembered to his disadvantage for being
only a little better than they?

Heyne continued to be much infested with
tasks from Sebastian, and sorely held down by
want, and discouragement of every sort. The
school-course, moreover, he says, was bad,
nothing but the old routine ; vocables, trans
lations, exercises ; all without spirit or pur-
pose. Nevertheless, he continued to make
what we must call wonderful proficiency m
these branches ; especially as he had still to
write every task before he could learn it. For

118

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

he prepared "Greek versions," he says; " also
Greek verses; and by and by could write
down in Greek prose, and at last, in Greek as
well as Latin verses, the discourses he heard
in church!" Some ray of hope was begin-
ning to spring up within his mind. A certain
small degree of self-confidence had first been
awakened in him, as he informs us, by a "pe-
dantic adventure."

" There chanced to be a school-examination
held, at which the superintendent, as chief
school-inspector, was present. This man, Dr.
Theodor Kriiger, a theologian of some learning
for his time, all at once interrupted the rector,
who was teaching fx cathedra, and put the ques-
tion : who among the scholars could tell him
what might be made per anagramrna from the
word Austria. This whim had arisen from
the circumstance that the first Silesian war
was just begun ; and some such anagram,
reckoned very happy, had appeared in a news-
paper.* No one of us knew so much as
what an anagram was ; even the rector looked
quite perplexed. As none answered, the lat-
ter began to give us a description of anagrams
in general. I set myself to work, and sprang
forth with my discovery, Vastari! This was
something ditferent from the newspaper one :
so much the greater was our superintendent's
admiration, and the more as the successful as-
pirant was a little boy, on the lowest bench of
the serniida. He growled out his applause to
me, but at the same time set the whole school
about my ears, as he stoutly upbraided them
with being beaten by an 'ivfiinus.

" Enough ! this pedantic adventure gave the
first impulse to the development of my powers.
1 began to talce some credit to myself, and in
spite of all the oppression and contempt in
which I languished, to resolve on struggling
forward. This first struggle was in truth in-
etlectual enough ; was soon regarded as a
piece of pride and conceiledness ; it brought
on me a thousand humiliations and disquie-
tudes ; at times it might degenerate on my
part into defiance. Nevertheless, it kept me
at the stretch of my diligence, ill-guided as it
was, and withdrew me from the company of
my class-fellows, among whom, as among
children of low birth and bad nurture could
not fail to be the case, the utmost coarseness
and boorishness of every sort prevailed. The
plan of these schools does not include any
general inspection, but limits itself to mere in-
tellectual instruction.

"Yet on all hands," continues he, "I found
myself too sadly hampered. The perverse
way in which the old parson treated me: at
home the discontent and grudging of my pa-
rents, especially of my father, who could not
get on with his work, and still thought, that
had I kept by his way of life, he might now
have had some help; the pressure of want,
the feeling of being behind every other; all
this would allow no cheerful thought, no sen-
timent of worth, to spring up within me. A
timorous, bashful, awkward carriage shut me
out still further from all exterior attractions.

*As yet Saxony was against Austria, not, as in the
•ud. allied with her.

Where could I learn good manners, elegansc,
a right way of thought ? where could I attain
any culture for heart and spirit.

"Upwards, however, I still strove. A foelinsj
of honour, a wish for something better, an effort
to work myself out of this abasement, inces-
santly attended me ; but without direction as it
was, it led me rather to sullenness, misanthropy,
and clownishness.

"At length a place opened for me, where
some training in these points lay Avithin my
reach. One of our senators took his mother-
in-law home to live with him ; she had still two
children with her, a son and a daughter, both
about my own age. For the son private les-
sons were wanted; and happily I was chosen
for the purpose.

" As these private hours brought me in a gv.l-
den monthly, t now began to defend myself a
little against the grumbling of my parents.
Hitherto I had been in the habit of doing work
occasionally, that I might not be told how I was
eating their bread for nothing ; clothes, and oil
for my lamp, I had earned by teaching in the
house; these things I could now relinquish:
and thus my condition was in some degree im-
proved. On the other hand, I had now oppor-
tunity of seeing persons of better education. I
gained the goodwill of the family; so that be-
sides the lesson-hours I generally lived there.
Such society afforde.d me some culture, ex-
tended my conceptions and opinions, and also
polished a little the rudeness of my exterior."

In this senatorial house he must have been
somewhat more at ease; for he now very pri-
vately fell in love M'ith his pupil's sister, and
made and burnt many Greek and Latin verses
in her praise ; and had sweet dreams of some-
time rising "so high as to be worthy of her."
Even as matters stood, he acquired her friend-
ship and that of her mother. But the grand con-
cern for ihe present was how to get to college at
Leipzig. Old Sebastian had promised to stand
good on this occasion ; and unquestionably
would have done so with the greatest pleasure,
had it cost him nothing; but he promised and
promised, without doing aught; above all,
without putting his hand in his pocket; and
elsewhere there was no hope or resource. At
length, wearied perhaps with the boy's impor-
tunity, he determined to bestir himself; and so
directed his assistant, who was just making a
journey to Leipzig, to show Heyne the road ;
the two arrived in perfect safety: Heyne still
longing after cash, for of his own he had only
two gvldcn, about five shillings ; but the assist-
ant left him in a lodging house, and went his
wav, saying he had no farther orders !

The miseries of a poor scholar's life were
now to be Heyne's portion in full measure. Ill-
clothed, totally destitute of books, with five
shillings in his purse, he found himself set
down in the J/cipzig university, to study all
learning. Despondency at first overmastered
the poor boy's heart, and he sunk into sick-
ness, from which indeed he recovered; but
only, as he says, "to fall into conditions of life
where he became the prey of desperation."
How he contrived to exist, much more to study,
is scarcely apparent from this narrative. The
unhappy old Sebastian did at length send him

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

119

some pittance, and at rare intervals repeated
the dole ; yet ever with his own peculiar grace ;
not till after un^^peakable solicitations; in
quantities that were consumed by inextinguish-
able debt, and coupled with sour admonitions ;
nay, on one occasion addressed externally, "^
31r. Hey SIC, Etudiant NEOLirjEANT." For half
a year he would leave him without all help; then
promise to come, and see what he was doing:
come accordingly, and return without leaving
him a penny ; neither could the destitute youth
ever obtain any public furtherance ; no frey/isch
(free-table) or stipendiKm was to be procured.
Many times he had no regular meal ; "often
not three-halfpence for a loaf at mid-day." He
longed to be dead, for his spirit was often sunk
in the gloom of darkness. "One good heart
alone," says he, "I found, and that in the ser-
vant girl of the house where I lodged. She laid
out money for my most pressing necessities,
and risked almost all she had, seeing me in
such frightful want. Could I but find thee in
the world even now, thou good pious soul, that
I might repay thee what thou then didst for
me !"

Heyne declares it to be still a mystery to him
how he stood all this. " What carried me for-
ward," continues he, "was not ambition; my
youthful dream of one day taking a place, or
aiming to take one, among the learned. It is
true, the bitter feeling of debasement, of defi-
ciency in education and external polish ; the
consciousness of awkwardness in social life,
incessantly accompanied me. But my chief
strength lay in a certain defiance of fate. This
gave me courage not to yield ; everywhere to
try to the uttermost whether I was doomed
without remedy never to rise from this degra-
dation."

Of order in his studies there could be little
expectation. He did not even know what pro-
fession he was aiming after; old Sebastian
was for theology; and Heyne, though himself
averse to it, affected, and only affected to com-
ply; besides he had no money to pay class fees :
it was only to open lectures, or at most to ill-
guarded class-rooms that he could gain admis-
sion. Of this ill-guarded sort was Winkler's ;
into which poor Heyne insinuated himself to
hear philosophy. Alas ! the first problem of
all pliilosophy, the keeping of soul and body
together, was wellnigh too hard for him. Wink-
ler's students were of a riotous description, ac-
customed, among other improprieties, to srhar-
rcn, scraping with the feet. One day they chose
to receive Heyne in this fashion; and he could
not venture back. "Nevertheless," adds he,
simply enough, "the beadle came to me some-
time afterwards, demanding the fee: I had my
own shifts to take before I could raise it."

Ernesti was the only teacher from whom
he derived any benefit : the man, indeed, whose
influence seems to have shaped the whole sub-
sequent course of his studies. By dint of ex-
cessive endeavours he gained admittance to
Ernesti's lectures; and here first learned,
says Heeren," what interpretation of the clas-
sics meant." One Crist also, a strange, fan-
tastic Sir Plume of a Professor, who built much
on taste, elegance of manners, and the lilce,
took some notice of him, and procured him a

little employment as a private teacher. This
might be more useful than his advice to imi-
tate Scaliger, and read the ancients so as tb
begin with the most ancient, and proceed regu-
larly to the latest. Small service it can do abed-
rid man to convince him that waltzing is prefera-
ble to quadrilles! "Grist's Lectures," says he,
" were a tissue of endless digressions, which,
however, now and then contained excellent re-
marks."

But Heyne's best teacher was himself. No
pressure of distresses, no want of books, ad-
visers, or encouragement, not hunger itself
could abate his restdule perseverance. What
hooks he could come at he borrowed; and such
was his excess of zeal in reading, that for a
whole half year he allowed himself only two
nights' sleep in the week, till at last a fever
obliged him to be more moderate. His dili-
gence was undirected, or ill-directed, but it
never rested, never paused, and must at length
prevail. Fortune had cast him into a cavern,
and he was groping darkly round ; but the pri-
soner was a giant, and would at length burst
forth as a giant into the light of day. Heyne,
without any cfear aim, almost without any hope
had set his heart on attaining knowledge ; a
force, as of instinct, drove him on, and no
promise and no threat could turn him back. It
was at the very depth of his destitution, when
he had not " three groschcn for a loaf to dine on,"
that he refused a tutorship, with handsome
enough appointments, but which was to have re-
moved him from the University. Crist had sent
for him one Sunday, and made him the pp>
posal : "There arose a violent struggle within
me," says he, " which drove me to and fro for
several days ; to this hour it is incomprehen-
sible to me where I found resolution to deter-
mine on renouncing the ofler, and pursuing
my object in Leipzig." A man with a half
volition goes backwards and forwards, and
makes no way on the smoothest road; a mau
with a whole volition advances on the rough-
est, and will reach his purpose if there be a
little wisdom in it.

With his first two years' residence in Leip-
zig, Heyne's personal narrative terminates;
not because the nodus of the history had been
solved then, and his perplexities cleared up,
but simply because he had not found time to
relate further. A long series of straitened hope-
less days were yet appointed him. By Ernes-
ti's or Crist's recommendation, he occasionally
got employment in giving private lessons; at
one time, he worked as secretary and classical
hodman to " Cruscius, the philosopher," who
felt a little rusted in his Greek and Latin ;
everywhere he found the scantiest accommo-
dation, and, shifting from side to side in dreary
vicissitudes of want, had to spin out an exist-
ence, warmed by no ray of comfort, except the
fire that burnt or smouldered unquenchably
within his own bosom. However, he had now
chosen a profession, that of law, at which, as
at many other branches of learning, he was
labouring with his old diligence. Of prefer-
ment in this province there was, for the pre
sent, little or no hope; but this was no new
thing with Heyne. By degrees, too, his fine
talents and endeavours, and his perverse situa

120

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

tion, began to attract notice and sympathy ;
and here and there some well-wisher had his
eye on him, and stood ready to do him a ser-
vice. Two and twenty years of penury and
joyless struggling had now passed over the
man ; how many more such might be added
was still uncertain ; yet, surely, the longest
winter is followed by a spring.

Another trifling incident, little better than
that old " pedantic adventure," again brought
about important changes in Heyne's situation.
Among his favourers in Leipzig had been the
preacher of a French chapel, one Lacoste, who,
at this time, was cut off by death. Heyne, it
is said, in the real sorrow of his heart, com-
posted a long Latin Epicedium on that occa-
sion; the poem had nowise been intended for
the press; but certain hearers of the deceased
were so pleased with it, that they had it print-
ed, and this in the finest style of typography
and decoration. It was this latter circum-
stance, not the merit of the verses, which is
said to have been considerable, that attracted
the atiention of Count Brilhl, the well-known
prime-minister and favourite of the Elector.
Biiihl's sons were studying in Leipzig; he was
pleased to express himself contented with the
poem, and to say, that he should like to have
the author in his service. A prime minister's
words are not as water spilt upon the ground,
which cannot be gathered; but rather as hea-
venly manna, which is treasured up and eaten,
not without a religious sentiment. Heyne was
forthwith written to from all quarters, that his
fortune was made: he had but to show him-
self in Dresden, said his friends, with one
voice, and golden showers from the ministerial
cornucopia would refresh him almost to satu-
ration. For, was not the Count taken with
him ; and who in all Saxony, not excepting Se-
rene Highness itself, could gainsay the Count?
Over-persuaded, and against his will, Heyne
at length determined on the journey ; for which,
as an indispensable preliminary, " fifty-one tha-
lers" had to be borrowed ; and so, following this
hopeful que.st, he actually arrived at Dresden
in April, 1752. Count Brilhl received him
with the most captivating smiles; and even
assured him in words, that he, Count Bri'ihl,
•would take care of him. But a prime minis-
ter has so much to take care of! Heyne
danced attendance all spring and summer,
happier than our Johnson, inasmuch as he had
not to "blow his fingers in a cold lobby," the
■weather being warm* and obtained not only
promises, but useful ex'^'irience of their value
at courts.

He was to be made a secretary, with five hun-
dred,with four hundred, or even with three hun-
dred tluikrs, of income: only, in the meanwhile,
his old stock of " fifty-one" had quite run out,
and he had nothing to live upon. By great good
luck, he procured some emphiymenl in his old
craft, private teaching, which helped him
through the winter; but as this ceased, he re-
mained without resources. He tried working
for the booksellers, and translated a French
romance and a Greek one, Chariton's Loves of
Chareas and 'Callirhoe; however, his emolu-
ments would scarcely furnish him with salt,
to •' speak of victuals. He sold his few

books. A licentiate in divinity, one Sonnlag,
took pity on his houselessness, and shared a
garret with him ; where, as there was no un-
occupied bed, Heyne slept on the floor, with a
few folios for his pillow. So fared he as to
lodging : in regard to board, he gathered empty
pease-cods, and had them boiled; this was not
unfrequently his only meal. — O, ye poor naked
wretches ! what would Bishop Watson say to
this? — At length, by dint of incredible solicita-
tions, Heyne, in the autumn of 1753, obtained,
not his secretaryship, but the post of undi-r-
clerk, (rnpist) in the Briihl Library, with one
hundred ihalcrs of salary ; a sum barely sulR-
cient to keep in life, which, indeed, was now a
great point with him. In such sort was this
young scholar " taken care of."

Nevertheless, it was under these external
circumstances that he first entered on his pro-
per career, and forcibly made a place for him-
self among the learned men of his day. In
1754, he prepared his edition ofTibullus, which
was printed next year at liCipzig;* a work
said to exhibit remarkable talent, inasmuch as
"the rudiments of all those excellences, by
which Heyne afterwards became distinguished
as a commentator on the classics, are more or
less apparent in it." The most illustrious
Henry Count von Briihl, in spite of the dedi-
cation, paid no regard to this Tibullus; as in-
deed Germany at large paid little ; but, in an-
other country, it fell into the hands of Rhunken,
where it was rightly estimated, and lay wait-
ing, as in due season appeared, to be the pledge
of better fortune for its author.

Meanwhile the day of difliculty for Heyne
was yet far from past. The profits of his Ti-
bullus served to cancel some debts; on the
strength of his hundred thalcrs, the spindle of
Clotho might still keep turning, though lan-
guidly; but, ere long, new troubles arose. His
superior in the library was one Rost, a poetas-
ter, atheist, and gold-maker, who corrupted his
religious principles, and plagued him with
caprices : Over the former evil He3'ne at length
triumphed, and became a rational Christian;
but the latter was an abiding grievance ; not,
indeed, for ever, for it was removed by a
greater. In 1756, the Seven Years' War broke
out; Frederic advanced towards Dresden, ani-
mated with especial fury against Briihl ; whose
palaces accordingly were in a few months re-
duced to ashes, as his 70,000 splendid volumes
were annihilated by fire and by water,f and all
his domestics and dependents turned to the
street without appeal.

Heyne had lately been engaged in studying
Epictetus, and publishing, ndfdcm Codd, Miispt.,
an edition of his Enchiridion ;t from which,
quoth Heeren, his great soul had acquired
much stoical nourishment. Such nourish-

* Mlbii Tibnlli qnat ejtiint Carmina, vovis Cnris casti-
pata. Illuytrhi^rmo Domino Henrico Cuniiti de Briihl
Jnscripta l.ipsim, 1755.

t One rich carjo, on its way to Ilambnrs, sank in the
Elbe ; another still more valuable portion tiad been, for
safety, deposited in a vault, through which passed cer-
tain pipes of artifirial waterworks; these the cannon
broke, and, when the vault came to be opened, all was
reduced to pulp and mould. The bomb-shells burnt the
remainder.

t Upsiffi, 1756. The Codices, or rather the Codez, wai
in Briihl's library.

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

I%i

ment never comes wrong in life ; and, surely,
at this time Heyne had need of it all. How-
ever, he struggled as he had been wont: trans-
lated pamphlets, sometimes wrote newspaper
articles ; eat, when he had wherewithal, and
resolutely endured when he had not. By and
by, Rabener, to whom he was a little known,
offered him a tutorship in the family of a Herr
von Schouberg, which Heyne, not without re-
luctance, accepted. Tutorships were at all
times his aversion ; his rugged plebeian proud
spirit made business of that sort grievous ; but
want stood over him, like an armed man, and
was not to be reasoned with.

In this Schouberg family, a novel and un-
expected series of fortunes awaited him; but
whether for weal or for wo might still be hard
to determine. The name of Theresa Weiss
has become a sort of classical word in biogra-
phy; her union with Heyne forms, as it were,
a green cyprcss-and-myrtle oasis in his other-
wise hard and stony history. It was here that
he first met with her; that they learned to love
each other. She was the orphan of a " profes-
sor on the lute;" had long, amid poverty and
afflictions, been trained, like the Stoics, to bear
and forbear; was now in her twenty-seventh
year, and the humble companion, as she had
once been the school-mate, of the Frau von
Schouberg, whose young brother Heyne had
come to teach. Their iirst interview may be
described in his own words, which Hereen is
here again happily enabled to introduce.

" It was on the 10th of October, (her future
death-day !) that I first entered the Schouberg
house. Towards what mountains of mis-
chances was I now proceeding! To what
endless tissues of good and evil hap was the
thread here taken up! Could I fancy that at
this moment Providence was deciding the
fortune of my life! I was ushered into a
room, where sat several ladies engaged, with
gay youthful sportiveness, in Iriendly confi-
dential talk. Frau vim Schiiuberg, but lately
married, yet at this time distant from her hus-
band, was preparing for a journey to him at
Prague, where his business detained him. On
her brow still beamed the pure innocence of
youth; in her eyes you saw a glad soft vernal
sky ; a smiling loving complaisance accompa-
nied her discourse. This, too, seemed one of
those souls, clear and uncontaminated as they
come from the hands of their Maker. By reason
of her brother, in her tender love of him, I must
have been, lo her, no unimportant guest.

" Beside her stood a young lady, dignified in
aspect, of fair, slender shape, not regular in
feature, yet soul in every glance. Her words,
her looks, her every movement, impressed
you with respect, — another sort of respect than
what was paid to rank and birth. Good sense,
good feeling disclosed itself in all she did.
You forgot that more beauty, more softness,
might have been demanded ; you felt yourself
under the influence of something noble, some-
thing stately and earnest, something decisive
that lay in her look, in her gestures; not less
attracted to her, than compelled to reverence
her.

"More than esteem, the first sight of Theresa
did not inspire me with. M^hat I noticed most
16

were the efforts she made to relieve my em-
barrassment, the fruit of my down-bent pride,
and to keep me, a stranger, entering among
familiar acquaintances, in easy conversation.
Her good heart reminded her how much the
unfortunate requires encouragement; espe-
cially when placed, as I was, among those to
whose protection he must look up. Thus was
my first kindness for her awakened by that
good-heartedness, which made her, among
thousands, a beneficent angel. She was one
at this moment to myself; for I twice received
letters from an unknown hand, containing
money, which greatly alleviated my difficul-
ties.

"In a few days, on the I4th of October, I
commenced my task of instruction. Her I did
not see again till the following spring, when
she returned with her friend from Prague ;
and then only once or twice, as she soon ac-
companied Frau von Schouberg to the coun-
try, to ^nsdorf, in Oberlausitz (Upper Lusa-
tia.) They left us, after it had been settled
that I was to follow them in a few days with
my pupil. My young heart joyed in the pro-
spect of rural pleasures, of which I had, from
of old, cherished a thousand delightful dreams.
I still remember the 6th of May, when we set
out fiir ^nsdorf.

" The society of two cultivated females, who
belonged to the noblest of their sex, and the
endeavours to acquire their esteem, contributed
to form my own character. Nature and reli-
gion were the objects of my daily contempla-
tion ; I began to act and live on principles, of
which, till now, I had never thought: these,
too, formed the subject of our constant dis-
course. Lovely nature and solitude exalted
our feelings to a pitch of pious enthusiasm.

" Sooner than I, Theresa discovered that her
friendship for me was growing into a passion.
Her natural melancholy now seized her heart
more keenly than ever: often our glad hours
were changed into very gloomy and sad ones.
Whenever our conversation chanced to turn
on religion, (she was of the Roman Catholic
faith,) I observed that her grief became more
apparent. I noticed her redouble her devo-
tions ; and sometimes found her in solitude,
weeping and praying with such a fulness of
heart as I had never seen."

Theresa and her lover, or at least beloved,
were soon separated, and for a long while kept
much asunder; partly by domestic arrange-
ments, still more by the tumults of war Heyne
attended his pupil to the Wittenlerg Univer-
sity, and lived there a year; studying for his
own behoof, chiefly in philosophy and German
history, and with more profit, as he says, than
of old. Theresa and he kept up a corres-
pondence, which often passed into melancholy
and enthusiasm. The Prussian cannon drove
him out of Wittenberg: his pupil and he wit-
nessed the bombardment of the place from the
neighbourhood; and, having waited till their
University became "a heap of rubbish," had
to retire elsewhere for accommodation. The
young man subsequently went to Eriangeu,
then to GiJttingen. Heyne remained agaia
without employment, alone in Dresden. The-
resa was living in nis neighbourhood, lovely

122

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and sad as ever; bat a new bombardment
drove her also to a distance. She left her little
property with Heyne, who removed it to his
lodging, and determined to abide the Prussian
siege, having indeed no other resource. The
sack of cities looks so well on paper, that we
must find a little space here for Heyne's ac-
count of his experience in this business;
tliough it is none of the brightest accounts;
and indeed contrasts but poorly with Rabe-
ner's brisk sarcastic narrative of the same
adventure ; for he, too, was cannonaded out of
Dresden at this time, and lost house and home,
and books and manuscripts, and all but good
humour.

"The Prussians advanced meanwhile, and
on the 18th of July, (1760,) the bombardment
of Dresden began. Several nights I passed, in
eompany with others, in a tavern, and the days
in my room ; so that I could hear the balls
from the battery, as they flew through the
street, whizzing past my windows. An indif-
ference to danger and to life took such posses-
sion of me, that on the last morning of the
siege, I went early to bed, and, amid the fright-
fullest crashing of bombs and grenades, fell
fast asleep of fatigue, and lay sound till mid-
day. On awakening, I huddled on my clothes,
and ran down stairs, but found the whole
house deserted. I had returned to my room,
considering what I was to do, whither, at all
events, I was to take my chest, when with a
tremendous crash, a bomb came down in the
court of the house; did not, indeed, set fire to
it, but, on all sides, shattered every thing to
pieces. The thought, that where one bomb
fell more would soon follow, gave me wings;
I darted down stairs, found the house-door
locked, ran to and fro ; at last got entrance into
one of the under-rooms, and sprung through
the window into the street.

" Empty as the street where I lived had been,
I found the principal thoroughfares crowded
with fugitives. Amidst the whistling of balls,
I ran along the Schlossgasse towards the
Elbe-Bridge, and so forward to the Neustadt,
out of which the Prussians had now been
forced to retreat. Glad that I had leave to rest
anywhere, I passed one part of the night on
the floor of an empty house ; the other, witness-
ing the frightful light of flying bombs, and a
burning city.

" At break of day, a little postern was opened
by the Austrian guard, to let the fugitives get
out of the walls. The captain in his insolence
called the people Lutheran dogs, and with this
nick-name gave each of us a stroke as we
passed through the gate.

"I was now at large; and the thought,
whither bound? began for the first time to
employ me. As I had run, indeed leapt from
my house, in the night of terror, I had carried
with me no particle of my property, and not a
groschen of money. Only in hurrying along
the street, I had chanced to see a tavern open
(it was an Italian's) where I used to pass the
rights. Here espying a fur-cloak, I had picked
it up, and thrown it about me. With this I
walked along, in one of the sultriest days, from
the Neustadt, over the sand and the moor ; and
l:ok the road for .^nsdorf, where Theresa

with her friend was slaying: the molber-iu-
law of the latter being also on a visit to them.
In the fiercest heat of the sun, through tracts
of country silent and deserted, I walked <bur
leagues to Bischopfwerda, where I had to
sleep in an inn among carriers. Towards mid-
night arrived a postilion with return horses;
I asked him to let me ride one; and with him
I proceeded, till my road turned oif from the
highway. All day, I heard the shots at poor
Dresden re-echoing in the hills.

" Curiosity at first ' made my reception at
^nsdorf very warm. But as I came to appear
in the light of an altogether destitute man, the
family could see in me only a future burden:
no iavitations to continue vfith them followed.
In a few days came a chance of conveyance,
by a wagon for Neustadt, to a certain Frau von
Fletscher a few miles on this side of it; I was
favoured with some old linen for the road. The
good Theresa suffered unspeakably under these
proceedings: the noble lady, her friend, had
not been allowed to act according to the dic-
tates of her own heart.

"Not till now did I feel wholly how misera-
ble I was ! Spurning at destiny, and hardening
my heart, I entered on this journey. With the
Frau von Fletscher too my abode was brief;
and by the first opportunity I returned to
Dresden. There was still a possibility that
my lodging might have been saved. With
heavy heart I entered the city ; hastened to the
place where I had lived, and found — a heap
of ashes."

Heyne took up his quarters in the vacaat
rooms of the Briihl Library. Some friends
endeavoured to alleviate his distress ; but war
and rumors of war continued to harass him
and drive him to and fro ; and his Theresa,
afterwards also a fugitive, was now as poor as
himself. She heeded little the loss of her pro-
perty ; but inward sorrow and so many out-
ward agitations preyed bard iipon her; in the
winter she fell violently sick at Dresden, was
given up by her physicians ; received extreme
unction according to the rites of her church;
and was for some hours believed to be dead.
Nature however, again prevailed: a crisis had
occurred in the mind as well as in the body;
for with her first retarning'strength, Theresa
declared her determination to renounce the
Catholic, and publicly embrace the Protestant
faith. Argument, representarion of worldly
disgrace and loss were unavailing; she could
now, that all her friends were to be estranged,
have little hope of being wedded to Heyne en
earth ; but she trusted that in another scene a
like creed might unite them in a like destiny.
He himself fell ill; and only escaped death by
her nursing. Persisting the more in her pur-
pose, she took priestly instruction, and on the
20th of May, in the Evangelical Schlosskirche,
solemnly professed her new cre«d.

"Reverent admiration filled me," says he,
"as I beheld the peace and steadfastness ^vith
which she executed her determination ; and
still more the courage with which she bore the
consequences of it. She saw herself altogether
cast out from her family: forsaken by her
acquaintance, by every one; and by the fire
deprived of all she had. Her eG.»rase exallpd

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

123

me to a higher duty, and admonished me to do
mine. Imprudently I had, in former conversa-
♦ions, first awakened her religious scruples;
the passion for me, which had so much in-
creased her enthusiasm, increased her melan-
choly ; even the secret thought of belonging
more closely to me by sameness of belief had
unconsciously influenced her. In a word, I
Ibrmed the determination which could not but
expose me to universal censure: helpless as
I was, I united my destiny with hers. We
*x'ere wedded at ^nsdorf, on the 4th of June,
\761."

This was a bold step, but a right one: The-
resa had now no stay but him ; it behoved them
to struggle, and if belter might not be, to sink
together. Theresa, in this narrative, appears
to us a noble, interesting being; noble not in
sentiment only, but in action and suffering; a
fair flower trodden down by misfortune, but
yielding, like flowers, only the sweeter per-
fume for being crushed, and which it would
have been a blessedness to raise up and
cherish into free growth. Yet, in plain prose,
we must question whether the two were hap-
pier than others in their union; both were
quick of temper ; she was all a heavenly light,
he in good part a hard terrestrial mass, which
perhaps she could never wholly illuminate; the
balance of the love seems to have lain much
on her side. Nevertheless Heyne was a stead-
fast, true, and kindly, if no ethereal man; he
seems to have loved his wife honestly; and
so amid light and shadow they made their
pilgrimage together, if not better than other
mortals, not worse, which was to have been
feared.

Neither, for the present, did the pressure of
distress weigh heavier on either than it had
done before. He worked diligently, as he
found scope, for his old Maecenases, the Book-
sellers; the war-clouds grew lighter, or at least
the young pair got better used to them ; friends
also were kind, often assisting and hospitably
entertaining them. On occasion of such a visit
to the family of a Herr von Loben, there oc-
curred a little trait, which, for the sake of
Theresa, must not be omitted. Heyne and she
had spent some happy weeks with their infant,
in this coiintr3'-house, when the alarm of war
drove the Von Ldbens from their residence,
which with the management of its concerns
they left to Heyne. He says he gained some
notion of "land-economy " truly ; and Heeren
states that he had a candle-manufactory to
oversee.

But to our incident.

"Soon after the departure of the family,
(here came upon us an irruption of Cossacks,
(disguised Prussians, as we subsequently
learned.) After drinking to intoxication in
the cellars, they set about plundering. Pursued
by them, I ran up stairs, and no door being
open but that of the room where my wife was
with her infant, I rushed into it. She arose
courageously, and placed herself, with the
child on her arm, in the door against the rob-
bers. This courage saved me, and the treasure
which lay hidden in the chamber."

" 0 thou Lioness !" said Attila Schmelzle,
on occasion of a similar rescue, " why hast

thou never been in any deadly peril, that I
might show thee the lion in thy husband 1"

But better days were dawning. " On our
return to Dresden," says Heyne, " I learned
that inquiries had been made after me from
Hanover ; I knew not for what reason." The
reason by and by came to light. Gessner,
Professor of Eloquence in Gottingen, was
dead: and a successor was wanted. These
things, it would appear, cause difiiculties in
Hanover, which in many other places are little
felt. But the Prime Minister Miinchhausen
had as good as founded the Georgia Augusta
himself; and he was wont to watch over it
with singular anxiety. The noted and notori-
ous Klotz was already there, as assistant to
Gessner, "but his beautiful latinity," says
Heeren, "did not dazzle Miinchhausen; so
Klotz, with his pugnacity, was not thought
of." The Minister applied to Ernesti for ad-
vice: Ernesti knew of no fit men in Germany,
but recommended Rhunken of Leyden, or Saxe
of Utrecht. Rhunken refused to leave his
country, and added these words: "But why
do you seek out of Germany, what Germany
itself offers you 1 why not, for Gessner's suc-
cessor, take Christian Gottlob Heyne, that true
pupil of Ernesti, and man of fine talent, (ex-
cellenti virum ingenio,) who has shown how
much he knows of Latin literature by his
Tibullus; of Greek, by his Epictetus ] In my
opinion, and that of the greatest Hemsterhuis
(Hemsterhusii tou Trdm,) Heyne is the only one
that can replace your Gessner. Nor let any
one tell me that Heyne's fame is not sufficient-
ly illustrious and extended. Believe me, there
is in this man such a richness of genius and
learning, that ere long all Europe will ring
with his praises."

This courageous and generous verdict of
Rhunken's, in favour of a person as yet little
known to the world, and to him known only
by his writings, decided the matter. "Miinch-
hausen," says our Heeren, "believed in the
boldly prophesying man." Not without dif-
ficulty Heyne was unearthed; and after various
excuses on account of competence on his part,
— for he had lost all his books and papers in
the siege of Dresden, and sadly forgotten his
Latin and Greek in so many tumults, — and
various prudential negotiations about dismis-
sion from the Saxon service, and salary, and
privilege in the Hanoverian, he at length
formally received his appointment; and some
three months after, in June 1763, settled ia
Gotlingen, with an official income of eight
hundred thalers, which, it appears, was by
several additions, in the course of time, in-
creased to twelve hundred.

Here then had Heyne at last got to land.
His long life was henceforth as quiet and
fruitful in activity and comfort as the past
period of it had been desolate and full of sor-
rows. He never left Gottingen, though fre
quenlly invited to do so, and sometimes witt
highly tempting offers ;* but continued in his

♦ He was invited successively to be Professor at Cm
sel, and at Klosterber^en ; to be Librarian at Dresden;
and, most flatlerin? of all. to be Proknnzlcr in the Uii' •
versity of Copeuhagen, and virtual Director of Educa-
tion over all Denmark. He had a struggle on this 'a«l

184

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

place, busy in his vocation; growing?; in in-' Next, almost a carlload of Translations ; of
fluence, in extent of connection at home and , which we shall mention only his version, (said
abroad; till Rhunken's prediction might almost j to be with very important improvements,) of
be reckoned fulfilled to the letter; for Heyne our Uvwptsi.I H.slvry,hy Guthrie and Gray.
in his own department was without any equal Then some ten or twelve thick volumes of
in Europe. i Prolusions, Eulogies, Essays; treating of all

However, his history, from this point, even ' subjects, from the French Directoral to the
because it was so happy for himself, must lose Chest of Cyprolm. Of these, six volumes are
most of its interest for the general reader, i known in a separate shape, un^ler the^title of
Heyne has now become a professor, and a Opusmla : and contain some of Heyne's most
regularly progressive man of learning; has a valuable writings.

fixed household, his rents and comings in ; it And lastly, to crown the whole with one
is easy to fancy how that man might llourish must surprising item, seven thousand five
in calm sunshine of prosperity, whom in ad- hundred (Heeren says from seven lo eight
versity we saw growing in spite of every thousand) Reviews of Books, in the Goiiingen
storm. Of his proceedings in Gbttingen, his Gckhrtc Jnzeipen! Shame on us degenerate
reform of the Royal Society of Sciences, his Editors! Here of itself was work for a lite-
editing of the Gelfhric Jnzeigoi (Gazette of time !

Learning,) his exposition of the classics from ! To expect that elegance of composition
Virgil to Pindar, his remodelling of the library,' .should prevail in these multifarious per-
his passive quarrels with Voss, his armed formances were unreasonable enough. Heyne
neutrality with Michaelis ; of all this we must wrote very indifierent German; and his Latin,
say little. The best fruit of his endeavours : by much the more common vehicle in his

lies before the world, in a long series of works,
■which, among us, as well as elsewhere, are
known and justly appreciated. On looking
over them, the first thing that strikes us is

learned works, flowed from him with a copious-
ness which could not be Ciceronian. At the
same time these volumes are not the folios of
a Montfaucon, not mere classical ore and slag.

astonishment at Heyne's diligence; which, i but regularly melted metal, for most part ex-
considering the quantity and quality of his , hibiting the essence, and only the essence of
writings, might have appeared singular even in I very great research, and enlightened by a philo-
one who had been without other duties. Yet! sophy, which, if it does not always wisely
Heyne's oflice involved him in the most la- order its results, has looked far and deeply in
borious researches: he wrote letters by the collecting them.

hundred to all parts of the world, and on all | To have performed so much evinces on
conceivable subjects; he had three classes to I the part of Heyne no little mastership in
teach daily; he appointed professors, for his I the great art of husbanding time. Heeren

recommendation was all-powerful ; superin
tended schools; for a long time the inspection
of the Friytische was laid on him, and he had
cooks' bills to settle, and hungry students to
satisfy with his purveyance. Besides all which,
he accomplished, in the way of publication, as
follows :

In addition to his TihuUus and Epidetus, the
first of which went through three, the second
through two editions, each time with large
extensions and improvements :

His Virgil, (P. Vinoitirs Marc Varietate
Leclionis et pcrpetud Annotniionc illiislraius,) in
various forms, from 1767 to 1803; no fewer
than six editions.

His Pliny, (Ex C. Plinii SEcuxni Historia
Naturali cxrerpta, quas ad Aries spcdant ;) two
editions, 1790, 1811.

His Apollodorus, (Apollohobi Mienknsis
Bibho'.heccB Libri tres, &c. ;) two editions, 1787,
1803.

His Pindar, (Pindari Carmina, cum Lcrtionis
Varietate, curavit Ch. G. H.) three editions, 1774,
1797, 1798, the last with the Scholia, the Frag-
ments, a Translation, and Hermann's Enq. JJe
Metris.

His Conon and Parthenius, (Cononis Nar-
rationcs et Parthenii Narrationcs amaiorics,)
1798.

And lastly his Homer, (Homehi Ilias, aim
brevi Annotatmie :) 8 volumes, 1802; and a
second, contracted edition, in 2 volumes, 1804.

occasion, but the Georgia Augusta ajjain prevailed.
Some ir.crease of snlary usually follows such refusals :
\\ did not n 'bis instance.

gives us sufficient details on this subject; ex-
plains Heyne's adjustment of his hours and
various occupations; how he rose at five
o'clock, and worked all the day, and all the
year, with the regularity of a steeple-clock;
nevertheless, how patiently he submitted to
interruptions from strangers, or extraneous
business; how, briefly, yet smoothly, he con-
trived to despatch such interruptions; how his
letters were endorsed when they came to hand;
and lay in a special drawer till they were
answered: nay, we have a description of his
whole " locality," his bureau and book-shelves
and portfolios, his very bed and strong box
are not forgotten. To the busy man, espe-
cially the busy man of letters, these details are
far from uninteresting; if we Judged by the
result, many of Heyne's arrangements might
seem worthy not of notice only, but of imita-
tion.

His domestic circumstances continued on
the whole highly favourable for such activity;
though not now more than formerly were they
exempted from the common lot ; but still had
several hard changes to encounter. In 1775,
he lost his Theresa after long ill-health ; an
event which, stoic as he was, struck heavily
and dolefully upon his heart. He forebore not
to shed some natural tears, though from eyes
little used to the melting mood. Nine days
after her death, he thus writes to a friend with
a solemn, mournful tenderness, which none of
us will deny to be genuine:

"I have looked upon the grave that covers
the remains of my Theresa : what a thousand-

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

I2S

fold pang, beyond the pucn of human feeling,
pierced through my soul ! How did my limbs
tremble as I approached this holy spot! Here,
then, reposes what is left of the dearest that
heaven gave me; among the dust of her four
children she sleeps. A sacred horror covered
the place. I should have sunk altogether in
my sorrow, had it not been for my two daugh-
ters that were standing on the outside of the
church-yard ; I saw their faces over the wall,
directed to me with anxious fear. This called
me to myself; I hastened in sadness from the
spot where I could have continued for ever:
where it cheered me to think thai one day I
should rest by her side; rest from all the
carking care, from all the griefs which so often
have embittered to me the enjoyment of life.
Alas ! among these griefs must I reckon even
her love, the strongest, truest, that ever inspired
the heart of woman, which may be the happiest
of mortals, and yet was a fountain to me of a
thousand distresses, inquietudes, and cares.
To entire cheerfulness perhaps she never at-
tained ; but for what unspeakable sweetness,
for wliat exalted, enrapturing joys is not Love
indebted to Sorrow] Amidst gnawing anxie-
ties, with the torture of anguish in my heart, I
have been made even by the love which caused
me this anguish, these anxieties, inexpressibly
happy ! When tears flowed over our cheeks,
did not a nameless, seldom felt delight stream
through my breast, oppressed equally by joy
and by sorrow !"

But Heyne was not a man to brood over
past griefs, or linger long where nothing was
to be done, but mourn. In a short time, ac-
cording to a good old plan of his, having
reckoned up his grounds of sorrow, he fairly
wrote down on paper, over against them, his
"grounds of consolation;" concluding with
these pious words, " So for all these sorrows
too, these trials, do I thank thee, my God ! And
now, glorified friend, will I again turn me with
undivided heart to my duty; thou thyself
smilest approval on me !'' Nay, it was not
many months before a new marria^ce came on
the anvil, in which matter, truly, Heyne con-
ducted himself with the most philosophic in-
difference ; leaving his friends, by whom the
project had been started, to bring it to what
issue they pleased. It was a scheme concerted
by Zimmerman, (the author of Soliiudc, a man
little known to Heyne.) and one Reich, a Leip-
zig bookseller, who had met at the Prymont
Baths. Brandes, the Hanoverian Minister,
successor of Miinchhausen in the manage-
ment of the University concerns, was there
also with a daughter; upon her, the projectors
cast their eye. Heyne, being consulted, seems
lo have comported himself like clay in the
hands of the potter; Hither and fair one, in
luce manner, were of a compliant humour, and
thus was the business achieved ; and on the
9th of April, 1777, Heyne could take home
a bride, won with less difficulty than most men
have in choosing a pair of boots. Neverthe-
less, she proved an excellent wife to him;
kept his house in the cheerfullest order; ma-
naged her step-children, and her own, like a
true mother; and loved, and faithfully assisted
her husband jr- whatever he undertook. Con-

sidered in his private relations, such a man
might well reckon himself fortunate.

In addition to Heyne's claims as a scholar
and teacher, Heeren would have us regard him
as an unusually expert man of business and ne-
gotiator, for which line of life he himself seems
indeed to have thought that his talent was
more peculiarly fitted. In proof of this, we
have long details of his procedure in manag-
ing the Library, the Royal Society, the Univer-
sity generally, and his incessant, and often
rather complex correspondence with Miinch-
hausen, Brandes, or other ministers, who pre-
sided over this department. Without detract
ing from Heyne's skill in such matters, what
struck us more in this narrative of Heeren's
was the singular contrast which the " Georgia
Augusta," in its interior arrangement, as well
as in its external relations to the Government,
exhibits with our own universities. The prime
minister of the country writes thrice weekly to
the director of an institution for learning! He
oversees all ; knows the character, not only of
every professor, but of every pupil that gives
any promise. He is continually purchasing
books, drawings, models ; treating for this or
the other help or advantage to the establish-
ment. He has his eye over all Germany; and
nowhere does a man of any decided 'alent
show himself, but he strains every nerve to
acquire him. And seldom or ever can he suc-
ceed; for the Hanoverian assiduity seems
nothing singular; every state in Germany has
its minister for education, as well as Hanover.
They correspond, they inquire, they negotiate;
everywhere there seems a canvassing, less for
places, than for the best men to fill them.
Heyne himself has his Seminarium, a private
class of the nine most distinguished students
in the university; these he trains with all dili-
gence, and is in due time most probably en-
abled, by his connections, to place in stations
fit for them. A hundred and thirty-five pro-
fessors are said to have been sent from this
Seminarium during his presidency. These
things we slate without commentary: we be-
lieve that the expei'ience of all English, and
Scotch, and Irish university-men will, of itself,
furnish one. The state of education in Ger-
many, and the structure of the establishments
for conducting it, seems to us one of the most
promising inquiries that could at this moment
be entered on.

But to return to Heyne : We have said, that
in his private circumstances, he might reckon
himself fortunate. His public relations, on a
more splendid scale, continued, to the last, to
be of the same happy sort. By degrees, he
had risen to be, both in name and office, the
chief man of his establishment; his character
stood high with the learned of all countries;
and the best fruit of external reputation, in-
creased respect in his own circle, was not
denied to him. The burghers of Guttingen, so
fond of their University, could not but be proud
of Heyne; nay, as the time passed on, they
found themselves laid under more than one,
specific obligation to him. He remodelled and
reanimated their gymnasium (town-school), as
he had before done that of Ilfeld ; and whai
was still more important, ip I'le rude lim'.'S uf
1.2

136

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Jie French war, by his skilful application, he
ucceeded in procuring from Napoleon, not
only a protection for the University, but im-
munity from hostile invasion for the whole
district it stands in. Nay, so happily were
matters managed, or so happily did they turn
of their own accord, that Giittingen rather
gained than suffered by the war : Under Jerome
of Westphalia, not only were all benefices
punctually paid, but improvements even were
effected ; among other things, a new and very
handsome extension, which had long been de-
sired, was built for the library, at the charge
of Government. To all these claims for public
regard, add Heyne's now venerable age, and
•we can fancy how, among his townsmen and
fellow-collegians, he must have been cherished,
nay, almost worshipped. Already had the
magistracy, by a special act, freed him from
all public assessments; but, in 1809, on his
eightieth birth-day, came a still more emphatic
testimony; for the Ritter Franz, and all the
public boards, and the faculties, in corpore, came
to him in procession with good wishes; and
students reverenced him ; and young ladies
sent him garlands, stitched together by their
own fair fingers ; in short, Giittingen was a
place of jubilee ; and good old Heyne, who
nowise affected, yet could not dislike these
things, was among the happiest of men.

In another respect, we must also reckon him
fortunate; that he lived till he had completed
all his undertakings; and then departed peace-
fully, and without sickness, from which, indeed,
his whole life had been remarkably free. Three
months before his death, in April, 1812, he saw
the last volume of his works in print ; and re-
joiced, it is said, with an affecting thankful-
ness, that so much had been granted him.
Length of life was not now to be hoped for ;
neither did Heyne look forward to the end with
apprehension. His little German verses, and
Latin translations, composed in sleepless
nights, at this extreme period, are, to us, by far
the most touching part of his poetry; so me-
lancholy is the spirit of them, yet so mild;
solemn, not without a shade of sadness, yet
full of pious resignation. At length came the
end ; soft and gentle as his mother could have
wished it for him. The lith of July was a
public day in the Royal Society ; Heyne did
his part in it; spoke at large, and with even
more clearness and vivacity than usual.

" Next day," says Heeren, " was Sunday: I
saw him in the evening, for the last time. He
was resting in his chair, exhausted by the fa-
tigue of yesterday. On Monday morning, he
once more entered his class room, and held his
Seminarium. In the afternoon he prepared his
letters, domestic as well as foreign ; among
the latter, one on business ; sealed them all but
one, written in Latin, to Professor Thorlacius,
in Copenhagen, which I found open, but finish-
ed, on his death. At supper, (none but his
elder daughter was with him,) he talked cheer-
fully, and at his usual time retired to rest. In
Ihe night, the servant girl, that slept under his
apartment, heard him walking up and down ;
a common practice with him when he could
not sleep. However, he had again gone to
bed. Soon after five, he arose, as usual ; he

joked with the girl when she asked him how
he had been over-night. She left him, to make
ready his coffee, as was her wont; and return-
ing with it in a short quarter of an hour, she
found him sunk down before his washing-stand,
close by his work-table. His hands were wet;
at the moment when he had been washing
them, had death taken him into his arms. One
breath more, and he ceased to live : when the
hastening doctor opened a vein, no blood would
flow."

Heyne was interred with all public solemni-
ties : and, in epicedial language, it may be
said without much exaggeration, that his coun
try mourned for him. At Chemnitz, his birth-
place, there assembled, under constituted au-
thority, a grand meeting of the magistrates, to
celebrate his memory; the old school-album,
in which the little ragged boy had inscribed his
name, was produced; grandiloquent speeches
were delivered; and "in the afternoon, many
hundreds went to see the poor cottage," where
his father had weaved, and he starved and
learned. How generous!

To estimate Heyne's intellectual character,
to fix accurately his rank and merits as a critic
and philologer, we cannot but consider as be-
yond our province, and at any rate superflu-
ous here. By the general consent of the learn-
ed in all countries, he seems to be acknow-
ledged as the first among recent scholars; his
immense reading, his lynx-eyed skill in expo-
sition and emendation are no longer here con-
troverted : among ourselves his taste in these
matters has been praised by Gibbon, and by
Parr pronounced to be "exquisite." In his
own country, Heyne is even regarded as the
founder of a new epoch in classical study; as
the first who with any decisiveness attempted
to translate fairly beyond the letter of the clas-
sics ; to read in the writings of the ancients,
not the language alone, or even their detached
opinions and records, but their spirit and cha-
racter, their way of life and thought; how the
world and nature painted themselves to the
mind in those old ages ; how, in one word, the
Greeks and the Romans were men, even as we
are. Such of our readers as have studied any
one of Heyne's works, or even looked care-
fully into the Lectures oi the Schlegels, the most
ingenious and popular commentators of that
school, will be at no loss to understand what
we mean.

By his inquiries into antiquity, especially by
his laboured investigation of its politics and
its mythology, Heyne is believed to have car-
ried the torch of philosophy towards, if not
into, the mysteries of old time. What Winkel-
mann, his great contemporary did, or began to
do, for ancient plastic art, the other, with equal
success, began for ancient literature.* A high

* It is a curious fact that these two men, so singularly
correspondent in their early sufferings, subsequent dis-
tinction, line of study, and rusced enthusiasm of clia-
racter, were at one lime, while both as yet were under
the horizon, broujiht into partial contact. " An ac-
quaintance of another sort," says Heeren, "the young
Heytie was to make in the Brijiil Library , with a per-
son whose importance he could not then anticipate.
One frequent visitor of this establishment was a certain
almost wholly unknown man, whose visits could not be
specially desirable for 'he librarians, such endless laboui
did he cost them. He leemed insatiable in reading; and

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

tn

praise, surely; yet, as we must think, one not
unfounded, and which, indeed, in all parts of
Europe, is becoming more and more confirmed.
So much, in the province to which he de-
voted his activity, is Heyne allowed to have
accomplished. Nev.erlheless, we must not as-
sert that, in point of understanding and spi-
ritual endowment, he can be called a complete,
or even, in strict speech, a great man. Won-
derful perspicuity, unwearied diligence, are not
denied hirn; but to philosophic order, to clas-
sical adjustment, clearness, polish, whether in
word or thought, he seldom attains ; na}^, many
times, it must be avowed, he involves himself
in tortures, long-winded verbosities, and stands
before us little better than one of that old school
which his admirers boast that he displaced.
He appears, we might almost say, as if he had
wings but could not well use them. Or, in-
deed, it might be that, writing constantly in a
dead language, he came to write heavily ; work-
ing for ever on subjects where learned armor-
at-all-points cannot be dispensed with, he at
last grew so habituated to his harness that he
would not walk abroad without it; nay per-
haps it had rusted together, and roidd not be
unclasped! A sad fate for a thinker ! Yet one
which threatens many commentators, and over-
takes many.

As a man encrusted and encased, he exhi-
bits himself, moreover, to a certain degree, in
his moral character. Here too, as in his in-
tellect, there is an awkwardness, a cumbrous
iner^'iess; nay, there is a show of dulness, of
hardness, which nowise intrinsically belongs
to him. He passed, we are told, for less reli-
gious, less affectionate, less enthusiastic than
he was. His heart, one would think, had no
free course, or had found itself a secret one ;
outwardly he stands before us, cold and still, a
very wall of rock ; yet within lay a well, from
which, as we have witnessed, the stroke of
some Moses'-wand (the death of a Theresa)
could draw streams of pure feeling. Callous
as a man seems to us, he has a sense for all
natural beauty; a merciful sympathy for his
fellow-men : his own early distresses never
left his memory : for similar distresses his pity
and help were at all times in store. This form
of character may also be the fruit partly of
his employments, partly of his sufferings, and,

called for so many l)ooks, ttial liis reception there grew
rather of llie coolest. \t\v;is Jolinnn H'ivkeimann. Me-
ditating his journey for It;ily, he was then laying in pre-
paration for it. Thus did these two men become, if not
confidential, yet acquaintad ; who at that time, both still
in darkness and poverty, could little suppose, thai in a
few years, they were to be the teachers of cultivated
B^arope, and the ornaments of their nation."

perhaps, is not very singular among commeft
tators.

For the rest, Heeren assures us, that in prac
tice Heyne was truly a good man ; altogether
just; diligent in his own honest business, and
ever ready to forward that of others ; com-
passionate; though quick-tempered, placable;
friendly, and satisfied with simple pleasures.
He delighted in roses, and always kept a bou-
quet of them in water on his desk. His house
was embowered among roses ; and in his old
days he used to wander through the bushes
with a pair of scissors. Farther, says Heeren,
in spite of his short sight, he was fond of the
fields and skies, and could lie for hours read-
ing on the grass. A kindly old man ! With
strangers, hundreds of whom visited him, he
was uniformly courteous; though latterly, be-
ing a little hard of hearing, less tit to converse.
In society he strove much to be polite ; but
had a habit (which ought to be general) of
yawning, when people spoke to him and said
nothing.

On the whole, the Germans have some rea-
son to be proud of Heyne; who shall deny
that they have here once more produced a
scholar of the right old stock; a man to be
ranked, for honesty of study and of life, with
the Scaligers, the Bentleys, and old illustrious
men, who, though covered with academic dust
and harsh with polyglot vocables, wete true
men of endeavour, and fought like giants, with
such weapons as they had, for the good cause 1
To ourselves, we confess, Heyne, highly inte-
resting for what he did, is not less but more so
for what he was. This is another of the proofs,
which minds like his are from time to time
sent hither to give, that the man is not the pro-
duct of his circumstances, but that, in a far
higher degree, the circumstances are the pro-
duct of the man. While beneficed clerks and
other sleek philosophers, reclining on their
cushions of velvet, are demonstrating that to
make a scholar and man of taste, there must
be co-operation of the upper classes, society of
gentlemen-commoners, and an income of four
hundred a year; — arises the son of a Chemnitz '
weaver, and with the very wind of his stroke
sweeps them from the scene. Let no man
doubt the omnipotence of Nature, doubt the
majesty of man's soul ; let no lonely unfriended
son of genius despair! Let him not despair;
if he have the will, the right will, then the
power also has not been denied him. It is but
the artichoke that will not grow except in gar-
dens; the acorn is cast carelessly abroad into
the wilderness, yet it rises to be an oak ; on the
wild soil it nourishes itself, it defies ;he .empesl,
and lives for a thousand years.

138

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

GEEMAN playwrights;

[FoREiGM Review, 1S29.]

Ix this stage of society, the playwright is as
essential and acUnowleclged a characier as the
inilhvright, or cartwright, or any other wright
whatever; neither can we see why, in general
estimation, he should rank lower than these
his brother artisans, except perhaps, for this
one reason: that the former, working in timber
and iron, for the wants of the body, produce a
completely suitable machine, while the latter,
working in thought and feeling, for the wants
of the soul, produces a machine which is in-
complelely suitable. In other respects, we
confess, we cannot perceive that the balance
lies against him : for no candid man, as it
seems to us, will doubt but the talent, which
constructed a Jirginivs or a 1 er:ram, might
have sufficed, had it been properly directed, to
make not o'nly wheelbarniws and wagons, but
even mills tif considerable complicacy. How-
ever, if the public is niggardly to the play-
wright in one point, it must be proportionably
liberal in another; according to Adam Smith's
observation, that trades which are reckoned
less reputable have higher money-wages.
Thus, one thing compensating the other, the
playwright may still realize an existence; as,
in fact, we find that he does: for playwrights
were, are, and probably will always be ; unless,
indeed, in process of years, the whole dramatic
concern be finally abandoned by mankind; or,
as in the case of our Punch and Mathews,
every player becoming his own playwright,
this trade may merge in the other and older
one.

The British nation has its own playwrights,
several of them cunning men in their craft:
yet here, it would seem, this sort of carpentry
does not flourish ; at least, not with that pre-
eminent vigdur which distinguishes most other
branches of our national industry. In hard-
ware and cotton goods, in all sorts of chemical,
mechanical, or other material processes, Eng-
land outstrips the world: nay, in many depart-
ments of literarv manufacture also, as, for in-
stance, in the fabrication of novels, she may
.safely boast herself peerless: but in this mat-
ter of the Drama, to whatever cause it be owing,
.^ne can claim no such superiority. In iheatri-

* Die ^Inifrnu. (Tlie AncfsliPfs.) A Trn'Tdv. in five
Acts. I!y F.'Orinparzer. Konrtli F.ditioii. Vienna. 182.?.

Kdnirr Otlukars Olirk vvd F.vile. (Kins Otiocar's
Fortune and End.) A Trat;edy, in five Acts. By F.
Grilljiarzer. Vienna, IS2.i.

Siipjilio. A Trasefly, in five Acts. By F. Grillparzer.
Tliird F.dition. Vienna, t8'i2.

2 Fiivft. A Trasedy. in five Arts. By August Klinge-
man?!. I.eipzi'.' and Altenlinrj!, 1815.

^Iinsver. A Trasredy. in five Acts. By August Klinge-
mann. Urnnswick, 1827.

.? M"lliie.r's Drnmntische IVerke. F.rste rerhtmiisssirre,
vvUsrilvilii'e. vvdvovi f^erfiisycr rerbesserte Gesnvniit-^vs-
g-iibt. (Muliiier's llrarnaiic Works. First le^al roller-
tive Edition, complete and revised l)y the Author.)
7 vols. Brunswic)(, 1828.

cal produce she yields considerably to France;
and is, out of sight, inferior to Germany. Nay,
do not we English hear daily, for the last
twenty years, that the Drama is dead, or in a
state of suspended animation; and are not
medical men sitting on the case, and propound-
ing their remedial appliances, weekly, monthly,
quarterly, to no manner of purpose? — whilst
in Germany tlie Drama is not only, to all ap-
pearance, alive, but in the very flush and hey-
day of superabundant strength; indeed, as it
were, still only sowing its first wild oat.s f For
if the Brili.'-h Playwrights seem verging to ruin,
and our Knowleses, Maturins, Shicls, and
Shees stand few and comparatively forlorn,
like firs on an Irish bog, the playwrights of
Germany are a strong, triumphant body, so
nunrierons that it has been calculated, in case
of war, a regiment of foot might be raised, in
which, from the colonel down to the drummer,
every oflicer and private sentinel might show
his drama or dramas.

To investigate the origin of so marked a su-
periority would lead us beyond our purpo.se.
Doubtless the proximate cause must lie in a
superior demand for the article of dramas;
which superior demand again may arise either
from the climate of Germany, as Montesquieu
might believe; or perhaps more naturally and
immediately from the political condition of
that country; for rnan is not only a working
but a talking animal, and where no Catholic
Questions, and Parliamentary Reforms, and
Selert Vestries are given him to discuss in his
leisure hours, he is glad to fall upon plays or
players, or whatever comes to hand, whereby
to fence himself a little against the inroads of
Ennui. Of the fact, at least, that such a supe-
rior demand for dramas exists in Germany, we
have only to open a newspaper to find proof.
Is not everv Lileniiv.rbliU and KuvMblall stulfed
to bursting, with theatricals? Nay, has not
the "able Editor" established correspondents
in every capital city of the civilized world,
who report to him on this one matter and on
no other? For, be our curiosity what it may,
let us have profession of "intelligence from
Munich," "intelligence from Vienna," intelli-
gence from Bfrlin," is it intelligence of any
thing but of greenroom controversies and nego-
tiations, of tragedies and operas and forces
acted and to be acted? Not of men, and their
doings, by hearth and hall, in the firm earth;
but of mere effigies and shells of men, and
their doings in the world of pasteboard, do
these unhappy correspondents write. Un-
happy we call them; for, with all our toler-
ance of plavvvrighls, we cannot but think that
there are limits, and very strait ones, within
which their activity s-hould be restricted.
Heie, in England, our "theatrical reports" are

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.

129

nuisance enough; and many persons who love
^heir life, and therefore " take care of their
time, which is the stuff life is made of," ref^u-
larly lose several columns of their weekly
newspaper in that way: but our case is pure
luxury, compared with that of the Germans,
who, instead of a measurable and sufferable
spicing of theatric matter, are obliged, meta-
phorically speaking, to breakfast and dine on
it, have in fact nothing else to live on but that
highly unnutritive victual. We ourselves are
occasionally readers of German newspapers,
and have often, in the spirit of Christian hu-
manity, meditated presenting to the whole body
of German editors a project, which, however,
must certainly have ere now occurred to
themselves, and for some reason been found
inapplicable; it was, to address these corre-
spondents of theirs, all and sundry, in plain
language, and put the question : whether, on
studiously surveying the Universe from their
several stations, there was nothing in the Hea-
vens above, on the earth beneath, or the waters
under the earth, nothing visible but this one
business, or rather shadow of business, that
had an interest for the minds of menl If the
correspondents still answered that nothing was
visible, then of course they must be left to
continue in this strange state: prayers, at the
same time, being put up for them in all
churches.

However, leaving every able Editor to fight
his O/'vn battle, we address ourselves to the
task in hand: meaning here to inquire a very
little into the actual state of the dramatic trade
in Germany, and exhibit some detached fea-
tures of it to the consideration of our readers.
For, seriously speaking, low as this province
may be, it is a real, active, and ever-enduring
province of the literary republic; nor can the
pursuit of many men, even though it be a pro-
fitless and foolish pursuit, ever be without
claim to some attention from us, either in the
way of furtherance or of censure and correc-
tion. Our avowed object is to promote the
sound study of foreign literature ; which study,
like all other earthly undertakings, has its ne-
gative as well as its positive side. We have
already, as occasion served, borne testimony
to the merits of various German poets, and
must now say a word on certain German
poetasters ; hoping that it may be chiefly a re-
gard to the former which has made us take
even this slight notice of the latter : for the bad
is in itself of no value, and only worth de-
scribing lest it be mistaken for the good. At
the same time, let no reader tremble, as if we
meant to overwhelm him, on this occasion,
with a whole mountain of dramatic lumber,
poured forth in torrents, like shot-rubbish,
from the play-house-garrets, where it is mould-
ering and evaporating into nothing, silently
and without harm to any one. Far be this
from us! Nay, our own knowledge of this
subject is in the highest degree limited; and,
indeed, to exhaust it, or attempt discussing it
with scientific precision, would be an impos-
sible enterprise. What man is there that
could assort the whole furniture of Milton's
Limho of I'linihj : or where is the Hallam that
would think it worth his while to write us the
17

Constitutional History of a Rookery T Let the
courteous reader take heart, then ; for he is in
hands that will not, nay, what is more, that
cannot, do him much harm. One brief, shy
glance into this huge bivouac of Playwrights,
all sawing and planing with such tumult; and
we leave it, probably for many years.

The German Parnassus, as one of its own
denizens remarks, has a rather broad summit:
yet only two Dramatists are reckoned, within
the last half century, to have mounted thither;
— Schiller and Goethe; if we are not, on the
strength of his Minna von Barnhelm and Emilie
Galeoiti, to account Lessing of the number.
On the slope of the Mountain may be found a
few stragglers of the same brotherhood; among
these, Tieck and Maler Miiller, firmly enough
stationed at considerable elevations; while, far
below, appear various honest persons climb-
ing vehemently, but against precipices of loose
sand, to whom we wish all speed. But the
reader will understand that the bivouac we
speak of, and are about to enter, lies not on the
declivity of the Hill at all; but on the level
ground close to the foot of it; the essence of a
Playwright being that he works not in Poetry,
but in Prose, which more or less cunningly
resembles it. And here, pausing for a moment,
the reader observes that he is in a civilized
country; for there, on the very boundary line
of Parnassus, rises a gallows with the figure
of a man hung in chains! It is the figure of
August von Kotzebue, and has swung there
for many years, as a warning to all too auda-
cious Playwrights, who nevertheless, as we
see, pay little heed to it. Ill-fated Kotzebue,
once the darling of theatrical Europe ! This
was the prince of all Playwrights, and could
manufacture Plays with a speed and felicity
surpassing even Edinburgh novels. For his
muse, like other doves, hatched twins in the
month ; and the world gazed on them with an
admiration too deep for mere words. What is
all past or present popularity to this? Were
not these Plays translated into almost every
language of articulate-speaking men ; acted, at
least, we may literally say, in every theatre
from Kamtschatka to Cadiz 1 Nay, did they
not melt the most obdurate hearts in all coun-
tries; and, like the music of Orpheus, draw
tears down iron cheeks ? We ourselves have
known the flintiest men, who professed to have
wept over them, for the first time in their lives.
So was it twenty years ago; how stands it to-
day? Kotzebue, lifted up on the hollow bal-
loon of popular applause, thought wings had
been given him that he might ascend to the
Immortals : gay he rose, soaring, sailing, as
with supreme dominion ; but in the rarer azure
deep, his windbag burst asunder, or the arrows
of keen archers pierced it; and so at last we
find him a compound-pendulum, vibrating in
the character of scarecrow, to guard from for-
bidden fruit! O ye Playwrights, and literary
quacks of every feather, weep over Kotzebue
and over yourselves ! Know that the loudest
roar of the million is not fame; that the wind-
bag, are ye mad enough to mount it,ivill bursi,
or be shot through with arrows, and your bones
too shall act as scarecrows.

But, quitting this idle allegorical vein, let ui

130

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

at length proceed in plain English, and as be-
seems mere prose Reviewers, to the work laid
out for us. Among the hundreds of German
dramatists, as they are called, three individuals,
already known to some British readers, and
prominent from all the rest in Germany, may
fitly enough stand here as representatives of
the whole Playwright class; whose various
craft and produce the procedure of these three
may in some small degree serve to illustrate.
Of Grillparzer, therefore, and Klingemann,
and Miilner, in their order.

Franz Grillparzer seems to be an Austrian ;
which country is reckoned nowise fertile in
poets; a circumstance that may perhaps have
contributed a little to his own rather rapid
celebrity. Our more special acquaintance
with Grillparzer is of very recent date ;
though his name and samples of his ware have
for some time been hung out, in many British
and foreign Magazines, often with testimonials
which might have beguiled less timeworn cus-
tomers. Neither, after all, have we found
there testimonials falser than other such are,
but rather not so false; for, indeed, Grillparzer
is a most inoffensive man, nay positively
rather meritorious ; nor is it without reluctance
that we name him under this head of Play-
wrights, and not under that of Dramatists,
which he aspires to. Had the law with regard
to mediocre poets relaxed itself since Horace's
time, all had been well with Grillparzer; for
undoubtedly there is a small vein of tenderness
and grace running through him, a seeming
modesty also, and real love of his art, which
gives promise pf better things. But gods and
men and columns are still equally rigid in that
unhappy particular of mediocrity, — even pleas-
ing mediocrity; and no scene or line is yet
known to us of Grillparzer's which exhibits
any Ihing more. Non conccssere, therefore, is his
sentence for the present; and the louder his
well-meaning admirers extol him, the more
emphatically should it be pronounced and re-
peated. Nevertheless Grillparzer's claim to
the title of Playwright is perhaps more his
misfortune than his crime. Living in a coun-
try where the Drama engrosses so much at-
tention, he has been led into attempting it,
without any decisive qualification for such an
enterprise ; and so his allotment of talent,
which might have done good service in some
prose department, or even in the sonnet, elegy,
song, or other outlying province of Poetry, is
driven, as it were, in spite of fate, to write
Plays, which, though regularly divided into
scenes and separate speeches, are essentially
monological ; and though swarming with cha-
racters, too often express only one character,
and that no very extraordinary one, the cha-
racter of Franz Grillparzer himself. What is
an increase of misfortune, too, he has met
with applause in this career, which therefore
he is likely to follow farther and farther, let
nature and his stars say to it what they will.

The characteristic of a Playwright is that he
writes in Prose, which Prose he palms, pro-
bably, first on himself, and then on the simpler
part of the public, for Poetry: and the manner,
in which he effects this legerdemain, consti-
tutes his specific distinction, fixes the species

to which he belongs in the genus Playwright.
But it is a universal feature of him that he
attempts, by prosaic, and as it were mechanical
means, to accomplish an end which, except by
poetical genius, is absolutely not to be accom-
plished. For the most part, he has some
knack, or trick of the trade, which by close
inspection can be detected, and so the heart
of his mystery be seen into. He may have
one trick, or many; and the more cunningly
he can disguise these, the more perfect is he'
as a craftsman ; for were the public once to
penetrate into this his slight of hand, it were
all over with him, — Othello's occupation were
gone. No conjuror, when we once understand
his method of fire-eating, can any longer pass
for a true thaumaturgist, or even entertain us
in his proper character of quack, though he
should eat Mount Vesuvius itself. But hap-
pily for Playwrights and others, the Public is
a dim-eyed animal ; gullible to almost all
lengths, — nay, which often seems to prefer
being gulled.

Of Grillparzer's peculiar knack, and recipe
for play-making, there is not very much to be
said. He seems to have tried various kinds
of recipes, in his time; and, to his credit be it
spoken, seems little contented with any of
them. By much the worst Play of his, that we
have seen, is the Ahnfruu (Ancestress) ; a deep
tragedy of the Castle Spectre sort; the whole
mechanism of which was discernible and con-
dcmnable at a single glance. It is nothing but
the old Story of Fate; an invisible Nemesis
visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children
to the third and fourth generation; a method
almost as common and sovereign in German
Art, at this day, as the method of steam is in
British mechanics; and of which we shall ,
anon have more occasicm to speak. In his
Preface, Grillparzer endeavours to palliate or
deny the fact of his being a Schicksal-Dichter ■
(Fate-Tragedian) ; but to no purpose ; for it is ;
a fact grounded on the testimony of the seven
senses: however, we are glad to observe that,
with this one trial, beseems to have abandoned
the Fate-line, and taken into better, at least
into different ones. With regard to the Jhn-
frnu itself, we may remark that few things
struck us so much as this little observation of
Count Borotins, occurring, in the middle of the
dismalest night-thoughts, so unexpectedly as
follows : —

Und der Jlimmel, sternelos,
Starrt aus leeren jiug-enhdhlen
In das uvgeheure Grab
Scliwarz herab I

GRAF.
Wie sick dock die Stunden dehnen I
Was ist xcohl die Glocke, Bertha ?

BEHTHA {is just condoling with hi/n, in these wo-dt) >■■

And tlie well<in, starless,

Glares from empty eye-holes,

Black down on that boundless grave !

How the hours do linger!

What o'clock is't, prithee, Bertha t

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.

131

A mere delicate turn we venture to 'say, is
rarely to be met with in tragic dialogue. As
to the story of the .ihnfrmi, it is, naturally
enough, of the most huart-rending description.
This Ancestress is a lady, or rather the ghost
of a lady, for she has been defunct some cen-
turies, who in life had committed what we call
an "indiscretion;" which indiscretion the un-
polite husband punished, one would have
thought sufficiently, by running her through
the body. However, the Schicksul of Grill-
parzer does not think it sufficient; but farther
dooms the fair penitent to walk as goblin, till
the last branch of her family be extinct. Ac-
cordingly she is heard, from time to time,
slamming doors and the like, and now and
then seen with dreadful goggle-eyes and other
ghost appurtenances, to the terror not only of
servant people, but of old Count Borolin, her
now sole male descendant, whose afternoon
nap she, on one occasion, cruelly disturbs.
This Count Borotin is really a worthy, prosing
old genileman; only he had a son long ago
<lrowned in a fish-pond (body not found) ; and
has still a highly accomplished daughter,
whom there is none oflering to wed, except one
.Taromir, a person of unknown extraction, and
lo all appearance, of the lightest purse ; nay,
as it turns out afterwards, actually the head
of a Banditti establishment, which had long
infested the neighbouring forests. However,
a Captain of foot arrives, at this juncture,
utterly to root out these Robbers; and now the
strangest things come to light. For who
should this Jaromir prove to be but poor old
Borotin's drowned son, not drowned, but stolen
and bred up by these Outlaws; the brother,
therefore, of his intended; a most truculent
fellow, who fighting for his life unwittingly
kills his own father, and drives his bride to
poison herself; in which wise, as was also
Giles Scroggins' case, he " cannot get married."
The reader sees all this is not to be accom-
plished without some jarring and tumult. In
fact, there is a frightful uproar everywhere
throughout that night; robbers dying, mus-
quetry discharging, women shrieking, men
swearing, and the Ahnfrau herself emerging
at intervals, as the genius of the whole dis-
cord. But time and hours bring relief, as they
always do. Jaromir, in the long run, likewise,
succeeds in dying; whereupon the Borotin
lineage having gone to the Devil, the Ances-
tress also retires thither, — at least makes the
upper world rid of her presence, — and the
piece ends in deep stillness. Of this poor An-
cestress we shall only say farther: wherever
she be, rcquicsrat ! 7rqiucsciit .'

As we mentioned above, the Fate method
of manufacturing tragic emotion seems to have
yielded Grillpar/'^r himself little contentment;
for after this Altnjrtm, we hear no more of it.
His Konis: Oltokdrs Glilrk unci Endc (King Ot-
tokar's Fortune and End) is a much more
innocent piece, and proceeds in quite a dif-
ferent strain ; aiming to subdue us not by old
women's fables of Destiny, but by the accu-
mulated splendour of thrones and principali-
ties, the cruel or magnanimous pride of Aus-
trian Emperors and Bohemian conquerors, the
wit of chivalrous courtiers, and beautiful but

shrewish queens ; the whole set off by a pro
per intermixture of coronation ceremonies,
Hungarian dresses, whiskered halberdiers,
alarms of battle, and the pomp and circum-
stance of glorious war. There is even some
attempt at delineating character in this play;
certain of the dramatis persona; are evidently
meant to differ from certain others, not in dress
and name only, but in nature and mode of being;
so much indeed they repeatedly assert, or hint,
and do their best to make good, — unfortunately,
however, with very indifferent success. In
fact these dramatis personas are rubrics and
titles rather than persons; for most part, mere
theatrical automata, with only a mechanical
existence. The truth of the matter is, Grill-
parzer cannot communicate a poetic life to any
character or object; and in this, were it in no
other way, he evinces the intrinsically prosaic
nature of his talent. These personages of his
have, in some instances, a certain degree of
metaphysical truth ; that is to say, one portioa
of their structure, ps)'chologically viewed, cor-
responds with the other; — so far all is well
enough: but to unite these merely scientific
and inanimate qualities into a living man is
work not for a Playwright, but for a Dramatist.
Nevertheless, Kdnig Ottokar is comparatively
a harmless tragedy. It is full of action, strik-
ing enough, though without any discernible
coherence; and with so much both of flirting,
and fighting, with so many weddings, funerals,
processions, encampments, it must be, we
should think, if the tailor and decorationist do
their duty, a very comfortable piece to see
acted, especially on the Vienna boards, where
it has a national interest, Rodolph of Hapsburg
being a main personage in it.

The model of this Ottokar we imagine to
have been Schiller's Picrolomini ; a poem of
similar materials and object; but differing
from it as a living rose from a mass of dead
rose-leaves, or even of broken Italian gum-
flowers. It seems as though Grillparzer had
hoped to subdue us by a sufficient multitude
of wonderful scenes and circumstances, with-
out inquiring, with any painful solicitude,
whether the soul and meaning of them were
presented to us or not. Herein truly, we be-
lieve, lies the peculiar knack or playwright-
mystery of Ottokar ; that its effect is calculated
to depend chiefly on its quantity : on the mere
number of astonishments, and joyful or de-
plorable adventures there brought to light;
abundance in superficial contents compensat-
ing the absence of callida junctura. Which
second method of tragic manufacture we hold
to be better than the first, but still far from
good. At the same time, it is a very common
method, both in Tragedy and elsewhere ; nay^
we hear persons whose trade it is to write
metre, or be otherwise "imaginative," pro-
fessing it openly as the best they know. Do
not these men go about collecting "features;"'
ferreting out strange incidents, murders, duels,
ghost-apparitions, over the habitable globe; of
which features and incidents, when they have
gathered a sufficient stock, nothing more is
needed than that they be ample enough, high-
colduredenough, though huddled into any case
(Novel, Tragedy, or Metrical Romance") that

132

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

will hold it all! Nevertheless this is ag-
glomeration, not creation; and avails little in
Literature. Quantity, it is a certain fact, will
not make up for defect of qnaliiy ; nor are the
gayest hues of any service, unless there be a
likeness painted from them. Better were it
for Konig (htohir had the story been twice as
short, and twice as expressive. For it is still
true, as in Cervantes' time, nunra lo bueno fiie
muclio. What avails the dram of brandy while
it swims chemically nnited with its barrel of
wort ? Let the distiller pass it and repass it
throuijh his limbecs; for it is the drops of
pure alcohol that we want, not the gallons of
"water, which may be had in every ditch.

On the whole, however, we remember Konig
Ottokar witliout animosity ; and to prove that
Grillparzer, if he could not make it poetical,
might have made it less prosaic, and has in
fact something better in him than is here
manifested, we shall quote one passage, which
strikes us as really rather sweet and natural.
King Ottokar is in the last of his fields, no
prospect before him but death or captivity;
and soliloquizing on his past misdeeds: —

I have nnt l)nrne me wisely in thy World,

Ttifiii 1,'rerit, all jmlgine God ! Like storm and tempest,

1 traversed tliy fair garden, wasting it :

'T is thine to waste, for thou alone canst heal.

Was evil not my aim, yet how did I,

Pour worm, presume to ape the Lord of Worlds,

And through the Bad seek out a way to the Good !

My fellow man, sent thither for his joy.

An end, a Self, within Ihy World a World,—

For thou hast fishion'd him a marvellous work,

With lofty brow, erect in look, strange sense,

And clothed him in the garment of thy Beauty,

And wondroiisly encircled him witli wonders;

He hears, and sees, and feels, has pain and pleasure :

He takes him food, and cunning powers come forth,

And work and work, within llieir secret chambers,

And build him up his House : no royal Palace

Is comparable to the frame of Man ;

And I have cast them from me by thousands,

For whims, as men throw rubbish from their door.

And none of all these slain but had a Mother

Who, as she bore him in sore travail,

Had 1 laspt-d him fiindly to her fostering breast;

A father wh'> had bless'd him as his pride.

And nurturing, wat' h'd over him long years ;

If he but hurt thi' skin upon his finger.

There vvouM they run, with anxious look, to bind it.

And tend it, cheering hiui, until it heal'd ;

And it was but a finger, the skin o' the finger!

And T have trod men down in heaps and squadrons,

For tin stern iron opeu'd out a way

To Ihi ir warm living hearts.— O God !

W\li thou go into judgment with ine, spare

My sufTtring people.

Eonig Ottokar, 180-1.

Passages of this sort, scattered here and
there over Grillparzer's Plays, and evincing
at least an amiable tenderness of natural dis-
position, make us regret the more to condemn
him. In fact, we have hopes that he is not
born to be for ever a Playwright. A true
though feeble vein of poetic talent he really
seems to possess; and such purity of heart as
may yet, with assiduous study, lead him into
his proper field. For we do reckon him a
conscientious man, and honest lover of Art:
nay this incessant fluctuation in his dramatic

schemes is itself a good omen. Besides this
.^hrifrnu and Ottokar, he has written two Dra-
mas, .S''//)^/)o, and DcrGolileve lYifjs.i, (The Golden
I'leece,) on quite another principle; aim-
ing apparently at some Classic model, or al
least at some French retlect of siach a model.
Sappho, which we are sorry to learn is not, his
last piece, but his second, appears to us very
considerably the most faultless production of
his we are yet acquainted with. There is a
degree of grace and simplicity in it, a softness,
polish, and general good taste, little to be ex-
pected from the Author of the Ahnfrau: if he
cannot bring out the full tragic meaning of
Sappho's situation, he contrives, with laudable
dexterity, to avoid the ridicule that lies within
a single step of it; his Drama is weak and
thin, but innocent, lovable ; — nay, the last
scene strikes us as even poetically merito-
rious. His Goldcne Vliess we suspect to be of
siiuilar character, but have not yet found time
and patience to study it. We repeat our hope
of one day meeting Grillparzei' in a more
honourable calling than this of Playwright, or
even fourth-rate Dramatist; which titles, as
was said above, we have not given him with-
out regret; and shall be truly glad to cancel
for whatever better one he may yet chance to
merit.

But if we felt a certain reluctance in class-
ing Grillparzer among the Playwrights, no such
feeling can have place with regard to the se-
cond name on our list, that of Doctor August
Klingemann. Dr. Klingemann is one of tha
most indisputable Playwrights now extant: nay
so superlative is his vigour in this department,
we might even designate him the Playwright.
His iTianner of proceeding is quite different
from Grillparzer's; not a wavering over-
charged method, or combination of methods,
as (lie other's was; but a fixed principle of
action, which he follows with unflinching
courage; his own mind being, to all appear-
ance, highly satisfied with it. If Grillparzer
attempted to overpower us now by the method
of Fate, now by that of pompous action, and
grandiloquent or lachrymose sentiment, heaped
onus in too rich abundance, Klingemann, with-
out neglecting any of these resources, seems
to place his chief dependence on a surer and
readier stay : on his magazines of rosin, oil-
paper, vizards, scarlet-drapery, and gunpowder.
What thunder and lightning, magic-lantern
transparencies, death's-heads, fire-showers, and
plush cloaks can do, — is here done. Abundance
of churchyard and chapel scenes, in most tem-
pestuous weather; to say nothing of battle-
fields, gleams of scoured arins here and there
in the wood, and even occasional shots heard
in the distance. Then there are such scowls and
malignant side-glances, ashy paleness, stamp-
ings, and hysterics, as might, one would think,
wring the toughest bosom into drops of pitj.
For not only are the looks and gestures of these
people of the most heart-rending description,
but their words and feelings also (for Klinge-
mann is no half-artist) areofa piece with them;
gorgeous inflations, the purest innocence, high-
est magnanimity; godlike sentiment of all sorts;
everywhere the finest tragic humour. The moral
loo is genuine; there is the most anxious le-

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS,

13»

gard to virtti€', indeed a distinct patronage both
of Providence and the Devil. In this manner,
does Dr. Klingemann compound his dramatic
electuaries, no less cunningly than Dr. Kitch-
ener did his " peptic persuaders ;" and truly of
the former we must say, that their operation is
nowise unpleasant; naj', to our shame be it
spoken, we have even read these Plays with a
certain degree of satisfaction; and shall de-
clare that if any man wish to amuse himself
irrationally, here is the ware for his money.

Klingemann's latest dramatic undertaking is
Masucr : a purely original invention, on which
he seems to psque himself somewhat ; confess-
ing his opinion that now^ when the "birth-pains"
are over, the character of Jihasner may possi-
bly do good service in many a future drama.
We are nojt prophets, or sons of prophets ; so
shall leave this prediction resting on its own
basis. Ahasuer, the reader will be interested
to learn, is no other than the Wandering Jew
or Shoemaker of Jerusalem, concerning whom
there are two things to be remarked. The first
is the strange name of this Shoemaker : why
do Klingemann and all the Germans call the
man Ahdsver, when his authentic Christian
name is John ; Joannes a Trmporibus Chrisli, or,
for brevity's sake, simply Joaancs a Tcmporibus ?
This should be looked into. Our second re-
mark is of the circumstance that no Historian
or Narrator, neither Schiller, Strada, Thuanus,
Monroe, nor Dugald Dalgetty, inakes any men-
tion of Ahasuer's having been present at the
Battle of Lutzen. Possibly they thought the
fact too notorious to need mention. Here, at
ail events, he was; nay, as we infer, he must
have been at Waterloo also; and probably at
Trafalgar, though in which fleet is not so clear ;
for he takes a hand in all great battles and na-
tional emergencies, at least is witness of them,
being bound to it by his destiny. Such is the pe-
culiar occupation of the Wandering Jew, as
brought to light in this Tragedy : his other
specialities, — that he cannot lodge above three
nights in one place ; that he is of a melancho-
lic temperament; above all, that he cannot die,
not by hemp or steel, or Prussic-acid itself, but
must travel on till the general consummation,
— are familiar to all historical readers. Ahas-
uer's task at this Battle of Lutzen seems to
have been a very easy one; simply to see the
Lion of the North brought down ; not by a
cannon-shot, as is generally believed, but, by
the traitorous pistol-bullet of one Heinyn von
Waith, a bigoted Catholic, who had pretended
to desi'rt from the Imperialists, that he might
find some such opportunity. Unfortunately,
Heinyn, directly after this feat, falls into a
sleepless, half rabid state; comes home to
Castle Warth, frightens his poor wife and
worthy old noodle of a Father; then skulks
about, for some time, now praying, oftener curs-
ing and swearing; till at length the Swedes
lay hold of him and kill him. Ahasuer, as
usual, is in at the death: in the interim, how-
ever, he has saved Lady Heinyn from drowning,
though as good as poisoned her with the look
of his strange stony eyes; and now his busi-
ness to all appearance being over, he signifies
m strong language that he must begone ; there-
epon, he "steps solemnly iato the wood; Wasa-

burg looks after him surprised ; the rest kneel
round the corpse ; the Requiem faintly con-
tinues ;" and what is still more surprising, " the
curtain falls." Such is the simple action and
stern catastrophe of this Tragedy ; concerning
which it were superfluous for us to speak far-
ther in the way of criticism. We shall only add
that there is a dreadful lithograf hie pirint in it,
representing "Ludwig Derrient as Ahasuer;"
in that very act of " stepping solemnly into
the wood;" and uttering these final words:
Ich aber ^candle wcitcr — weitcr — iveiter !" We
have heard of Herr Derrient as of the best
actor in Germany ; and can now bear testimo-
ny, if there be truth in this plate, that he is one
of the ablest-bodied men. A most truculent,
rawboned figure, " with bare legs and red
leather shoes;" huge black beard; eyes turned
inside out; and uttering these extraordinary
words : — " But / go on — on — on !"

Now, however, we must give a glance at
Klingemann's other chief performance in this
line, the tragedy of Fmist. Dr. Klingemann
admits that the subject has been often treated ;
that Goethe's Faust in particular has "dramatic
points," (rlrainalisrhe mornenle:) but the business
is to give it an entire dramatic superficies, te
make it an drkt dramatische, a " genuinely" dra-
matic tragedy. Setting out with this laudable
intention, Dr. Klingemann has produced a
Faust, which differs from that of Goethe in
more than one particular. The hero of this
piece is not the old Faust, doctor in philosophy,
driven desperate by the uncertainty of human
knowledge: but plain John Faust, the printer,
and even the inventor of gunpowder ; driven
desperate by his ambitious temper, and a total
deficiency of cash. He has an excellent wife,
an excellent blind father, both of whom would
fain have him be peaceable, and work at his
trade; but being an adept in the black art, he
determines rather to relieve himself in that
way. Accordingly he proceeds to make aeon-
tract with the Devil, on what we should consi-
der pretty advantageous terms ; the devil being
bound to serve him in the most effectual man-
ner, and Faust at liberty to commit /our mortal
sins before any hair of his head can be harmed.
However, as will be seen, the devil proves York-
shire ; and Faust naturally enough finds him-
self quite jockeyed in the long run.

Another characteristic distinction of Klinge-
mann is his manner of imbodying this same
Evil Principle, when at last he resolves on in-
troducing him to sight; for all these contracts
and preliminary matters are very properly
managed behind the scenes ; only the main
points of the transaction being indicated to the
spectator by some thunder-clap, or the like.
Here is no cold mocking Mephistooheles ; but a
swaggering, jovial, West-India-looking " Stran-
ger," with a rubicund, indeed quite brick-
coloured face, which Faust at first mistakes for
the effect of hard drinking. However, it is a
remarkable feature of this Stranger, that
always on the introduction of any religious
topic, or the mention of any sacred name, he
strikes his glass down on the table, and gene
rally breaks it.

For some time, after his grand bargain,
Faust's afiairs go on triumphantly, oa tko
M

134

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

great scale, and he stems to feel pretty comfort-
able. But the Stranger shows him " his wife,"
Helena, the most enchanting creature in the
world ; and the most cruel hearted, — for not-
withstanding the easy temper of her husband,
she will not grant Faust the smallest encou-
ragement, till he have killed Kuthe, his own
living helpmate, against whom he entertains
no manner of grudge. Nevertheless, reflecting
that he has a stock of four mortal sins to draw
upon, and may well venture one for such a
prize, he determines on killing Kilthe. But
here matters take a bad turn ; for having
poisoned poor Kiithe, he discovers, most un-
expectedly, that she is in the family way; and
therefore that he has committed not one sin but
two ! Nay before the interment can take place,
he is farther reduced, in a sort of accidental
self-defence, to kill his father; thus accom-
plishing his third mortal sin ; with which third,
as we shall presently discover, his whole allot-
ment is exhausted, a fourth, that he knew not
of, being already on the score against him !
From this point, it cannot but sarprise us that
bad grows worse r catchpoles are out in pur-
suit of him, " black masks" dance round him
in a most suspicions manner, the brick-faced
stranger seems to laugh at him, and Helena
will nowhere make her appearance. That the
sympathizing reader *may see with his own
eyes how poor Faust is beset at this juncture,
we shall quote a scene or two. The first may,
properly enough, be that of those " black
masks."

SCENE SEVENTH. A lighted Hall
{In the distance is heard quick dancing-mvsie. Masks pass
from time to time over the Stage, but all dressed in black,
and with rtizards perfectly close. Jlfter a pause, Faust
plunges wildly in, with a full goblet in his hand.)

FAUST (rushing storm fully into the foreground.)
Ha I Poison, 'stead of wine, that 1 intoxicate nie I
Your wine makes sober,— burning fire bring us !
Off" witti your drink !— and blood is in it too !

(Shuddering, he dashes tUe goblet from his band.)
Hy fatlier's blood,— I've drunk my fill of that !

(fVith increasing tumult.)
Yet curses on him ! curses, that ho begot me !
Curse on my mother's bosom, that it bore me !
Curse on the gossip crone that stood by her,
And did not strangle nie, at my first scream i
How could 1 help this being that was given me t
Accursed art thou. Nature, that hast mock'd me !
Accursed I, that let myself be mock'd ! •
And thou strong Being, that to make thee sport,
Enclosedst the fire-soul in this dungeon,
That so despairing it might strive for freedom —
Accur. . . (He shrinks terror-struck.)

No, not the fourth .... the blackest sin!
No! No!

(In the excess of his outbreaking anguish, he hides his
jace in his hands.)

O, I am altogether wretched !
{TTiree black Jilasks come towards hirn.)
FinST MASK.
Hey! merry friend!

SECOND MASK.
Hey ! Merry brother !
THIKD MASK (reiterating with <i cutting tone.)
Merry !
FAUST (breaking out in wild humour, and looking round
among them.
H»»! Merry, tl»en 1

FIRST MASK.
Will any one catch flies t

SECOND MASK.

A long life yet ; to midnight all the way !

THIRD MASK.

And after that, such pleasure without end !

( The 7nusic suddenly ceases, and a clock strikes tAriet.]

TAUST (astonished.)
What is it ?

FIRST MASK.

Wants a quarter, Sir, of twelve!

SFCOND MASK,

Then we have time!

TUIRB MAS.K.

Aye, time enough for jigging.

FIRST MASK.
And not ti?I midnight comes the shot to pay J

FAUST (shuddering.)
What want ye ■?

FIRST MASK (clasps his hand abruptly.y
Hey ! To dance a step with thee !

FAUST (j>luck3 his hand back '
Off :— Fire ! !

FIBST MASK.

Tush ! A spark or so of brimstone t

SSCOND MASK.

Art dreaming, brother?

THIKB MASK.

Holla ! Music, there f
(TTie music begins again in the distance.

FIRST MAS'K {secretly laughing.}
Tbe spleen is biting him !

SECOND MASK.

Hark r at the gallows,
What jovia? footing of it !

THIRD MASK.

Thither must I ! (£z>t)
FIRST MASK.
Below, too ! down in Purgatory t Hear ye 1

S3f.C0NB MASK.

A stirring there ? 'Tis time then ■ Hui, your servant t
FIRST MASK {to FAUST.)

Tilt midnight !

(Exeunt both Masks hastily.)

FAUST {clasping his brow.)

Ha! What begirds me herel {Stepping vehementl%

forward.)
Down with your masks ! (Violent knocking without.)

What horrid uproar, ne.xt !
Is madness coming on me ? —

VOICZ {violently, from without.)

Open, in the king's name !

(The music ceases. Thunderclap.)

FAUST {staggers back.)
I have a heavy dream ! — Sure, 't is not doomsday t

VOICE (as before.)
Here is the murderer ! Open! open, thenS

FAUST (wipes his brow.)
Has agony unmanu'd niel —

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.

135

SCENE EIGHTH.

BAILIFFS.

Where is hel where 1

From these merely terrestrial constables,
the jovial Stranger easily delivers Faust; but
now comes the long-looked-for tete-d-tete with
Helena.

SCENE TWELFTH.

(rwsT leads HELENA on the stage. She also is close
masked. The other Masks withdraw.)

FADST {warm and glowing.)
No longer strive, proud beauty !
HELEXA.

Ila, wild stormer .'

FAUST.

My bosom burns—!

HELENA.

The time is not yet come. —

— And so forth, through four pages of flame
and ice, till at last,

FAUST (insisting.)
Off with the mask, then
, HELENA (still wilder.)

Hey! the marriage-hour !

FAUST.

Off with the mask ! !

'T is striking! !

FAUST.

One kiss!

HELENA. ^

Take it ! !

(The mask and head-dresf fall from her : and she grins
at him from a dea'h's head : loud thunder : and the music
ends, as with a shriek, in dissonances.)

FAUST (staggers back.)

O Horror ! wo !

HELENA.

The conch is ready, there !
Come, Bridegroom, to thy fire-nuptials!

(Shesinks, with a crashing thunder-peal, into the ground,
out of which issue flames.)

All this is bad enough; but mere child's-play
to the " Thirteenth Scene," the last of this
strange eventful history : with some parts of
which we propose to send our readers weep-
ing to their beds.

SCENE THIRTEENTH.

(The sTRANOEll hurls faust, whose face is deadly pale,
hack to the stage, by the hair.)

FAUST.
Ha, let me fly! — Come! Come! —

STRANGER (with wild thundering tone.)

*T ia over now!
FAUST.
Tliat horrid visage! — throwing himself , in a tremor,

on the sttanger's breast.) Thou art mj Friend !
Protect me ! !

STRANGER (laughing aloud.)
Ha. ! ha ! ha !

FAUST.

O, save me ! !
STRANGER (clutches him with irresistible force : whirtg
him round, so that FAUST S face is towards the speetator$,
whilst his own is turned away : and thus he looks at him,
and bawls with thundering voice :)

'T is r. 1 — (a clap of THUNDER. FAUST, with
gestures of deepest horror, rushes to the ground, uttering
an inarticulate cry. The other, after a pause, continues,
with cutting coolness :)

Is that the mighty Hellsubdner,
That threatened me ?— Ha, me ! ! (icith highest con'
tempt.)

Worm of the dust !
I had reserved thy torment for — myself 1 1
Descend to other hands, be sport for slaves —
Thou art too small for me ! I
FAUST (rises erect, and seems to recover his strength.)
Am I not Faust 1
STRANGER.
Thou, no !

FAUST (rising in his whole vehemence.)

Accurspd ! Ha, I am ! I ami
Down at my feet ! I am thy master !

STRANGER.

No more! I
FAUST (wildly.)
More ■? Ha ! My Bargain ! !

STRANGER.

Ia concluded!

FAUST.
Three mortal sins. —

STRANGER.

The Fourth too is committed!

FAUST.
My wife, my child, and my old Father's blood — t t

STRANGER (holds up a Parchment to him.)
And here thy own ! —

FAUST.

That is my covenant!

STRANGER.

This signature^waa thy most damning sin !

FAUST (raging.)
Ha, spirit of lies ! ! Slc, ice.

STRANGER (in highest fury.)
Down, thou accursed !
(He drags him by the hair towards the back-ground ; at
this moment, amid violent thunder and lightning, Ike
scene changes into a horrid wilderness ; in the buck-ground
of which, a yawning Chasm: into this the Devil hurls
Faust ; on all sides Fire rains down, so that the whole in-
terior of the Cavern seems burning : a black veil descends
over both, so sooji as Faust is got under.)

F.*.UST (huzzaing in wild defiance.)
Ha, down ! Down !
(Thunder, lightning, and fire. Both sink. The Curtain
falls.)

On considering all which supernatural trans-
actions, the bewildered reader has no theory
for it, except that Faust must, in Dr. Cabanis's
phrase, have laboured under "obstructions ip
the epigastric region," and all this of the Devii,
and Helena, and so much murder and carous-
ing, have been nothing but a waking dream,
or other atrabilious phantasm ; and regrets
that the poor Printer had not rather applied to
some Abernelhy on the subject, or even, by

136

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

one sufficient dose of Epsom-salt, on his own
prescription, have put an end to the whole
matter, and restored himself to the bosom of
his afflicted family.

Such, then, for Dr. Klins^emann's part, is his
method of constructing Tragedies ; to which
method it may perhaps be objected that there
is a want of originality in it; for do not our own
British Playwrights follow precisely the same
plan ? We might answer that, if not his plan,
at least, his infinitely superior execution of it,
must distinguish Klingemann: but we rather
think his claim to originality rests on a different
ground, on the ground, nameh', of his entire
contentment with himself and with this his
dramaturgy ; and the cool heroism with which,
on all occasions, he avows that contentment.
Here is no poor, cowering, underfoot Play-
wright, begging the public for God's sake not
to give him the whipping which he deserves;
but a bold perpendicular Playwright, avowing
himself as such; nay, mounted on the top of
his joinery, and therefrom exercising a sharp
critical superintendence over the German
Drama generally. Klingemann, we under-
stand, has lately executed a theatrical Tour,
as Don Quixote did various Sallies ; and thrown
stones into most German Playhouses, and at
various German Playwriters ; of which we
have seen only his assault on Tieck ; a feat
comparable perhaps to that "never-imagined
adventure of the Windmills." Fortune, it is
said, favours the bi-ave ; and the prayer of
Burns's Kilmarnock weaver is not always un-
heard of Heaven. In conclusion, we congra-
tulate Dr. Klingemann on his Manager-dignity
Ai the Brunswick Theatre ; a post he seems
made for, almost as Bardolph was for the
Eastcheap waitership.

But now, like his own Ahasuer, Doctor
Klingemann must "go on — on — on ;" for ano-
ther and greater Doctor has been kept too long
waiting, whose seven beautiful volumes of
Dramatische Werke might well secure him a
better fate. Dr. Milliner, of all these Play-
wrights, is the best known in England; some
of his works have even, we believe, been
translated into our language. In his own
country, his fame, or at least notoriety, is also
supreme over all ; no Playwright of this age
makes such a noise as Milliner; nay, many
there are who affirm that he is something far
better than a Playwright. Critics of the sixth
and lower magnitudes, in every corner of Ger-
many, have put the question a thousand times :
Whether Mullner is not a Poet and Dramatist?
To which question, as the higher authorities
maintain an obstinate silence, or, if much
pressed, reply only in groans, these sixth-
magnitude men have been obliged to make
answer themselves ; and they have done it with
an emphasis and vociferation calculated to dis-
pel all remaining doubts in the minds of men.
In Milliner's mind, at least, they have left little ;
a conviction the more excusable, as the play-
going vulgar seem to be almost unanimous in
sharing it; and thunders of applause, nightly
through so many theatres, return him loud
acclaim. Such renown is pleasant food for the
hungry appetite of a man, and naturally he
rolls it as a sweet morsel undet his tongue :

but, after all, it can profit him but little; nay
many times, what is sugar to the taste may ba
sugar-of-lead when it is swallowed. Better
were it for Mullner, we think, had fainter
thunders of applause, and from fewer theatres,
greeted him.. For M'hat good is in it, even
were there no evil? Though a thousand caps
leap into the air at his name, his own slalure
is no hair's breadth higher; neither even can
the final estimate of its height be thereby in
the smallest degree enlarged. From gainsay-
ers these greetings provoke only a stricter
scrutiny ; the matter comes to be accurately
known at last; and he, who has been treated
with foolish liberality at one period, must make
up for it by the want of bare necessaries at
another. No one will deny that Mullner is a
person of some considerable talent: we under-
stand he is, or was once, a Lawyer; and can
believe that he may have acted, and talked,
and written, very prettily in that capacity:
but to set up for a Poet was quite a different
enterprise, in which we reckon that he has
altogether mistaken his road, and these mob-
cheers have led him farther and farther astray.
Several years ago, on the faith of very earn-
est recommendation, it was our lot to read one
of Dr. Milliner's Tragedies, the jilbunilserhm ;
with which, such was its effect on us, we could
willingly enough have terminated our ac-
quaintance with Dr. Mullner. A palpable imi-
tation of Schiller's J'rrmt von Messina : without
any philosophy or feeling that was net either
perfectly comtuonplace or perfectly false, often
both the one and the other; inOated, indeed,
into a certain hollow bulk, but altogether with-
out greatness ; being built throughout on mere
rant and clangour, and other elements of the
most indubitable Prose: such a work could
not but be satisfactory to us respecting Dr.
Milliner's genius as a Poet; and time being
precious, and the world wide enough, we had
privately deterrnined that we and Dr. Mullner
were each henceforth to pursue his own
course. Nevertheless, so considerable has
been the progress of our worthy friend, since
then, both at home and abroad, that his labours
are again forced on our notice : for we reckon
the existence of a true Poet in any country to
be so important a fact, that even the slight pro-
bability of such is worthy of investigation.
Accordingly, we have again perused the Jll'
bavascrinn, and along with it, faithfully ex-
amined the whole Dramatic Avorks of Mullner
published in seven volumes, on beautiful pa-
per, in small shape, and every way very fit for
handling. The whole tragic works, we should
rather say: for three or four of his comic per-
formances sufficiently contented us; and some
two volumes of farces, we confess, are still
unread. We have also carefully gone through,
and with much less difficulty, the Prefaces,
Appendices, and other prose sheets, wherein
the Author exhibits the "/«/a Ubdli" defends
himself from unjust criticisms, reports just
ones, or himself makes such. The toils of
this task we shall not magnify, well knowing
that man's life is a fight throughout: only
having now gathered what light is to be had on
this matter, we proceed to speak forth our ver«
diet thereon ; fondly hoping that we shall then

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS,

13'

have done with it, for an indefinite period of
time.

Dr. Milliner, then, we must take liberty to
believe, in spite of all that has been said or
sung on the subject, is no Dramatist; has never
written a Tragedy, and in all human probabi-
lity will never write one. Grounds for this
harsh, negative opinion, did the " burden of
proof" lie chiefly on our side, we might state
in extreme abundance. There is one ground,
however, which, if our observation be correct,
would virtually include all the rest. Dr. Milli-
ner's whole soul and character, to the deepest
root we can trace of it, seems prosaic, not
poetical; his Dramas, therefore, like whatever
else he produces, must be manufactured, not
created; nay, we think that his principle of
manufacture is itself rather a poor and second-
hand one. Vain were it for any reader to
search in these seven volumes for an opinion
any deeper or clearer, a yentiment any finer or
higher, than may conveniently belong to the
commonest practising advocate : except stilting
heroics, which the man himself half knows to
be false, and every other man easily waives
aside, there is nxithing here to disturb the qui-
escence of either heart or head. This man is
a Doctor Ulmitsque Juris, most probably of good
juristic talent; and nothing more whatever.
His language, too, all accurately measured
into feet, and good current German, so far as a
foreigner may judge, bears similar testimony.
Except the rhyme and metre, it exhibits no
poetical symptom ; without being verbose, it is
essentially meager and watery; no idiomatic
expressiveness, no melody, no virtue of any
kind; the commonest vehicle for the com-
monest meaning. Not that our Doctor is dcG-
titute of metaphors and other rhetorical further-
ances ; but that these also are of the most
trivial character: old threadbare material,
scoured up into a state of shabby-gentility;
mostly turning on "light" and "darkness;"
" flashes through clouds," " fire of heart,"
"tempest of soul," and the like, which can
profit no man or woman. In short, we must
repeat it. Dr. Milliner has yet to show that
there is any particle of poetic metal in him;
that his genius is other than a sober clay-pit,
from which good bricks may be made ; but
where, to look for gold or diamonds were sheer
waste of labour.

When we think of our own Malurin and
Sheridan Knowles, and the gala-day of popu-
larity which they also once enjoyed with us,
we can be at no loss for the genus under which
Dr. Milliner is to be included in critical physi-
ology. Nevertheless, in marking him as a dis-
tinct Playwright, we are bound to mention
that in general intellectual talent he shows
himself very considerably superior to his two
German brethren. He has a much better taste
than Klingemann; rejecting the aid of plush
and gunpowder, we may say, altogether; is
even at the pains to rhyme great part of his
Tragedies; and on the whole, writes with a
certain care and decorous composure, to which
the Brunswick Manager seems totally indif-
ferent. Moreover, he appears to surpass
Grillparzer, as well as Klingemann, in a cer-
tain force both of judgment and passion ;
18

which indeed is no very mighty afiair; Grill-
parzer being naturally but a treble pipe in
these matters ; and Klingemann blowing
through such an enormous coach-horn, that
the natural note goes for nothing, becomes a
mere vibration in that all-subduing volume of
sound. At the same time,it is singular enough
thatneither Grillparzer nor Klingemann should
be nearly so tough reading as Milliner, which,
however, we declare to be the fact. As to
Klingemann, he is even an amusing artist;
there is such a briskness and heart in him ; so
rich is he, nay, so exuberant in riches, so full
of explosions, fire-flashes, execrations, and all
manner of catastrophes : and then, good soul,
he asks no atienlion from us, knows his trade
better than to dream of asking any. Grill-
parzer again is a sadder and perhaps a wiser
companion ; long-winded a little, but peaceable
and soft-hearted: his melancholy, even when
he pules, is in the highest degree inoffensive,
and we can often weep a tear or two for him,
if not with him. But of all Tragedians, may
the indulgent Heavens deliver us from any
farther traffic with Dr. Milliner! This is the
lukewarm, which we could wish to be either
cold or hot. Milliner will not keep us awake,
while we read him ; yet neither will he, like
Klingemann, let us fairly get asleep. Ever
and anon, it is as if we came into some smooth
quiescent country; and the soul flatters herself
that here at last she may be allowed to fall
back on her cushions, the eyes meanwhile,
like two safe postillions, comfortably conduct-
ing her through that flat region, in which are
nothing but flax-crops and milestones; and
ever and anon some jolt or unexpected noise
fatally disturbs her; and looking out, it is no
waterfall or mountain chasm, but only the vil-
lanous highway, and squalls of October wind.
To speak without figure. Dr. Milliner does
seem to us a singularly oppressive writer; and
perhaps, for this reason, that he hovers too
near the verge of good writing; ever tempting
us with some hope that here is a touch of poe-
try; and ever disappointing us with a touch
of pure Prose. A stately sentiment comes
tramping forth with a clank that sounds poetic
and heroic: we start in breathless expectation,
waiting to reverence the heavenly guest ; and,
alas, he proves to be but an old stager dressed
in new buckram, a stager well known to us,
nay, often a stager that has already been drum-
med out of most well-regulated communities.
So it is ever with Dr. Milliner: no feeling can
be traced much deeper in him than the tongue ;
or perhaps when we search more strictly, in-
stead of an ideal of beauty, we shall find some
vague aim after strength, or in defect of this,
after mere size. And yet how cunningly
he manages the counterfeit ! A most plausible,
fair-spoken, close-shaven man ; a man whom
you must not, for decency's-sake, throw out of
the window; and yet you feel that being pal-
pably a Turk in grain, his intents are wicked
and not charitable !

But the grand question with regard to Milli-
ner, as with regard to these other Playwrights,
is: where lies his peculiar sleight of hand in
this craft? Let us endeavour,then, to find out
his secret, — his recipe for play-making; anj
M 2

138

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRfTINGS.

communicate the same for behoof of the British
nation. Milliner's recipe is no mysterious
one ; floats, indeed, on the very surface : might
even be taught, one would suppose, on a few
trials, to the humblest capacity. Our readers
may perhaps recollect Zacharias Werner, and
some short allusion,- in our First Number, to a
highly terrific piece of his, entitled 77tc Tweniy-
fourih of February. A more detailed account
of the matter may be found in Madame de
Stael's AUemni^ne : in the Chapter which treats
of that infatuated Zacharias generally. It is a
story of a Swiss peasant and bankrupt, called
Kurt Kuruh, if we mistake not; and of his
wife, and a rich travelling stranger, lodged
with them; which latter is, in the night of the
Twenty-fourth of February, wilfully and felo-
niously murdered by the two former, and
proves himself in the act of dying to be their
own only son, who had returned home to make
them all comfortable, could they only have had
a little patience. But the foul deed is already
accomplished, with a rusty knife or scythe;
and nothing of course remains but for the
whole batch to go to perdition. For it was
written, as the Arabs say, "on the iron leaf;"
these Kuruhs are doomed men ; old Kuruh, the
grandfather, had committed some sin or other;
for which, like the sons of Atreus, his descend-
ants are "prosecuted with the utmost rigour:"
nay, so punctilious is Destiny, that this very
Twenty-fourth of February, the day when that
old sin was enacted, is still a fatal day with
the family; and this very knife or scythe, the
criminal tool on that former occasion, is ever
the instrument of new crime and punishment;
the Kuruhs, during all that half century, never
having carried it to the smithy to make hob-
nails; but kept it hanging on a peg, most inju-
diciously we think, almost as a sort of bail
and bonus to Satan, a ready-made fulcrum for
whatever machinery he might bring to bear
against them. This is the tragic lesson taught
in Werner's Twenty-fourth of February ; and, as
the whole dramntis pcrsorxp are either stuck
through with old iron, or hanged in hemp, it is
surely taught with some considerable em-
phasis.

Werner's Play was brought out at Weimar,
in 1809 ; under the direction or permission, as
he brags, of the great Goethe himself; and
seems to have produced no faint impression
on a discerning public. It is, in fact, a piece
nowise destitute of substance and a certain
coarse vigour: and if any one has so obstinate
a heart that he must absolutely stand in a
slaughter-house, or within wind of the gallows
before tears will come, it may have a very
comfortable effect on him. One symptom of
merit it must be admitted to exhibit, — an adap-
tation to the general taste; for the small fibre
of originality, which exists here, has already
shot forth into a whole wood of imitations.
We understand that the Fate-line is now quite
an established branch of dramatic business in
Germany: they have their Fate-dramatists, just
as we have our gingham-weavers, and inkle-
weavers. Of this Fate-manufacture we have
already seer, one sample in Grillparzer's Jlhti-
frau ; but by far the most extensive Fate-
manufacturer, the head and prince of all Fate-

dramatists, is the Dr. Milliner, at present un-
der consideration. Miillner deals in Fate and
Fate only; it is the basis and staple of his
whole tragedy-goods ; cut off this one princi-
ple, you annihilate his raw material, and he
can manufacture no more.

Milliner acknowledges his obligations to
Werner; but, we think, not half warmly
enough. Werner was in fact the making of
him; great as he has now become, our Doctor
is nothing but a mere misletoe growing from
that poor oak, itself already half-dead; had
there been no Twen'y-fourth of February, ihere
were then no Twenty-ninth of February, no
Schuld, no JJlbandserinn, most probably no
Konig Yngrird. For the reader is to under-
stand that Dr. Milliner, already a middle-aged,
and as yet a perfectly undramatic man, began
business with a direct copy of this Tweniy-
fourih; a thing proceeding by Destiny, and
ending in murder, by a knife or scythe, as in
the Kui'uh case ; with one improvement, in-
deed, that there was a grinding-stone intro-
duced into the scene, and the spectator had
the satisfaction of seeing the knife previously
whetted. The Author too was honest enough
publicly to admit his imitation ; for he named
this Play, the Twenty-ninth of February : and,
in his Preface, gaVe thanks, though somewhat
reluctantly, to Werner, as to his master and
originator. For some inscrutable reason, this
Twenty-ninth was not sent to the green-grocer,
but became popular: there was even the
weakest of parodies written on it, entitlea
Ewneiiides Duster, (Eumenides Gloomy,) which
Miillner has reprinted; there was likewise "a
wish expressed " that the termination might
be made joyous, not grievous ; with which
wish also, the indefatigable wright has com-
plied ; and so, for the benefit of weak nerves,
we have the Wahn, (Delusion,) which still
ends in tears, but glad ones. In short, our
Doctor has a peculiar merit with this Twinty-
ninth of his; for who but he could have cut a
second and a third face on the same cherry-
stone, said cherry-stone having first to be
borrowed, or indeed half-stolen?

At this point, however. Dr. Milliner ap-
parently began to set up for himself; and ever
henceforth he endeavours to persuade his own
mind and ours that his debt to Werner ter-
minates here. Nevertheless clear it is that
fresh debt was every day contrac.'ing. For
had not this one Wernerean idea taken com-
plete hold of the Doctor's mind, — so that he
was quite possessed with it; had, we might
say, no other tragic idea whatever ' That a
man, on a certain day of the month, shall fall
into crime; for which an invisible Fate shall
silently pursue him;, punishing the transgres-
sion, most probably on the same day of the
month, annually (unless, as in the Tiveniy-
ninth, it be leap-year, and Fate in this may be,
to a certain extent, bilked; and never resting
till the poor wight himself, and perhaps his
last descendant, shall be swept away with the
besom of destruction : such, more or less dis-
guised, frequently without any disguise, is the
tragic essence, the vital principle, natural
or galvanic we are not deciding, of all Dr.
Milliner's Dramas. Thus, iu thai everlasting

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.

139

Twenty-ninlh of February, we have the principle
ill its naked state: some old Woodcutter or
Forester has fallen into deadly sin with his
wife's sister, long ago, on that intercalary day;
and so his whole progeny must, wittingly or
unwittingly, proceed in incest and murder;
the day of the catastrophe regularly occurring,
every four years, on that same Twenty-ninth ;
till happily the whole are murdered, and there
is an end. So likewise in the Schuhl, (Guilt,) a
much more ambitious performance, we have
exactly the same doctrine of an anniversary;
and the interest once more turns on that
delicate business of murder and incest. In the
jlllinnuaeniiii, (Fair Albanese,) again, which
may have the credit, such as it is, of being
Milliner's best Play, we find the Fate-theory a
little coloured ; as if the drug had begun to
disgust, and the Doctor would hide it in a
spoonful of syrup : it is a dying man's curse
that operates on the criminal; which curse,
being strengthened by a sin of very old stand-
ing in the family of the cursee, takes singular
effect; the parties only weathering parricide,
fratricide, and the old story of incest, by two
self-banishments, and two very decisive self-
murders. Nay, it seems as if our Doctor
positively could not act at all without this
Fate-panacea: in A'o/n? Yngiird, we might
almost think that he had made such an at-
tempt, and found that it would not do. This
KiJnig Yngurd,an imaginary Peasant-King of
Norway, is meant, as we are kindly informed,
to present us with some adumbration of Na-
poleon Bonaparte ; and truly, for the two or
three first Acts, he goes along with no small
gallantry, in what drill-sergeants call a dash-
ing or swashing style; a very virtuous kind
of man, and as bold as Ruy Diaz or any other
Christian: when suddenly in the middle of a
battle, far on in the Play, he is seized with
some caprice, or whimsical qualm; retires to
a solitary place, among rocks, and there, in
the most gratuitous manner, delivers himself
over, viva voce, to the Devil; who indeed does
not appear personally to take seisin of him,
but yet, as afterwards comes to light, has with
great readiness accepted the gift. For now
Yngurd grows dreadfully sulky and wicked,
does little henceforth but bully men and kill
them; till at length, the measure of his ini-
quities being full, he himself is bullied and
killed; and the Author, carried through by
this his sovereign tragic elixir, contrary to ex-
pectation, terminates his piece with reasonable
comfort.

This, then, is Dr. Milliner's dramatic mys-
tery; this is the one patent hook by which he
would hang his clay tragedies on the upper
spiritual world; and so establish for himself
a free communication, almost as if by block-
and-tackle, between the visible Prose Earth
and the invisible Poetic Heaven. The greater
or less merit of this his invention, or rather
improvement, for Werner is the real patentee,
has given rise, we understand, to extensive
argument. The small deer of criticism seem
to be much divided in opinion on this point;
and the higher orders, as we have stated, de-
clining to throw any light whatever on it, the
subject is slill mooting with great animation.

For our own share, we confess that we incline
to rank it as a recipe for dramatic tears, a
shade higher than the Page's split onion ia
the Taming of the Slircw. Craftily hid in the
handkerchief, this onion was sufficient for the
deception of Christopher Sly; in that way at-
taining its object ; which, al;;o, the Fate-inven-
tion seems to have done with the Christopher
Slys of Germany, and these not one but many,
and therefore somewhat harder to deceive.
To this onion-superiority we think Dr. M. is
fairly entitled ; and with this it were, perhaps,
good for him that he remained content.

Dr. Milliner's Fate-scheme has been attacked
by certain of his traducers on the score of its
hostility to the Christian religion. Languish-
ing, indeed, should we reckon the condition
of the Christian religion to be, could Dr. Milli-
ner's play-joinery produce any perceptible
effect on it. Nevertheless, we may remark,
since the matter is in hand, that this business
of Fate does seem to us nowise a Christian
doctrine; not even a Mohammedan or Heathen
one. The Fate of the Greeks, though a false,
was a lofty hypothesis, and harmonized suf-
ficiently with the whole sensual and material
structure of their theology: a ground of deep-
est black, on which that gorgeous phantas
magoria was filly enough painted. Besides,
with them, the avenging Power dwelt, at least
in its visible manifestations, among the high
places of the earth ; visiting only kingly houses,
and world's criminals, from whom it might be
supposed the world, but for such miraculous in-
terferences, could have exacted no vengeance,
or found no protection and purification. Never,
that we recollect of, did the Erinnyes become
mere sheriffs'-officers, and Fate a justice of
the peace, haling poor drudges to the tread-
mill for robbery of henroosts, or scattering the
earth with steel-traps to keep down poaching.
And ivhat has all this to do with the revealed
Providence of these days ; that power whose
path is emphatically through the great deep;
his doings and plans manifested, in complete-
ness, not by the year, or by the century, on in-
dividuals or on nations, but stretching through
eternity, and over the infinitude which he rules
and sustains 1

But there needs no recourse to theological
arguments for judging this Fate-tenet of Dr.
Milliner's. Its value, as a dramatic principle,
may be estimated, it seems to us, by this one
consideration : that in these days no person of
either sex in the slightest degree believes it;
that Dr. Milliner himself does not believe it.
We are not contending that fiction should be-
come fact, or that no dramatic incident is
genuine, unless it could be sworn to before a
jury; but simply that fiction should not be
falsehood and delirium. How shall any one
in the drama, or in poetry of any sort, preseii*
a consistent philosophy of life, which is the
soul and ultimate essence of all poetry, if he
and every mortal know that the whole moral
basis of his ideal world is a lie ' And is it
other than a lie that man's life is, or was, or
could be, grounded on this pettifogging princi-
ple of a Fate that pursues woodcutters and
cowherds with miraculous visitations, on stated
days of the month 1 Can we, with any profiti

140

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

bold the mirror up to Nature in this wise 1
When our mirror is no mirror, but only as it
were a nursery saucepan, and that long since
grown rusty 1

We might add, were it of any moment in
this case, that we reckon Dr. Milliner's tragic
knack altogether insufficient for a still more
comprehensive reason ; simply for the reason
that it is a knack, a recipe, or secret of the
craft, which, could it be never so excellent,
must by repeated use degenerate into a man-
nerism, and therefore into a nuisance. But
iierein lies the difference between creation
and manufacture; the latter has its manipula-
tions, its secret processes, which can be learned
by apprenticeship; the former has not. For
in poetry we have heard of no secret possess-
ing the smallest effectual virtue, except this
one general secret: that the poet be a man of
a purer, higher, richer nature than other men ;
which higher nature shall itself, after earnest
inquiry, have taught him the proper form for
imbodying its inspirations, as indeed the im-
perishable beauty of these will shine, with
more or less distinctness, through any form
whatever.

Had Dr. Miillner any visible pretension to
this last great secret, it might be a duty to
dwell longer and more gravely on his minor
ones, however false and poor. As he has no
such pretension, it appears to us that for the
present we may take our leave. To give any
further analysis of his individual dramas would
be an easy task, but a stupid and thankless
one. A Harrison's watch, though this too is
but an earthly machine, may be taken asunder
with some prospect of scientific advantage;
but who would spend time in screwing and
unscrewing the mechanism of ten pepper-
mills? Neither shall we offer any extract, as
a specimen of the diction and sentiment that
reigns in these dramas. We have said already
that it is fair, well-ordered stage-sentiment this
of his; that the diction too is good, well-
scanned, grammatical diction ; no fault to be
found with either, except that they pretend to
be poetry, and are throughout the most un-
adulterated prose. To exhibit this fact in
extracts would be a vain undertaking. Not
the few sprigs of heath, but the thousand acres
of it, characterize the wilderness. Let any
one who covets a trim heath-nosegay, clutch
at random into Milliner's seven volumes; for
ourselves, we would not deal further in that
article.

Besides his dramatic labours, Dr. Miillner is
known to the public as a journalist. For some
considerable time, he has edited a literary news-
paper of his own originating, the Miltemnchf-
Blatt (Midnight Paper); stray leaves of which
we occasionally look into. In this last capacity,
we are happy to observe, he shows to much
more advantage; indeed, the journalistic office
seems quite natural to him ; and would he take
any advice from us, which he will not, here
u^erc the arena in which, and not in the Fate-
drama, he would exclusively continue to fence,
for his bread or glory. He is not without a
vein of small wit; a certain degree of drollery
there is, and grinning half-risible, half-impu-
flent- he has a fair hand at the feebler sort o'"

lampoon : the German Joe Millers also seera
familiar to him, and his skill in the riddle is
respectable; so that altogether, as we said, he
makes a superior figure in this line, which in-
deed is but despicably managed in Germany,
and his Muiermicld-Blult is, by several degrees,
the most readable paper of its kind we meet with
in that country. Not that we, in the abstract,
much a''mire Dr. Milliner's newspaper pro-
cedure ; nis style is merely the common-tavern-
style, familiar enough in our own periodical
literature; riotous, blustering, with some tinc-
ture of blackguardism ; a half-dishonest style,
and smells considerably of tobacco and spiritu-
ous liquor. Neither do we find that there is
the smallest fraction of valuable knowledge or
opinion communicated in the Midnight Paper;
indeed, except it be the knowledge and opinion
that Dr. Milliner is a great dramatist, and that all
who presume to think otherwise are insufficient
members of society, we cannot charge our
memory with having gathered any knowledge
from it whatever. It may be, too, that Dr.
Miillner is not perfectly original in his journal-
istic manner: we have sometimes felt as if his
light were, to a certain extent, a borrowed one ;
a rushlight kindled at the great pitch link of
our own Blackwood'' s Magazine. But on thiS
point we cannot take upon us to decide.

One of Milliner's regular journalistic articles
is the Kricgszeilvng, or War-intelligence, of all
the paper-battles, feuds, defiances, and private
assassinations, chiefly dramatic, which occur
in the more distracted portion of the German
Literary Republic. This Kriegszeilung Dr.
Milliner evidently writes with great gusto, in
a lively braggadocia manner, especially when
touching on his own exploits; yet to us, it is
far the most melancholy part of the MitfernaclU-
Blatt. Alas! this is not what we search for in
a German newspaper; how "Herr Sapphir, or
Herr Carbuncle, or so many other Herren
Dousterswivel, are all busily molesting one
another ! We ourselves are pacific men ; make
a point " to shun discrepant circles rather than
seek them:" and how sad is it to hear of so
many illustrious-obscure persons living in
foreign parts, and hear only, what was well
known without hearins^, that they also are in-
stinct with the spirit of Satan ! For what is
the bone that these Journalists, in Berlin and
elsewere, are worrying over; what is the ulti-
mate purpose of all this barking and snarling ^
Sheer love of fight, you would say; simply to
make one another's life a liltk bitterer, as if
Fate had not been cross enough to the hap-
piest of them. Were there any perceptible
subject of dispute, any doctrine to advocate,
even a false one, it would 'be something; but
so far as we can discover, M'hether from Sap-
phire and Company, or the "Nabob ci Weis-
senfels," (our own worthy Doctor,) there is
none. And is this their appointed function 1
Are Editors scattered over the country, and
supplied with victuals and fuel, purely to bite
one another"! Certainly not. But these Journal-
ists, we think, are like the Academician's
colony of spiders. This French virtuoso had
found that cobwebs were worth something
could even be woven into silk stockings
whereupon, he exhibits a very handsome pair

GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.

141

of cobweb hose to the Academy, is encouraged
to proceed with the manufacture,- and so col-
lects some half-bushel of spiders, and puts
them down in a spacious loft, with every con-
venience for making silk. But will the vicious
creatures spin a thread? In place of it, they
take to fighting with their whole vigour,
in contempt of the poor Academician's utmost
exertions to part them: and end not, till there
is simply one spider left living, and not a shred
of cobweb woven, or thenceforth to be ex-
pected! Could the weavers of paragraphs,
like these of the cobweb, fairly exterminate
ai>d silence one another, it would perhaps be
a little more supportable. But an Editor is
made of sterner stulT. In general cases, in-
deed, when the brains are out, the man will
die : but it is a well known fact in Joiirnalistics,
that a man may not only live, but support wife
and children by his labours, in this line, years
after the brain (if there ever was any) has
been completely abstracted, or reduced, by
time and hard usage, into a state of dry
powder. What then is to be done? Is there
no end to this brawling; and will the unpro-
fitable noise endure for ever? By way of
palliative, we have sometimes imagined that a
Congress of all German Editors might be ap-
pointed, by proclamation, in some central spot,
say the Niirnberg Market-place, if it would
hold them all: here we would humbly suggest
that the whole Joumnlislik might assemble on
a given day, and under the eye of proper
marshals, sufficiently and satisfactorily horse-
whip one another simultaneously, each his
neighbour, till the very toughest had enough
both of whipping and of being whipped. In
this V. ay, it seems probable, little or no injus-
tice would be done: and each Journalist,
cleared of gall, for several months, might re-
turn home in a more composed frame of mind,
and betake himself with new alacrity to the
real duties of his olTice.

But, enough! enough! The humour of
these men maybe infectious; it is not good
for us to be here. Wandering over the Ely-
sian fields of German Literature, not watch-
ing the gloomy discords of its Tartarus, is
what we wish to be employed in. Let the
iron gate again close, and shut in the pallid
kingdoms from view; we gladly revisit the

upper air. Not in despite towards the German
nation, which we love honestly, have we spo-
ken thus of these its Playwrights and Jour-
nalists. Alas! when we look around us at
home, we feel too well that the Germans might
say to us, — Neighbour, sweep thy own floor'.
Neither is it with any hope of bettering the
existence of these three individual Poetasters,
still less with the smallest shadow of wish to
maliC it more miserable, that we have spoken.
After all, there must be Playwrights, as wc
have said : and these are among the best of
the class. So long as it pleases them to manu-
factuie in this line, and any body of German
Thebans to pay them, in grosrhen or plaudits,
for their ware, let both parlies persist in so
doing, and fair befall them ! But the duty of
Foreign Reviewers is of a two-fold sort. For
not only are we stationed on the coast of the
country, as watchers and spials, to report-
whatsoever remarkable thing becomes visible
in the distance ; but we stand there also as a
sort of Tide-waiters and Preventive-service-
men, to contend, with our utmost vigour, that
no improper article be landed. These offices,
it would seem, as in the material world, so
also in the literary and spiritual, usually fall
to the lot of aged, invalided, impoverished, or
otherwise decayed persons ; but this is little to
the matter. As true British subjects, with
ready will, though it may be, with our last
strength, we are here to discharge that double
duty. Movements, we observe, are making
along the beach, and signals out sea-wards, as
if these Klingemaims and Milliners were to
be landed on our soil : but through the
strength of heaven this shall not be done, till
the "most thinking people" know what it is
that is landing. For the rest, if any one wishes
to import that sort of produce, and finds it
nourishing for his inward man, let him do so,
and welcome. Only let him understand that
it is not German Literature he is swallowing,
but the froth and scum of German Literature;
which scum, if he will only wait, we can fur-
ther promise him that he may, ere long, enjoy
in the new, and perhaps cheaper, form of sedi-
ment. And so let every one be active for him-
self.

J'lTncli ist es Tag-, da rilhre sich der Mann,
Die JVacht tritt ein, wo niemand wirken kann.

let

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

VOLTAIUE.*

[Foreign Review, 1829.]

CouLT) ambition always choose its own path,
and were will in human undertakings synony-
mous with faculty, all truly ambitious men
would be men of letters. Certainly, if we
examine that love of power, which enters so
largely into most practical calculations, nay,
■which our Utilitarian friends have recognised
as the sole end and origin, both motive and
reward, of ail earthly enterprises, animating
alike the philanthropist, the conqueror, the
money-changer, and the missionary, we shall
find that all other arenas of ambition, com-
pared with this rich and boundless one of
Literature, meaning thereby whatever respects
the promulgation of Thought, are poor, limited,
and ineffectual. For dull, unreflective, mere-
ly instinctive as the ordinary man may seem,
he has nevertheless, as a quite indispensable
appendage, a head that in some degree con-
siders and computes ; a lamp or rushlight of
understanding has been given him, which,
through whatever dim, besmoked, and strange-
ly diffractive media it may shine, is the ulti-
mate guiding light of his whole path; and
here, as well as there, now as at all times in
man's history, Opinion rules the world.

Curious it is, moreover, to consider, in this
respect, how dilTerent appearance is from
reality, and under what singular shape and
circumstances the truly most important man
of any given period might be found. Could
some Asmodeus, b}^ simply waiving his arm,
open asunder the meaning of the Present,
even so far as the Future will disclose it, how
much more marvellous a sight should we
have, than that mere bodily one through the
roofs of Madrid ! For we know not what we
are, any more than what we shall be. It is a
high, solemn, almost awful thought for every
individual man, that his earthly influence,
which has had a commencement, will never
through all ages, were he the very meanest
of us, have an end! What is done is done;
has already blended itself with the boundless,
ever-living, ever-working Universe, and will
also work there, for good or for evil, openly
or secretly, throughout all time. But the hTe
of every man is as the well-spring of a stream,
whose small beginnings are indeed plain to
all, but whose ulterior course and destination,
as it winds through the expanses of infinite
years, only the Omniscient can discern. Will
it mingle with neighbouring rivulets, as a
tributary; or receive them as their sovereign ]

* Mcmoires sur Voltaire, tt. snr ses Ouvratres, par Lonff-
chaiiip el IVnrrviirc, nes Secretaires ; suiois de divers
E'crits inedits de la Marquise du Clifitclet. da President
Hevaiilt, ^-c., totis relatifs t'l Vidtaire. (Memoirs coii-
cernin;; Voltaire ^nd his Works, hy Loii^'charnp anA
*':iiriii6ro. his Secretaries; wi'Ii various unpublished
pieies liy tiie Marquise du Chatelet, ftc, all relating to
Voliaire.) 2 Tomes. Paris, 18S6.

Is it to be a nameless brook, and will its tiny
waters, among millions of other brooks and
rills, increase the current of some world's-
riverl Or is it to be itself a Rhine or Danaw,
whose goings forth are to the uttermost lands,
its flood an everlasting boundary-line on the
globe itself, the bulwark and highway of
whole kingdoms and continents? We know
not : only in either case, we know its path is
to the great ocean : its waters, were they but
a handful, are here, and cannot be annihilated
or permanently held back.

As little can we prognosticate, with any
certainty, the future influences from the pre-
sent aspects of an individual. How many
Demagogues, Croesuses, Conquerors fill their
own age with joy or terror, with a tumult that
promises to be perennial ; and in the next
age die away into insignificance and oblivion !_
These are the forests of gourds, that overtop
the infant cedars and aloe-ti-ees, but, like the
Prophet's gourd, wither on the third' day.
What was it to the Pharaohs of Egypt, in that
old era, if Jethro the Midianitish priest and
grazier accepted the Hebrew outlaw as his
herdsman ] Yet the Pharaohs, with all their
chariots of war, are buried deep in the v; recks
of time; and that Moses still lives, not among
his own tribe only, but in the hearts and daily
business of all civilized nations. Or figure
Mahomet, in his youthful years, " travelling to
the horse-fairs of Syria !" Nay, to take an
infinitely higher instance, who has ever for-
gotten those lines of Tacitus ; inserted as a
small, transitory, altogether trifling circum-
stance in tlie history'of such a potentate as
Nerol To us it is the most earnest, sad, and
sternly significant passage that Ave know to
exist in writing: Ergo abolcndo ruiiwri Nero
suhdidit reos, el queEsitissiniis pcoiis ajfrclt, qiws
per Jlagitia invisos, vnlgus CuniSTiANos appclla-
bat. Audor nominis ejus CnnisTUS, qui, Tibcrio
irnpcritante, per Procuralorem Pontium Pilatum
siipplicio ajfechts erat. Peprcssaque in prcesens
e.vitiabilis supcrgtilio rursns erumpebat, noii modo
per Judeeiim origincm ejus mali, sed per urbern
etiam, quo ciinria undique alrociii uut pudenda
ronjluunt, celcbran'urque. " So, for the quieting
of this rumour,* rJero judicially charged with
the crime, and punished with most studied
severities, that class, hated for their general
wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians.
The originator of that name was one Christ,
who, in the reign of Tiberius, suflTered death
by sentence of the procurator. Pontius Pilate.
The baneful superstition, thereby repressed
for the time, again, broke out, not only ovei
Judea, the native soil of that mischief, but
in the City also, where from every side alJ

* Of his having set fire to Rome.

VOLTAIRE.

143

atrocious and abominable things collect and j heaps of straw !" For here, as always, it
flourish."* Tacitus was the wisest, most pene- continues true, that the deepest force is the
trating man of his generation; and to such I stillest; that, as in the Fable, the mild shining

depth, and no deeper, has he seen into this
transaction, the most important that has oc-
curred or can occur in the annals of mankind.
Nor is it only to those primitive ages, when
religions took their rise, and a man of pure
and high mind appeared not merely as a
teacher and philosopher, but as a priest and
prophet, that our observation applies. The
same uncertainly, in estimating present things
and men, holds more or less in all times ; for
in all times, even in those which seem most
trivial, and open to research, human society
rests on inscrutably deep foundations; which
he is of all others the most mistaken, who
fancies he has explored to the bottom. Neither
is that sequence, which we love to speak of
as "a chain of causes," properly to be figured
as a "chain," or line, but rather as a tissue,
or superficies of innumerable lines, extending
in breadth as well as in length, and with a
complexity, which will foil and utterly be-
wilder the most assiduous computation. In
fact, the wisest of us must, for by far the most
part, judge like the simplest; estimate im-
portance by mere magnitude, and expect that
what strongly affects our own generation, will
strongly affect those that are to follow. In this
way it is that conquerors and political revo-
lutionists come to figure as so mighty in their
influences; whereas truly there is no class of
persons, creating such an uproar in the world,
who in the long run produce so very slight an
impression on its affairs. When Tamerlane
had finished building his pyramid of seventy
thousand human skulls, and was seen " stand-
ing at the gate Damascus, glittering, in steel,
with his battle-axe on his shoulder," till his
fierce hosts filed out to new victories and new
carnage, the pale onlooker might have fancied
that Nature was in her death-throes ; for havoc
and despair had taken possession of the earth,
the sun of manhood seemed setting in seas of
blood. Yet, it might be, on that very gala-day
of Tamerlane, a little hoy was playing nine-
pins on the streets of Mentz, whose history
was more important to men than that of
twenty Tamerlanes. The Tartar Khan, with
his shaggy demons of the wilderness, "passed
away like a whirlwind" to be forgotten for
ever; and that German artisan has wrought
a benefit, which is yet immeasurably expand-
ing itself, and will continue to expand itself
through all countries and through all times.
What are the conquests and expeditions of the
whole corporation of captains, from Walter
the Pennylcss to Napoleon Bonaparte, com-
pared with these " movable types" of Johannes
Faust 1 Truly, it is a mortifying thing for
your Conqueror to reflect, how perishable is
the metal which he hammers with such vio-
lence : huw the kind earth will soon shroud
up his bloody footprints; and all that he
achieved and skilfully piled together will be
but like his own " canvas city " of a camp, —
this evening loud with life, to-morrow all
BUTJck and vanished, "a few earth-pits and

♦ Tacit. Annal. xv. 44.

of the sun shall silently accomplish what the
fierce blustering of the tempest has in vain
essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in
mind, that not by material, but by moral powefj
are men and their actions governed. How
noiseless is thought! No rolling of drums, no
tramp of squadrons, or immeasurable tumult
of baggage-wagons, attends its movements: in
what obscure and sequestered places may the
head be meditating, which is one day to be
crowned with more than imperial authority;
for Kings and Emperors will be among its
ministering servants; it will rule not over,
but in all heads, and with these its solitary
combinations of ideas, as with magic formulas
bend the world to its will ! The time may
come, when Napoleon himself will be better
known for his laws than for his battles; and
the victory of Waterloo prove less momentous
than the opening of the first Mechanics' In-
stitute.

We have been led into such rather \rite re-
flections, by these volumes of Memoirs nn Vol-
taire: a man in whose history the relative im-
portance of intellectual and physical power is
again curiously evinced. 'I'his also (vas a
private person, by birth nowise an elevated
one ; yet so far as present knowledge will ena-
ble us to judge, it may be said, that to abstract
Voltaire and his activity from the eight«^enth
century, were to produce a greater difleience
in the existing figure of things, than the want
of any other individual, up to this day, could
have occasioned. Nay, with the single excep-
tion of Luther, there is, perhaps, in these
modern ages, no other man of a merely intel-
lectual character, whose influence and reputa-
tion have become so entirely European as that
of Voltaire. Indeed, like the great German
Reformer's, his doctrines too, almost from the
first, have affected not only the belief of the
thinking world, silently propagating themselves
from mind to mind ; but in a high degree also,
the conduct of the active and political world ;
entering as a distinct element into some of the
most fearful civil convulsions which European
history has on record.

Doubtless, to his own contemporaries, to such
of them at least as had any insight intc tlif
actual state of men's minds, Voltaire already
appeared as a note-worthy and decidedly his-
torical personage: yet, perhaps, not the wildest
of his admirers \'entured to assign him such a
magnitude as he now figures in, even with his
adversaries and detractors. He has grown in
apparent importance, as we receded from him,
as the nature of his endeavours became more
and more visible in their results. For, unlike
many great men, hut like all great agitators,
Voltaire everywhere shows liimself emphHti*
cally as the man of his century: uniting in his
own person whatever spiritual accomplish,
ments were most valued by that age; at the
same time, with no depth to discern its ulterior
tendencies, still less with any magnanimity to
attempt withstanding these, his greatness and
his littleness alike fitted him to produce an im-
i mediate efl^ect; for he leads whither the muUi-

144

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

tude was of itself dimly minded to run, and
keeps the van not less by skill in commandinff,
than by cuiinine: in obeying. Besides, now
that we look on the matter from some distance,
the efforts of a thousand coadjutors and disci-
ples, nay, a series of mighty political vicissi-
tudes, in the production of which these efforts
had but a subsidiary share, have all come, na-
turally in such a case, to appear as if exclu-
sively his work ; so that he rises before us as
the paragon and epitome of a whole spiritual
period, now almost passed away, yet remarka-
ble in itself, and more than ever interesting to
us, who seem to stand, as it were, on the con-
fines of a new and better one.

Nay, had we forgotten that ours is the " Age
of the Press," when he who runs may not only
read, but furnish us with reading; and simply
counted the books, and scattered leaves, thick
as the autumnal in Vallombrosa, that have been
written and printed concerning this man, we
might almost fancy him the most important
person, not of the eighteenth century, but of all
the centuries from Noah's flood downwards.
We have Lives of Voltaire by friend and by foe:
Condorcet, Duvernet, Lepan, have each given
us a whole; portions, documents, and all manner
of authentic or spurious contributions have
been supplied by innumerable hands ; of which
we mention only the labours of his various
secretaries : Collini's, published some twenty
years ago, and now these two massive octavos
from Longchamp and Wagniere. To say no-
thing of the Baron de Grimm's Collections,
unparalleled in more than one respect; or of
the six-and-thirty volumes of scurrilous eaves-
dropping, long since printed under the title of
Meiiioircs cle Jjachuumont ; or of the daily and
hourly attacks and defences that appeared
separately in his lifetime, and all the judicial
pieces, whether in the style of apotheosis or
of excommunication, that have seen the light
since then; a mass of fugitive writings, the
very diamond edition of which might fill whole
libraries. The peculiar talent of the French
in all narrative, at least in all anecdotic, de-
partments, rendering most of these works ex-
tremely readable, still further favoured their
circulation, both at home and abroad: so that
now, in most countries, Voltaire has been read
of and talked of, till his name and life have
grown familiar like those of a village acquaint-
ance. In England, at least, where for almost
a century the study of foreign literature has,
we may say,confined itself to that of the French,
with a slight intermixture from the elder Ita-
lians, Voltaire's writings and such writings as
treated of him, were little likely to want readers.
We suppose, there is no literary era, not even
any doraestic one, concerning which English-
men in general have such information, at least
have gathered so many anecdotes and opinions,
as concerning this of Voltaire. Nor have native
additions to the stock been wanting, and these
of a due variety in purport and kind: maledic-
tions, expostulations, and dreadful death-scenes,
painted like Spanish S(inl)cintos, b}^ weak well-
meaning persons of the hostile class ; eulogies,
generally of the gayer sort, by open or secret
friends : j^ll this has been long and extensively
rarried on among us. There is even an Ensr-

lish Life of VoUaire ,* nay, we remember to
have seen portions of his writings cited, in Icr-
rorum, and with criticisms, in some pamphlet,
" by a country gentleman," either on the Edu-
cation of the People, or else on the question of
Preserving the Game.

With the " Age of the Press," and such mani-
festations of it on this subject, we are far from
quarrelling. We have read great part of these
thousand-and-firsi "Memoirs on Voltaire," by
Longchamp and Wagniere, not without satis-
faction ; and can cheerfully look forward to
still other "Memoirs" following in their train.
Nothing can be more in the course of nature
than the wish to satisfy one's self with know-
ledge of all sorts about any distinguished per-
son, especially of our own era ; the true study
of his character, his spiritual individuality,
and peculiar manner of existence, is full of
instruction for all mankind : even that of his
looks, sayings, habitudes, and indifferent ac-
tions, were not the records of them generally
lies, is rather to be commended; nay, are not
such lies themselves, when they keep within
bounds, and the subject of them has been dead
for some time, equal to snipe-shooting, or Col-
burn-Novels, at least little inferior in the great
art of getting done with life, or, as it is tech-
nically called, killing time 1 For our own
part, we say, — would that every Johnson in
the world had his veridical Bosweil, or leash
of Boswells ! We could then tolerate his
Hawkins also, though not veridical. With
regard to Voltaire, in particular, it seems to
us not only innocent but profitable, that the
whole truth regarding him should be well un-
derstood. Surely, the biography of such a
man, who, to say no more of him, spent his
best eftbrts, and as many still think, success-
fully, in assaulting the Christian religion, must
be a matter of considerable import; what he
did, and what he could not do; how he did it,
or attempted it, that is, with what degree of
strength, clearness, especially with what moral
intents, what theories and feelings on man and
man's life, are questions that will bear some
discussing. To Voltaire, individually, for the
last fifty-one years, the discussion has been
indifferent enough; and to us it is a discussion
not on one remarkable person only, and chiefly
for the curious or studious, but involving con-
siderations of highest moment to all men, and
inquiries which the utmost compass of our
philosophy will be unable to embrace.

Here, accordingly, we are about to offer
some further observations on this qmestio
vexala : not without hope that the reader may
accept them in good part. Doubtless, when
we look at the whole bearings of the matter,
there seems little prosptct of any unanimity
respecting it, either now, or within a calcula-
ble period: it is probable that many will con-
tinue, for a long time, to speak of this " uni-

♦ "By Frnnk Hall Standish, Ksq." (London, 1821) : a
work, wtiich we can rpcoinmend only to, such as feel
themselves in extreme want of information on this sub-
ject, and, except in their own liinzuase. unable to acquire
any. It is written very badly, tliongh with sincerity,
anil not without considerable indicationsof talent ; to all
appearance, l)y a minor, many of whose statements and
opinions (for he seems an inquirins;, hon6sl-lier:rted,
rather decisive character) must have bejun to astonish
even himself, several years ago.

VOLTAIRE.

146

versal genius," this "apostle of Reason," and
" father of sound Philosophy ;" and-many again
of ihis "monster of impiety," this "sophist,"
and " atheist," and "ape-demon ;" or, like the
late Dr. Clarke of Cambridge, dismiss him more
briefly with information that he is "a driveller:"
neither is it essential that these two parties
should, on the spur of the instant, reconcile
themselves herein. Nevertheless, truth is
better than error, were it only "on Hannibal's
vinegar." It may be expected that men's
opinions concerning Voltaire, which is of some
moment, and concerning Voltairism, which is
of almost boundless moment, will, if they can-
not meet, gradually at every new comparison
approach towards meeting; and what is still
more desirable, towards meeting somewhere
nearer the truth than they actually stand.

With honest wishes to promote such ap-
proximation, there is one condition, which,
above all others, in this inquiry, we must beg
the rcade« to impose on himself: the duty of
fairness lowards Voltaire, of Tolerance to-
wards him, as towards all men. This, truly,
is a duty, which we have the happiness to hear
daily incultated; yet which, it has been well
said, no mortal is at bottom disposed to prac-
tise. Nevertheless, if we really desire to un-
dei'stand the truth on any subject, not merely,
as is much more common, to confirm our al-
ready existing opinions, and gratify this and
the other pitiful claim of vanity or malice in
respect of it, tolerance may be regarded as the
most indispensable of all prerequisites; the
condition, indeed, by which alone any real
progress in the question becomes possible. In
respect of our fellow-men, and all real insight
into their characters, this is especially true.
No character, we may aifirm, was ever rightly
understood, till it had first been regarded with a
certain feeling, not of tolerance only, but of
sympathy. For here, more than in any other
case, it is verified that the heart sees farther
than the head. Let us be sure, our enemy is
not that hateful being we are too apt to paint
him. His vices and basenesses lie combined
in far other order before his own mind, than
before ours; and under colours which palliate
them, nay, perhaps, exhibit them as virtues.
Vl''ere he the wretch of our imagining, his life
■would be a burden to himself; for it is not by
bread alone that the basest mortal lives; a cer-
tain approval of conscience is equally essen-
tial even to physical existence; is the fine
all-pervading cement by which that wondrous
union, a Self, is held together. Since the man,
therefore, is not in Bedlam, and has not shot
or hanged himself, let us take comfort, and
conclude that he is one of two things: either
a vicious dog, in man's guise, to be muzzled,
and mourned over, and greatly marvelled at ;
or a real mnn, and, consequently, not without
moral worth, which is to be enlightened, and
so Car approved of. But to judge rightly of
his character, we must learn to look at it, not
less wnth his eyes, than with our own ; we
must learn to pity him, to see him as a fellow-
cre;Uure, in a word, to love him, or his real
spiritual nature will ever be mistaken by us.
In interpreting Voltaire, accordingly, it will be
needful to bear some things carefully in mind,
19

and to keep many other things as carefully in
abeyance. Let us forget that our opinions
were ever assailed by him, or ever defended;
that ive have to thank him, or upbraid him, for
pain or for pleasure ; let us forget that we are
Deists, or Millenarians, Bishops, or Radical
Reformers, and remember only that we are
men. This is a European subject, or there
never was one ; and must, if we would in the
least comprehend it, be looked at neither from
the parish belfry, nor any Peterloo Platform ;
but, if possible, from some natural and infi-
nitely higher point of vision.

It is a remarkable fact, that throughout the
last fifty years of his life, Voltaire was seldom
or never named, even by his detractors, with-
out the epithet " great" being appended to him ;
so that, had the syllables suited such a junc-
tion, as they did in the happier case of Chark'
Magne, we might almost have expected that,
not Voltaire, but VoUaire-cc-grand-homme would
be his designation with posterity. However,
posterity is much more stinted in its allow-
ances on that score ; and a multitude of things
remain to be adjusted, and questions of very
dubious issue to be gone into, before such
coronation titles can be conceded with any
permanence. The million, even the wiser
part of them, are apt to lose their discretion,
when " tumultuously assembled;" for a small
object, near at hand, may subtend a large
angle ; and often a Pennenden Heath has been
mistaken for a Field of Runnymed.;; whereby
the couplet on that immortal Dalho.isie proves
to be the emblem of many a man s real for-
tune with the public :

And thnn, Dalhniisie, ttie ereat Gnd r,f war,
Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mnr ;
the latter end corresponding poorly with the
beginning. To ascertain what was the true
significance of Voltaire's history, both as re-
spects himself and the world; whai was his
specific character and value as a m.in ; what
has been the character and value cf his in-
fluence on society, of his appearance .is an ac-
tiveagent in the culture of Europe; all this leads
us into much deeper investigations , on the
settlement of which, however, the whole busi-
ness turns.

To our own view, we confess, on looking at
Voltaire's life, the chief quality that shows
itself is one for which arlroilness seems the
fitter name. Greatness implies several condi-
tions, the existence of which, in his case, it
might be diflicult to demonstrate; but of his
claim to this other praise there can be no dis-
puting. Whatever be his aims, high or low,
just or the contrary, he is at all times, and to
the utmost degree, expert in pursuing them
It is to be observed, moreover, that his alms in
general were not of a simple sort, and the
attainment of them easy : few literary men
have had a course so diversified with vicissi-
tudes as Voltaire's. His life is not spent in a
corner, like that of a studious recluse, but on
the open theatre of the wairld ; in an age full
of commotion, when society is rending itself
asunder. Superstition already armed for deadly
battle against Unbelief; in which battle he
himself plays a distinguished part. From his
earliest years, we find him in perpetual coir
N

Hft

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

munication with the higher personages of
his time, often with the highest: it is in circles
of authority, of reputation, at lowest, of fashion
and rank, that he lives and works. Ninon de
I'Enclos leaves the boy a legacy to buy books ;
he is £l;ill young, when he can say of his supper
companions, " We are all Princes or Poets."
In after life, he exhibits himself in company
or correspondence with all manner of princi-
palities and powers, from Queen Caroline of
England to the Empress Catherine of Russia,
from Pope Benedict to Frederic the Great.
Meanwhile, shifting from side to side of Europe,
hiding in the country, or living sumptuously
in capital cities, he quits not his pen, with
which, as with some enchanter's rod, more
potent than any king's sceptre, he turns and
winds the mighty machine of European Opi-
nion; approves himself, as his schoolmaster
had predicted, the Coryphee ihi Deisme , and,
not content with this elevation, strives, and
nowise ineffectually, to unite with it a poetical,
historical, philosophic, and even scientific pre-
eminence. Nay, we may add, a pecuniary
one; for he speculates in the funds, diligently
solicits pensions and promotions, trades to
America, is long a regular victualling-contrac-
tor for armies ; and thus, by one means and
another, independently of literature, which
would never yield much money, raises his in-
come from 800 francs a-year to more than
centuple that sum.* And now, having, besides
all this commercial and economical business,
written some thirty quartos, the most popular
that were ever written, he returns afier long
exile to his native city, to be welcomed there al-
most as a religious idol ; and closes a life, pros-
perous alike in the building of country-seats,
and the composition of Hcnrlades and Philoso-
phical Dictionaries, by the most appropriate
demise; by drowning, as it were, in an ocean
of applause, so that as he lived for fame, he
may be said to have died of it.

Such various, complete success, granted
only to a small portion of men in any age of
the world, presupposes, at least, with every
allowance for good fortune, an almost un-
rivalled expertness of management. There
must have been a great talent of some kind at
work here : a cause proportionate to the effect.
It is wonderful, truly, to observe with what
perfect skill Voltaire steers his course through
so many conflicting circumstances: how he
weathers this Cape Horn, darts lightly through
that Mahlstrom; always either sinks his
enemy, or shuns him; here waters, and careens,
and traffics with the rich savages ; there lies
land-locked till the hurricane is overblown ;
and so, in spite of all billows, and sea-monsters,
and hostile fleets, finishes his long Manilla
voyage, with streamers flying, and deck piled
with ingots! To say nothing of his literary
character, of which this same dexterous ad-
dress will also be fcnind to be a main feature,
let us glance only at the general aspect of his
conduct, as manifested both in his writings
and actions. By turns, and ever at the right
season, he is imperious and obsequious ; now
shoots abroad, from the mountain tops, Hype-

♦ See Tome ii. p. 328 of these Mimoires.

rion-like, his keen, .nnuraerable shafts; anon
when danger is advancing, flies to obscurs
nooks; or, if taken in the fact, swears it was
but in sport, and that he is the peaceablest of
men. He bends to occasion ; can, to a certain
extent, blow hot or blow cold; and never at-
tempts force, where cunning will serve his
turn. The beagles of the Hierarchy and of
the Monarchy, proverbially quick of scent, and
sharp of tooth, are out in quest of him ; but this
is a lion-fox which cannot be captured. By
wiles and a thousand doublings, he utterly dis-
tracts his pursuers; he can burrow in the
earth, and all trace of him is gone.* With a
strange system of anonymity and publicity, of
denial and assertion, of Mystification in all
senses, has Voltaire surrounded himself. He
can raise no standing armies for his defence,
yet he too is a "European power," and not
undefended; an invisible, impregnable, though
hitherto unrecognised bulwark, that of Public
Opinion, defends him. With great art, he
maintains this stronghold ; though ever and
anon sallying out from it, far beyond the per-
mitted limits. But he has his coat of darkness,
and his shoes of swiftness, like that other
Killer of Giants. We find Voltaire a supple
courtier, or a sharp satirist; he can talk blas-
phemy, and build churches, according to the
signs of the times. Frederic the Great is not
too high for his diplomacy, nor the poor Prin-
ter of his Zariig too low ;j- he manages the
Cardinal Fleuri, and the Cure of Si. Sulpice;
and laughs in his sleeve at all the world. We
should pronounce him to be one of the best
politicians on record ; as we have said, the
cidroitcd of all literary men.

At the same time, Voltaire's worst enemies,
it seems to us, will not deny that he had
naturally a keen sense for rectitude, indeed, for
all virtue : the utmost vivacity of temperament
characterizes him; his quick susceptibility for
every form of beauty is moral as well as in-
tellectual. Nor was his practice without in-
dubitable and highly creditable proofs of this.
To the help-needing he was at all times a
ready benefactor: many were the hungry ad-
venturers who profited of his bounty, and then
bit the hand that had fed them. If we enume-
rate his generous acts, from tlie case of the
Abbe Desfontaines down to that of the widow
Calas, and the Serfs of Saint Claude, we shall
find that few private men have had so wide a
circle of charity, and have watched over it so
well. Should it be objected that love of rep J-
tation entered largely into these proceedings,
Voltaire can afl^ord a handsome deduction on
that head : should the uncharitable even cal-
culate that love of reputation was the sole
motive, we can only remind them that love of
such reputation is itself the effect of a social,
humane disposition ; and wish, as an immense

* Of one such "taking to cover," we have a curiotis
and rather ridiculous accomit in this work, by Long-
champ. It was v\'ilh the Duchess du Maine that lie
sought shelter, and on a very slight occasion : neverthe-
less he liad to lie perdue, for two months, at the Caslle
of Sceaux ; and, with closed windows, and burning
candles in daylight, compose Zaiiijr, Babouc, Memnon,
&c., for his amusement.

+ .See in Longchamp (pp. 154— ICi) how by natural
legerdemain, a knave may be caught, and the clians*
rendu U des ivipriineurs inJidcUs.

VOLTAIRE.

147

improvement, that all men were animated vith
it. Voltaire was not without his experieiice
of human baseness; but he slill had a fellow-
feeling for human sufferings; and delighted,
were it only as an honest luxury, to relieve
them. His attachments seem remarkably
constant and lasting ; even such sots as Thiriot,
whom nothing but liabit could have endeared
to him, he continues, and after repeated in-
juries, to treat and regard as friends. To his
equals we do not observe him envious, at least
not palpably and despicably so; though this, we
should add, might be in him, who was from the
first so paramountly popular, no such hard
attainment. Against Montesquieu, perhaps
against him alone, he cannot help entertaining
a small secret grudge; yet ever in public he
does him the amplest justice : VJrlcquinGro-
tius of the fire-side becomes, on all grave occa-
sions, the author of the Esprit des Loir.
Neither to his enemies, and even betrayers, is
Voltaire implacable or meanly vindictive: the
instant of their submission is also the instant
of his forgiveness; their hostility itself pro-
vokes only casual sallies from him; his heart
is 100 kindly, indeed too light, to cherish any
rancour, any continuation of revenge. If he
has not the virtue to forgive, he is seldom
without the prudence to forget: if, in his life-
long contentions, he cannot treat his opponents
with any magnanimity, he seldom, or perhaps
n'-'er once, treats them quite basely; seldom
or never with that absolute unfairness which
the law of retaliation might so often have
seemed to justify. We would say that, if not
heroic, he is at all times a perfectly civilized
man ; which, considering that his war was
with exasperated theologians, and a "war to
the knife," on their part, may be looked upon
as rather a surprising circumstance. He ex-
hibits many minor virtues, a due appreciation
of the highest; and fewer faults than, in his
situation, might have been expected, and per-
haps pardoned.

All this is well, and may fit out a highly ex-
pert and much esteemed man of business, in
the widest sense of that term; but is still far
from constituting a " great character." In fact,
there is one deficiency in Voltaire's original
structure, which, it appears to ns, must be
quite fatal to such claims for him : we mean
his inborn levity of nature, his entire want of
Earnestness. Voltaire was by birth a Mocker,
and Wght Poionirdnlc : which natural disposi-
tion his way of life confirmed into a predomi-
nant, indeed all-pervading habit. Far be it
from us to say, that solemnity is an essential
of greatness; that no great man can have
other than a rigid vinegar aspect of counte-
nance, never to be thawed or warmed by bil-
lows of mirth ! There are things in this world
to be laughed at, as well as things to be ad-
mired ; and his is no complete mind, that can-
not give to each sort its due. Nevertheless,
contempt is a dangerous element to sport in;
a deadly one, if we habitually live in it. How,
indeed, to take the lowest view of this matter,
shall a man accomplish great enterprises, —
enduring all toil, resisting temptations, laying
aside every weight, — unless he zeahuisly love
what he pursues? The faculty of love, of

admiration, is to be regarded as the sign and
the measure of high souls: unwisely directed,
it leads to many evils ; but without it, there
cannot be any good. Ridicule, on the other
hand, is indeed a faculty much prized by its
possessors; yet, intrinsically, it is a small
faculty ; we may say, the smallest of all facul-
ties that other men are at the pains to repay
with any esteem. It is directly opposed to
Thought, to Knowledge, properly so called ;
its nourishment and essence is Denial, which
hovers only on the surface, while Knowledge
dwells far below. Moreover, it is by nature
selfish and morally trivial ; it cherishes nothing
but our Vanity, which may in general be left
safely enough to shift for itself. Little "dis-
course of reason," in any sense, is implied in
Ridicule: a scoffmg man is in no lofty mood,
for the time; shows more of the imp than of
the angel. This too when his scoffing is what
we call just, and has some foundation on
truth: while again the laughter of fools, that
vain sound, said in Scripture to resemble the
"crackling of thorns under the pot," — which
they cannot heat, and only soil and begrime, — -
must be regarded, in these latter times, as a
very serious addition to the sum of human
wretchedness; and may not always, when
considering the Increase of Crime in the Me-
tropolis, escape the vigilance of Parliament.

We have, oftener than once, endeavoured
to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vuU
garly imputed to Shaftesbury, which, however,
we can find nowhere in his works, that ridicule
is the test of truth. But of all chimeras, that
ever advanced themselves in the shape of phi-
losophical doctrines, this is to us the most
formless and purely inconceivable. Did or
could the unassisted human faculties ever un-
derstand it, much more believe it ? Surely, so
far as the common mind can discern, laughter
seems to depend not less on the laugher than
on the laughee; and who gave laughers a pa-
tent to be always just, and always omniscient]
If the philosophers of Nootka Sound were
pleased to laugh at the manosuvres of Cook's
seamen, did that render these manoeuvres use-
less, and were the seamen to stand idle, or take
to leather canoes, till the laughter abated] Let
a discerning public judge.

But., leaving these questions for the present,
we may observe at least that all great men
have been careful to subordinate this talent or
habit of ridicule; nay, in the ages which we
consider the greatest, most of the ai-ls that
contribute to it have been thought disgraceful
for freemen, and confined to the exercise of
slaves. With Voltaire, however, there is no such
subordination visible: by nature, or by prac-
tice, mockery has grown to be the irresistible
bias of his disposition ; so that for him, in all
matters, the first question is not what is true,
but what is false ; not what is to be loved, an(l
held fast, and earnestly laid to heart, but whut
is to be contemned, and derided, and sportfully
cast out of doors. Here truly he earns abun
dant triumph as an image-breaker, but pocket;,
little real wealth. Vanity, with its adjtmcts,
as we have said, finds rich solacement; but
for aught better, there is not much. Reverence,
the highest feeling that man's nature is capa

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ble of, the crown of his whole moral manhood, \
and precious, like fine gold, were it in the rudest
forms, he seems not to understand, or have
heard of, even by credible tradition. The
glory of knowing and believing is all but a
stranger to him; only with that of question-
ing and qualifying is he familiar. Accord-
ingly, he sees but a little way into Nature : the
mighty All, in its beauty, and infinite myste-
rious grandeur, humbling the small Me into
nothingness, has never even for moments been
revealed to him; only this and that other atom
of it, and the differences and discrepancies of
these two, has he looked into, and noted down.
His theory of the world, his picture of man
and man's life, is little; for a Poet and Philoso-
pher, even pitiful. Examine it, in its highest
developments, you find it an altogether vulgi.i"
picture ; simply a reflex, IVom more or fewer
mirrors of Self and the poor interests of Self.
"The Divine Idea, that which lies at the bot-
tom of Appearance," was never more invisi-
ble to any man. He reads History not with the
eye of a devout Seer, or even of a Critic ; but
through a pair of mere anti-catholic specta-
cles. It is not a mighty drama, enacted on the
theatre of Infinitude, with Suns for lamps, and
Eternity as a back-ground; whose author is
God, and whose purport and thousand-fold
moral lead us up to the "dark with excess of
light" of the Throne of God; but a poor wea-
risome debating-club dispute, spun through
ten centuries, between the Enrydopedie and the
Sorbontie. Wisdom or folly, nobleness or base-
ness, are merely superstitious or unbelieving:
God's Universe is a larger Patrimony of St.
Peter, from which it were well and pleasant to
hunt the Pope.

In this way, Voltaire's nature, which was
originally vehement rather than deep, came in
its maturity, in spite of all his wonderful gifts,
to be positively shallow. We find no heroism
of character in him, from first to last; nay,
there is not, that we know of, one great thought,
in all his six-and-thirty quartos. The high
worth implanted in him by Nature, and still
often manife>.ted in his conduct, does not shine
there like a light, but like a coruscation. The
enthusiasm, proper to such a mind, visits him ;
but it has no abiding virtue in his thought, no
local habitation and no name. There i> in him
a rapidity, but at the same time a pettiness; a
certain violence, and fitful abruptness, which
takes from him all dignity. Of his miporle/neus
and tragi-comical explosions, a thousand an-
ecdotes are on record; neither is he, in these
cases, a terrific volcano, but a mere bundle of
rockets. He is nigh shooting poor Dorn, the
Frankfort constable ; actually fires a pistol,
into the lobby, at him; and this, three days
after that melancholy business of the " a^vvre e!e
Poeste du Jioi vioii Muiire" had been finally ad-
justed. A bookseller, ihat, with the natural
instinct of fallen mankind, overcharges him,
receives from this Philosopher, by way of
payment at sight, a slap on the face. Poor
Longchamp, with considerable tact, and a
prai>eworthy air of second-table respectability,
details various scenes of this kind: how Vol-
laire dashed away his combs, and maltreated
bh wig, an'] otherwise fiercely comported

himself, the very first morning: how once,
having a keenness of appetite, sharpened by
walking, and a diet of weak tea, he became
uncommonly anxious for supper; and Clairaut
and Madame du Chatelet, sunk in algebraic
calculations, twice promised to come down,
but still kept the dishes cooling, and the Phi-
losopher at last desperately battered open their
locked door with his foot; exclaiming " Vous
e cs done dc concert pour tnc faire nwurir.''" — And
yet Voltaire had a true kindness of heart; all
his domestics and dependents loved him, and
continued with him. He has many elements of
goodness, but floating loosely; nothing is com-
bined in steadfast union. It is true, he presents
in general a surface of smoothness, of cultured
regnlarity ; yet, under it, there is not the silent
rock-bound strength of a World, but the wild
tumults of a Chaos are ever bursting tlirough.
He is a man of power, but not of beneficent
authority; we fear, but cannot reverence him;
we feel him to be stronger, not higher.

Much of this spiritual short-coming and per-
version might be due to natural defect: but
much of it also is due to the age into which
he was cast. It was an age of discord and
division ; the approach of a grand crisis in
human affairs. Already we discern in it all
the elements of the French Revolution; and
wonder, so easily do we forget how entangled
and hidden the meaning of the present gene-
rally is to us, that all men did not fore>ee the
comings on of that fearful convulsion. On
the one hand, a high all-attempting activity of
Intellect : the most peremptory spirit of in-
quiry abroad on every subject; things human
and things divine alik'e cited without mis-
givings before the same boastfal tribunal of so-
called Reason, which means here a merely
argumentative Logic; the strong in mind ex-
cluded from his regular influence in the state,
and deejily conscious of that injury. On the
other hand, a privileged few, strong in the
subjection of the many, yet in itself weak; a
piebald, and for mc;! part altogether decrepit
battalion, of Clergy, of purblind Nobility, or
rather of Courtiers, for as yet the Nobility is
mostly on the oiher side : these cannot fight
with Logic, and the day of Persecution is well-
nigh done. The whole force of law, indeed,
is still in their hands; but the far deeper force,
which alone gives efficacy to law, is hourly
passing away from them. Hope animates one
side; fear the other; and the battle will be
fierce and desperate. For there is wit without
wisdom on the part of the self-st}ied Philoso-
phers ; feebleness with exasperation on the
part of their opponents; pride enough on all
hands, but little magnanimity ; perhaps no-
where any pure love of truth, only everywhere
the purest, most ardent love of self. In such
a state of things, there lay abundant principles
of discord : these two influences hung like
fast-gathering electric clouds, as yet on op-
posite sides of the horizon, but with a malig-
nity of aspect, M'hich boded, whenever they
might meet, a sky of fire and blackness, thun-
derbolts to waste the earih, and the sun and
stars, though but for a season, to be blotted out
from the heavens. For there is no conducting
medium to unite softly these hostile elements ;

VOLTAIRE.

149

thei-e is no true virtue, no true wisdom,
on the one side or on the other. "Never per-
haps, was there an epoch, in the history of
the world, when universal corruption called
so loudly for reform ; and they who undertook
that task were men intrinsically so worthless.
Not by Gracchi, but by Catilines ; not by La-
thers, but by Aretines, was Europe to be re-
novated. The task has been a long and bloody
one; and is still far from done.

In this condition of affairs, what side such a
man as Voltaire was to take could not be doubt-
ful. Whether he ought to have taken either
side ; whether he should not rather have
stationed himself in the middle; ihe partisan
of neither, perhaps hated by both; acknow-
ledging, and forwarding, and striving to re-
concile, what truth was in each; and preach-
ing forth a far deeper truth, which, if his own
century had neglected it, had persecuted it,
future centuries would have recognised as
priceless : all this was another question. Of
no man, however gifted, can we require what
he has not to give: but Voltaire called him-
self Philosopher, nay, the Philosopher. And
such has often, indeed generally, been the fate
of great men, and Lovers of Wisdom: then-
own age and country have treated them as of
no account; in the great Corn-Exchange of the
world, their pearls have seemed but spoihd
barley, and been ignominiously rejected. W^eak
in adherents, strong only in their faith, in
their indestructible consciousness of worth
and well-doing, they have silently, or in words,
appealed to coming ages, when their own ear
would indeed be shut to the voice of love, and
of hatred, but the Truth that had dwelt in them
•would speak with a voice audible to all. Bacon
left his works to future generations, when
some centuries should have elapsed. " Is it
much for me," said Kepler, in his isolation,
and extreme need, "that men should accept
my discovery? If the Almighty waited six
thousand years for one to see what He had
made, I may surely wait two hundred, for one
to understand what I have seen 1" All this,
and more, is implied in love of M'isdom, in
genuine seeking of truth ; the noblest function
that can be appointed for a man, but requiring
also the noblest man to fulfil it.

With Voltaire, however, there is no symptom,
perhaps there was no conception, of such
nobleness; the high call for which, indeed, in
the existing state of things, his intellect may
have had as little the force to discern, as his
heart had the force to obej'. He follows a
simpler course. Heedless of remoter issues,
he adopts the cause of his own party ; of that
class with whom he lived, and was most anx-
ious to stand well; he enlists in their ranks,
not without hopes that he may one day rise to
be their general. A resolution perfectly ac-
cordant with his prior habits, and temper of
mind; and from which his whole subsequent
procedure, and moral aspect as a man natural-
ly enough evolves itself. Not that we would
say, Voltaire was a mere prize-fighter; one
of "Heaven's Swiss," contending for a cause
which he only half, or not at all approved of.
Far from it. Doubtless he loved truth, doubt-
Je:sii he partially felt himself to be advocating

truth ; nay, we know not that he has ever yet,
in a single instance, been convicted of wilfully
perverting his belief; of uttering, in all his
controversies, one deliberate f;..sehood. Nor
should this negative praise seem an altogether
slight one, for greatly were it to be wished
that even the best of his better-intenlioned op-
ponents had always deserved the like. Never-
theless, his love of truth is not that deep, in-
finite love, which beseems a Philosopher;
which many ages have been fortunate enough
to witness ; nay, of which his own age had
still some examples. It is a far inferior love,
we should say, to that of poor Jean Jacques,
half-sage, half-maniac as he was; it is more a
prudent calculation than a passion. Voltaire
loves Truth, but chiefly of the triumphant
sort; we have no instance of his fighting for
a quite discrowned and outcast Truth ; it is
chiefly when she walks abroad, in distress, it
may be, but still with queen-like insignia, and
knighthoods and renown are to be earned in
her battles, that he defends her, that he charges
gallantly against the Cades and Tylers. Nay,
at all times, belief itself seems, with him, to
be less the product of Meditation than of Argu-
ment. His first question with regard to any
doctrine, perhaps his final test of its worth and
genuineness, is: can others be convinced of
this 1 Can I truck it, in the market, for power 1
"To such questioners," it has been said,
"Truth, who buys not, and sells not, goes on
her way, and makes no answer."

In fact, if we inquire into Voltaire's ruling
motive, we shall find that it was at bottom but
a vulgar one: ambition, the desire of ruling,
by such means as he had, over other men. He
acknowledges no higher divinity than Public
Opinion ; fbr whatever he asserts or performs,
the number of votes is the measure of strength
and value. Yet let us be just to him; let us
admit that he, in some degree, estimates his
votes, as well as counts them. If love of fame,
which, especially for such a man, we can only
call another modification of Vanity, is always
his ruling passion, he has a certain taste in
gratifying it. His vanity, which cannot be
extinguished, is ever skilfully concealed ; even
his just claims are never boisterously insisted
on ; throughout his whole life he shows no
single feature of the quack. Nevertheless,
even in the height of his glory, he has a
strange sensitiveness to the judgment of the
world: could he have contrived a Dionysius'
Ear, in the Rue Traversiere, we should have
found him watching at it, night and day. Let
but any little evil-disposed Abbe, any Freron,
or Piron,

Pauvre Piron, qui ne fut jamais rien.
Pas mime ^cademic.ien,

write a libel or epigram on him, what a fluster
he is in ! We grant he forbore much, in these
cases; manfully consumed his own spleen,
and sometimes long held his peace : but it was
his part to have always done so. Why should
such a man ruflie himself with the spite of
exceeding small persons? Why not let these
poor devils write; why should they not earn
a dishonest penny, at his expense, if they had
no readier way? But Voltaire cannot part
with his " voices," his " most sweet voices •'*
K 2

uo

CARLYLE'S MISCET.LANEOUS WRITINGS.

for they are his gods; take these, and what
lias he left] Accordingly, in literature and
morals, in all his comings and goings, we find
him striving, with a religious care, to sail
strictly with the wind. In Art, the Parisian
Parterre is his court of last appeal: he con-
sults the Cafe dc Procopc, on his wisdom or his
felly, as if it were a true Delphic Oracle. The
following adventure belongs to his fifty-fourth
year, when his fame might long have seemed
abundantly established. We translate from
the Sieur Longchamp's thin, half-roguish,
mildly obsequious, most lackey-like Narra-
tive:

"Judges could appreciate the merits of ^V-
miramis, which has continued on the stage, and
always been seen there with pleasure. Every
one knows how the two principal parts in this
piece contributed to the celebrity of two great
tragedians. Mademoiselle Dumesnil, and M. le
Kain. The enemies of M. de Voltaire renewed
their attempts in the subsequent representa-
tions ; but it only the better confinned his tri-
umph. Piron, to console himself for the de-
feat of his party, had recourse to his tisual
remedy; pelting the piece with some paltry
epigrams, which did it no harm.

" Nevertheless, M. de Voltaire, who always
loved to correct his works, and perfect them,
became desirous to learn, more especially and
at first hand, what good or ill the public were
saying of his Tragedy; and it appeared to him
that he could nowhere learn it better than in
the Cu/e de Procope, which was also called the
Jntre (cavern) de Procope, because it was very
dark, even in full day, and ill-lighted in the
evenings; and because you often saw there a
set of lank, sallow poets, who had somewhat
the air of apparitions. In this Cafe, which
fronts the Coniedie Francaiseyhad been held, for
more than sixty years, the tribunal of those
self-called ^nstarchs, who fancied they could
pass sentence without appeal, on plays, au-
thors, and actors. M. de Voltaire wished to
compeer there, but in disguise, and altogether
incognito. It was on coming out from the
playhouse that the judges usually proceeded
thither, to open what they called their great
sessions. On the second night of Semiramis,
he borrowed a clergyman's clothes; dressed
himself in cassock and long clock: black
stockings, girdle, bands, breviary itself; no-
thing was forgotten. He clapt on a large
peruke, unpowdered, very ill combed, which
covered more than the half of his cheeks, and
left nothing to be seen but the end of a long
nose. The peruke was surmounted by a large
three-cornered hat, corners half bruised in. In
this equipment, then, the author of Semirarnis
proceeded on foot to the Cafe de Procope, where
he squatted himself in a corner, and waiting
for the end of the play, called for a bavaroise,
a small roll of bread, and the gazette. It was
not long till those familiars of the Parterre
and tenants of the Cafe slept in. They in-
stantly began discussing the new Tragedy.
Its partisans and its adversaries pleaded their
cause, with warmth; each giving his reasons.
Impartial persons also spoke their sentiment ;
and repeated some fine verses of the piece.
During all this time, M. de Voltaire, with

spectacles on nose, head stooping over the
gazette which he pretended to be reading, was
listening to the debate: profiting by reason-
able observations, suffering much to hear very
absurd ones, and not answer them, which irri-
tated him. Thus, during an hour and a half,
had he the courage and patience to hear Semi'
raniis talked of and babbled of, without speak-
ing a word. At last, all these pretended judges
of the fame of authors having gone their
ways, without converting one another, M. de
Voltaire also went off; took a coach in the
Rue Mazarine, and returned home about eleven
o'clock. Though I knew of his disguise, I
confess I was struck and almost frightened to
see him accoutred so. I took him for a spec-
tre, or shade of Ninus, that was appearing to
me : or at least, for one of those ancient Irish
debaters, arrived at the end of their career,
after wearing themselves out in school-syllo-
gisms. I helped him to doff all that apparatus,
which I carried next morning to its true
owner, — a doctor of the Sarbonne."

This stroke of art, which cannot in any
wise pass for sublime, might have its uses and
rational purpose in one case, and only in one:
if Semiramis was meant to be a popular show,
that was to live or die by its first impression
on the idle multitude; which accordingly we
must infer to have been its real, at least its
chief destination. In any other case, we can-
not but consider this Haroun-Alraschid visit to
the Cafe de Procope as questionable, and alto-
gether inadequate. If Semiramis was a Poem,
a living Creation, won from the empyrean by
the silent power, and long-continued Pro-
methean toil of its author, what could the
CafS dc Procope know of it, what could all
Paris know of it, "on the second night 1"
Had it been a Milton's Paradise Lost they might
have despised it till after the fiftieth year!
True, the object of the Poet is, and must be,
to "instruct by pleasing," yet not by pleasing
this man and that man; only by pleasing man,
by speaking to the pure nature of man, can
any real "instruction," in this sense, be con-
veyed. Vain does it seem to search for a
judgment of this kind, in the largest Cafe, in
the largest Kingdom, " on the second night."
The deep, clear consciousness of one mind
comes infinitely nearer it, than the lond outcry
of a million that have no such consciousness;
whose " talk," or whose "babble," but distracts
the listener; and to most genuine Poets has,
from of old, been in a great measure indiffer-
ent. For the multitude of voices is no au-
thority ; a thousand voices may not, strictly
examined, amount to one vote. Mankind in
this world are divided into flocks, and fol-
low their several bell-wethers. Now, it is
well known, let the bell-wether rash through
any gap, the rest rush after him, were it into
bottomless quagmires. Na)', so conscientious
are sheep in this particular, as a quaint natu-
ralist and moralist has noted, "if you hold a
stick upon the wether, so that he is forced to
vault in his passage, the whole flock will do
the like, when the stick is withdrawn; and the
thousandth sheep shall be seen vaulting impe-
tuously over air, as the first did over an other-
wise impassable barrier'." A further peculiar*

VOLTAIRE.

161

ity, which, in consulting Acts of Parliament,
and other authentic records, not only as regards
"Catholic Disabilities," but many other mat-
ters, you may find curiously verified in the hu-
man species also ! — On the whole, we must con-
sider this excursion to Procopc's literary Cavern
as illustrating Voltaire in rather pleasant style;
but nowise much to his honour. Fame seems
a far too high, if not the highest object with
him; na}^ sometimes even popularity is
clutched at; Ave see no heavenly polar-star in
this voyage of his ; but only the guidance of
a proverbially uncertain «'/«(/.

Voltaire reproachfully says of St. Louis,
that "he ought to have been above his age;"
but, in his own case, we can find few symp-
toms of such heroic superiority. The same
perpetual appeal to his contemporaries, the
same intense regard lo reputation, as he viewed
it, prescribes for him both his enterprises and
his manner of conducting them. His aim is
to please the more enlightened, at least the
poliler part of the world; and he ofl^ers them
simply what they most wish for, be it in the-
atrical shows for their pastime, or in skeptical
doctrines for their edification. For this latter
purpose, Ridicule is the weapon he selects,
and it su.ts him well. This was not the age
of deep thoughts; no Due de Richelieu, no
Prince Conti, no Frederic the Great would
have listened to such: only sportful contempt,
and a thin conversational logic will avail.
There may be wool-quills, which the lath-
sword of Harlequin will pierce, when the club
of Hercules has rebounded from them in vain.
As little was this an age for high virtues; no
heroism, in any form, is required, or even ac-
knowledged; but only, in all forms, a certain
biensennrc. To this rule, also, Voltaire readily
conforms; indeed, he finds no small advantage
in it. For a lax public morality not only al-
lows him the indulgence of many a little private
vice, and brings him in this and the other
windfall of menus plaisirs, but opens him the
readiest resource in many enterprises of dan-
ger. Of all men, Voltaire has the least dispo-
sition to increase the Army of Martyrs. No
testimony will he seal with his blood; scarcely
any will he so much as sign with ink. His
obnoxious doctrines, as we have remarked, he
publishes under a thousand concealments;
with underplots and wheels within wheels; so
that his whole track is in darkness, only his
works see the light. No Proteus is so nimble,
or assumes so many shapes ; if, by rare chance,
caught sleeping, he whisks through the small-
est hole, and is out of sight, while the noose is
getting ready. Let his judges take him to
task, he will shuffle and evade; if directly
questioned, he will even lie. In regard to this
last point, the Marquis de Condorcet has set
up a defence for him, which has, at least, the
merit of being frank enough.

" The necessity of lying in order to disavow
any work," says he, "is an extremity equally
repugnant to conscience and nobleness of
character: but the crime lies with those unjust
men, who render such disavowal necessary to
the safety of him whom they force to it. If
70U have made 11 crime of what is not one;
if. by absurd or by arbitrary laws, you have in-

fringed the natural right, which all men have,
not only to form an oj nion, but to render it
public; then you dese ve to lose the right
which every man has . f hearing the truth
from the mouth of anoth.-r; a right, which is
the sole basis of that rigorous obligation, not
to lie. If it is not permitted to deceive, the
reason is, that to deceive any one, is to do him
a wrong, or expose yourself to do him one;
but a wrong supposes a right; and no one has
the right of seeking to secure himself the
means of committing an injustice." — Fie de
Voltaire, p. 32.

It is strange, how scientific discoveries do
maintain themselves: here, quite in other
hands, and in an altogether difl^erent dialect,
we have the old Catholic doctrine, if it ever
was more than a Jesuitic one, " that faith need
not be kept with heretics." Truth, it appears,
is too precious an article for our enemies; is
fit only for friends, for those who will pay us
if we tell it them. It may be observed, how-
ever, that, granting Condorcet's premises, this
doctrine also must be granted, as indeed is
usual with that sharp-sighted writer. If the
doing of right depends on the receiving of it;
if our fellow-men, in this world, are not per-
sons, but mere things,that for services bestowed
will return services, — steam-engines that will
manufacture calico, if we put in coals and
water, — then, doubtless, the calico ceasing, our
coals and water may also rationally cease ; the
questioner threatening to injure us for the
truth, we may rationally tell him lies. But if,
on the other hand, our fellow-man is no steam-
engine, but a man; united with us, and with
all men, and with the Maker of all men, in
sacred, mysterious, indissoluble bonds, in an
all-embracing Love, that encircles alike the
seraph and the glow-worm ; then will our du-
ties to him rest on quite another basis than
this very humble one o{ (piid pro quo; and the
Marquis de Condorcet's conclusion will be
false; and might, in its practical extensions,
be infinitely pernicious.

Such principles and habits, too lightly
adopted by Voltaire, acted, as it seems to us,
with hostile efl^ect on his moral nature, not
originally of the noblest sort, but which, under
other influences, might have attained to far
greater nobleness. As it is, we see in him
simply a Man of the World, such as Paris and
the eighteenth century produced and approved
of: a polite, attractive, most cultivated, but
essentially self-interested man ; not without
highly amiable qualities ; indeed, with a gene-
ral disposition which we could have accepted
without disappointment in a mere Man of the
World, but must find very defective, some-
times altogether out of place, in a Poet and
Philosopher. Above this character of a Pa-
risian "honourable man," he seldom or never
rises ; nay, sometimes we find him hovering
on the very lowest boundaries of it, or, per-
haps, even fairly below it. We shall nowise
accuse him of excessive regard for money, of
any wish to shine by the influence of men;
wealth: let those commercial speculations,
including even the victualing-contracts, pass
for laudable prudence, for love of independ-
, ence, and of the power to d( good. Bui

152

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS,

what are we to makp of that hunting after 1
pensions, and even a ter mere titles? There |
is an assiduity disp' 13'ed here, which some-
times ahnost verges owards sneaking. Well 1
might it provoke tie scorn of Alfieri; for j
there is nothing hetter than the spirit of " a I
French plebeian," apparent in it. Much, we
know, very much should be allowed i'or differ-
ence of national manners, which in general
mainly determine the meaning of such things :
nevertheless, to our insular feelings, that fa-
mous Trajan cst-il-rontcnt ? especially when we ]
consider who the Trajan was, will always re- i
main an unfortunate saying. 'J'he more so, as
Trajan himself turned his back on it, without
answer; declining, indeed, through life, to
listen to the voice of this charmer, or disturb
his own " ame paisiblc" for one moment, though
with the best philosopher in Nature. Nay,
Pompadour herself was applied to; and even
some considerable progress made, by that un-
derground passage, had not an envious hand
too soon and fatally intervened. D'Alembert
sa)'s, there are two things that can reach the
top of a pyramid, the eagle and the reptile.
Apparently, Voltaire wished to combine both
methods ; and he had, with one of them, but
indifferent success.

The truth is, we are trying Voltaire by too
high a standard; comparing him with an ideal
which he himself never strove after, perhaps
never seriously aimed at. He is no great Man,
but only a great Ferfijleur .- a man for whom
life, and all that pertains to it, has, at best, but
a despicable meaning; who meets its difficul-
ties not with earnest force, but with gay agility ;
and is found always at the top, less by po\ver
in swimming, than by lightness in floating.
Take him in this character, forgetting that any
other was ever ascribed to him, and we find
that he enacted it almost to perfection. Never
man better understood the whole secret of Pir-
siflagr ; meaning, thereby, not only the external
faculty of polite contempt, but that art of
general inward contempt, by which a man of
this sort endeavours to subject the circum-
stances of his Destiny to his Volition, and be,
what is the instinctive effort of all men, though
in the midst of material Necessity, morally
Free. Voltaire's latent derision is as light,
copious, and all-pervading as the derision
which he utters. Nor is this so simple an at-
tainment as we might fancy ; a certain kind
and degree of Stoicism, or approach lo Stoic-
ism, is necessary for the completed Persijieur :
as for moral, or even practical completion, in
any other way. The most indiflerent-minded
man is not by nature indifferent to his own
pain and pleasure: this is an indifference,
which he must by some method study to ac-
quire, or acquire the show of; and which, it is
fair to say, Voltaire manifests in a rather re-
spectable degree. Without murmuring, he
has reconciled himself to most things : the
human lot, in this lower world, seems a strange
business, yet, on the whole, with more of the
farce in it, than of the tragedy ; to him, it is
nowise heart-rending, that this Planet of ours
should be sent sailing through Space, like a
miserable, aimless Ship-of-Fools, and he him-
self be a fool among the rest, and only a very

little wiser than they. He does not, like Doling
broke, "jiatronise Providence," though suclj
sayings, as Si Dim ncj-ixUtit pan il faudrail l\n-
vcnlcr, seem now and then to indicate a tendency
of that sort: but, at all events, he never openly
levies war against Heaven ; well Ifnowing that
the time spent in frantic malediction, directed
thither, might be spent otherwise with more
profit. There is, truly, no Wericrifvi in him,
either in its bad or its good sense. If he sees
no unspeakable majesty in heaven and earth,
neither does he see any unsufferable horror
there. His view of the world is a cool, genily
scornful, altogether prosaic one: his sublimest
Apocalypse (if Nature lies in the microscope
and telescope; the Earth is a place for pro-
ducing corn ; the Starry Heavens are admirable
as a nautical time-keeper. Yet, lilce a prudent
man, he has adjusted himself to his condition,
such as it is: he does not chant any AJftcrere
over human life, calculating that no charitable
dole, but only laugliter, would be the reward
of such an enterprise; does not hang or drown
himself, clearly understanding that death of
itself will soon save him that trouble. Afllic-
tion, il is true, has not for him any precious
jewel in its head; on the contrary, it is an
unmixed nuisance; yet, happilv, not one to be
howled over, so much as one to be speedily
removed out of sight: if he does not learu
from it Humility, and the sublime lesson of
Resignation, neither does it teach him hard
heartedness, and sickly discontent; but he
bounds lightly over it, leaving both the jewel
and the toad at a safe distance behind him.

Nor was Voltaire's history without per-
plexities enough to keep this principle in exer-
cise; to try whether in life, as in literature, the
ridicuhim were really better than the accr. We
must own, that on no occasion does it alto-
gether fail him ; never does he seem perfectly
at a nonplus; no advenlure is so hideous, that
he cannot, in the long run, find some means
to laugh at it, and forget it. Talce, for instance,
that last ill-omened visit of his to Frederic the
Great. This was, probably, the most mortify-
ing incident in Voltaire's whole life: an open
experiment, in the sight of all Europe, to ascer-
tain whether French Philosophy had virtue
enough in it to found any friendly union, in such
circumstances, even between its great master
and his most illustrious disciple ; and an ex-
periment which answered in the negative, as
was natural enough ; for Vanity is ofa devisive
not ofa uniting nature ; and between the King
of Letters and the King of Armies there existed
no other tie. They should have kept up an
interchange of flattery, from afar : gravitating
towards one another like celestial luminaries,
if they reckoned themselves such ; yet always
with a due centrifugal force ; for if either shot
madly from his sphere, nothing but collision,
and concussion, and mutual recoil, could be
the consequence. On the whole, we must pity
Frederic, environed with that cluster of Philo-
sophers ; doubtless he meant rather well ; yet
the French at Rosbach, with guns in their
hands, were but a small matter, compared with
these French in Sans-Souci. Maupertuis sits
sullen, monosyllabic; gloomy like the bear of
his own arctic zone : Voltaire is the mad j)ipe*

VOLTAIRE

158

that will make him dance to tunes and amuse
the people. Id this roaly circle, wi\h its para-
sites and bashaws, what heats and jealousies
must there not have been; what secret heart-
burnings, sij.r-th-faced malice, plottings, coun-
terploltirgs, and laurel-water pharmacy, in all
its branches, before the ring of etiquette fairly
burst asunder, and the establishment, so to
speak, exploded ! Yet over all these distress-
ing matlers Voltaire has thrown a soft veil of
gayety • he remembers neither Doctor Akakia,
nor Doc -or Akakia's patron, with any ani-
mosity, but merely as actors in the grand
farce of life along with him, a new scene of
which has now commenced, quite displacing
the other from the stage. The arrest at Frank-
fort, indeed, is a sour morsel ; but this, too, he
swallows, with an effort. Frederic, as we are
given to understand, had these whims by kind ;
was, indeed, a wonderful scion from such a
slock ; for what could equal the avarice, malice,
and rabid snappishness of old Frederic Wil-
liam, the father?

"He had a minister at the Hague, named
Luicius," says the wit: "this Luicius was, of
all royal mitiisters extant, the worst paid. The
poor man, with a view to warm himself, had a
few trees cut down, in the garden of Honslardik,
then belonging to the House of Prussia ; im-
mediately thereafter he received despatches
from the king, his master, keeping back a
year of his salary. Luicius, in despair, cut his
throat with the only razor he had (avec le seul
riiroir qu'il cut .) an old lackey came to his as-
sistance, and unfortunately saved his life. At
an after period, I myself saw his Excellency
at the Hague, and gave him an alms at the gate
of that Palace called La J'icillc Cora; which
belongs to the King of Prussia, and where this
unhappy Ambassador had lived twelve years."

With the Hoi-Plnlosopbe himself, Voltaire in
a little while recommences correspondence ;
and to all appearance, proceeds quietly in his
office of " buckwasher," that is, of verse-cor-
rector to his Majesty, as if nothing whatever
had happened.

Again, what human pen can describe the
troubles this unfortunate Philosopher had with
his women? A gadding feather-brained, ca-
pricious, old-coquettish, embittered, and em-
bittering set of wantons from the earliest to the
last! Widow Denis, for example, that diso-
bedient niece, whom he rescued from fur-
nished lodgings and spare diet, into pomp and
plenty, how did she pester the last stage of his
existence, for twenty-four years long! Blind
to the peace and roses of Ferney : ever han-
kering and fretting after Parisian display; not
without iiirtation, though advanced in life;
losing money at play, and purloining where-
with to make it good ; scolding his servants,
quarrelling with his secretaries, so that the too-
indulgent uncle must turn off his beloved Col-
lini, naj', almost be run through the body by
him, for her sake ! The good Wagniere, who
succeeded this fiery Italian in the secretarysnip,
and loved Voltaire with a most creditable affec-
tion, cannot, though a simple, humble, and quite
philanthropic man, speak of Madame Denis
without visible overflowings of gall. He openly
accuses her ofhastening her uncle's death by her
20

importunate stratagems to keep him in Pans,
where washerheaven. Indeed itisclcarthat,his
goods and chattels once made sure of, her chief
care was that so fiery a patient might die soon
enough ; or, at best, according to her own con-
fession, " how she was to get him buried." We
have known superannuated grooms, nay effete
saddle-horses, regarded with more real sympa-
thy in their home, than was the best of uncles
by the worst of nieces. Had not this surprising
old man retained the sharpest judgment, and
the gayest, easiest temper, his last days, and
last years, must have been a continued scene
of violence and tribulation.

Little better, worse in several respects,
though at a time when he could better endure
it, was the far-famed Marquise du Chatelet.
Many a tempestuous day and wakeful night
had he with that scientific and too-fascinating
shrew. She speculated in mathematics and
metaphysics ; but was an adept also in far,
very far different acquirements. Setting aside
its whole criminality, which, indeed, perhaps
went for little there, this literay amour wears
but a mixed aspect; short sun-gleams, with
long tropical tornadoes; touches of guitar-
music, soon followed by Lisbon earthquakes.
Marmontel, we remember, speaks of /v^n'rcs being
used, at least brandished, and for quite other
purposes than carving. Madame la Marquise
was no saint, in any sense; but rather a So-
crates' spouse, who would keep patience, and
the whole philosophy of gayety, in constant
practice. Like Queen Elizabeth, if she had
the talents of a man, she had more than the
caprices of a woman.

We shall take only one item, and that a small
one, in this mountain of misery: her strange
habits and methods of locomotion. She is
perpetually travelling: a peaceful philosopher
is lugged over the world, to Cirey, to Lune-
ville, to that pied a terre in Paris; resistance
avails not ; here, as in so many other cases,
il faui se ranger. Sometimes, precisely on the
eve of such departure, her domestics, exas-
perated by hunger and ill usage, will strike
work, in a body; and a new set has to be col-
lected at an hour's warning. Then Madame
has been known to keep the postilion crack-
ing and sacrc-ing at the gate, from dawn till
dew}' eve, simply because she was playing
cards, and the games went against her. But
figure a lean and vivid-tempered philosopher
starting from Paris at last; under cloud of
night, for it is always at night; during hard
frost; in a huge lumbering coach, or rather
wagon, compared with which, indeed, the ge-
nerality of modern wagons were a luxurious
conveyance. With four starved, and perhaps
spavined hacks, he slowly sel.^ ftr:h, "under a
mountain of bandboxes :" at his side sits the
wandering virago; in front of him, a serving-
maid, with additional bandboxes "c7 divers effcts
de sa mattressc." At the next stage, the posti-
lions have to be beat up ; they come out swear
ing. Cloaks and fur-pelisses avail little
against the January-cold; "time and hours"
are, once more, the only hope: but lo, at the
tenth mile, this Tyburn-coach breaks down!
One many-voiced discordant wail shrieks
through the solitude, making night hidcoi^o, —

i64

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

but in vain ; the axle-tree has given way, the
vehicle has overset, and marchionesses, chain-
bermaids, bandboxes, and philosophers, are
weltering in inextricable Chaos.

" The carriage was in the stage next Nangis,
about half-wa)' to that town, when the hind
axle-lree broke, and it tumbled on the road, to
M. de Voltaire's side : Madame du Chale'^t, and
her maid, fell above him, with all the bundles
and bandboxes, for these were not tied to the
front, but only piled up on both hands of the
maid ; and so observing the laws of equilibrium
and gravitation of bodies, they rushed towards
the corner where M. de Voltaire lay squeezed
together. Underso many burdens, which half-
sulTocated him, he kept shouting bitterly (pous-
sait (lei ens «i^«s) .■ but it was impossible to
change place; all had to remain as it was, till
the two lackeys, one of whom was hurt by the
fall, could come up, with the postilion, to dis-
encumber the vehicle: ihey first drew out all
the luggage, next the women, then M. de Vol-
taire. Nothing could be got out except by the
top, that is, by the coach-door, which now
opened upwards: one of the lackeys and a
postilion clambering aloft, and fixing them-
selves on the body of the vehicle, drew them
up, as from a well ; seizing the first limb that
came to hand, whether arm, or leg: and then
passed them down to the two stationed below,
who set them finally on the ground." — Vol. ii.
p. 166.

What would Dr. Kitchener, with his Travel-
ler's Oracle, have said to all this] For there is
snow on the ground; and four peasants must
be rous(?d from a village half a league off, be-
fore that accursed vehicle can so much as be
lifted from its beam ends ! Vain is it for Long-
champ, far in advance, sheltered in an hospi-
table though half-dismantled rhatemo, to pluck
pigeons and be in haste to roast them : they will
never, never be eaten to supper, scarcely to
breakfast next morning! — Nor is it now only,
but several times, that this unhappy axle-tree
plays them foul; nay once, beggared by Ma-
dame's gambling, they have not cash to pay
for mending it, and the smith, though they are
in keenest flight, almost for their lives, will not
trust them.

We imagine that these are trying things for
any philosopher. Of the thousand other more
private and perennial grievances; of certain
discoveries and explanations, especially, which
it still seems surprising that human philoso-
phy could have tolerated, we make no mention;
indeed, with regard to the latter, few earthly
considerations could tempt a Reviewer of sen-
sibility to mention them in this place.

The Marquise du Chatelet, and her husband,
have been much wondered at in England: the
calm magnanimity with which M. le Marquis
conforms to Uie custom of the country, to the
■wishes of his helpmate, and leaves her, he him-
self meanwhile fighting, or at least drilling, for
his King, to range over Space, in quest of loves
and lovers; his friendly discretion, in this parti-
cular; no less so, his blithe benignant gullibili-
ty, the instant a eonlretcms de faimlle renders his
countenance needful, — have had all justice
done them among us. His lady, too, is a won-
ii°r, (>tfers no mean study to psychologists:

she is a fair experiment to try how far that De
licacy, which we reckon innate in females
is only incidental and the product of fashion
how far a woman, not merely immodest, but
without the slightest fig-leaf of common de-
cency remaining, with the whole character, in
short, of a m«/e debauchee, may still have any
moral worth as a woman. We ourselves have
wondered a little over both these parties ; and
over the goal towards which so strange a "pro-
gress of society" might be tending. But still
more wonderful, not without a shade of the
sublime, has appeared to us the cheerful thral-
dom of this maltreated philosopher; and with
what exhaustless patience, not being wedded,
he endured all these fi)rced-marches, whims,
irascibilities, delinquencies, and thousand-fold
unreasons ; bravin'iT " the battle and the breeze,"
on that wild Bay of Biscay, for such a period.
Fifteen long years, and was not mad, or a
suicide at the end of them ! But the like fate,
it would seem, though worthy D'Israeli has
omitted to enumerate it in his Calamities of Au-
thors, is not unknown in literature. Pope also
had his Mrs. Martha Blount ; and, in the midst
of that warfare with united Duncedom, his
daily tale of Egyptian bricks to bake. Let us
pity the lot of genius, in this sublunary sphere !

Every one knows the earthly termination of
Madame la Marquise; and how, by a strange,
almost satirical Nemesis, she was taken in her
own nets, and her worst sin became her final
punishment. To no purpose was the un-
paralleled credulity of M. le Marquis; to no
purpose, the amplest toleration, and even help
ful knavery of M. de Voltaire: " les assidni:es
dc M. de Sinnt-Lumherl," and the unimaginable
consultations to which they gave rise at Cirey,
were frightfully parodied in the end. The last
scene was at Luneville, in the peaceable court
of King Stanislaus.

" Seeing that the aromatic-vinegar did no
good, we tried to recover her from that sudden
lethargy by rubbing her feet, and striking in
the palms of her hands; but it was of no use;
she had ceased to be. The maid was sent off
to Madame de Boufilers' apartment, to inform
the company that Madame du Chatelet was
worse. Instantly they all rose from the sup-
per-table : M. du Chatelet, M. de Voltaire, and
the other guests rushed into the room. So
soon as they understood the truth, there was a
deep consternation ; to tears, to cries, suc-
ceeded a mournful silence. The husband was
led away, the other individuals went out suc-
cessively, expressing the keenest sorrow. M.
de Voltaire and M. de Saint-Lambert remained
the last by the bedside, from which they could
not be drawn away. At length, the former,
absorbed in deep grief, left the room, and with
dithculiy reached the main door of the Castle,
not knowing whither he went. Arrived there,
he fell down at the foot of the outer stairs, and
near the box of a sentry, where his head came
on the pavement. His lackey, who was follow-
ing, seeing him fall and struggle on the ground,
ran forward and tried to lift him. At this
moment, M. de Saint-Lambert, retiring by the
same way, also arrived ; and observing M. de
Voltaire in that situation, hastened to assist
the lackey. No sooner was M. de Voltaire oa

VOLTAIRE.

1£5

his feet, than opening his eyes, dimmed with
tears, and recognising M. de Saint-Lambert, he
said to him, with sobs and the most pathetic
accent: 'Ah, my friend, it is you that have
killed her!' Then, all on a sudden, as if he
were starting from a deep sleep, he exclaimed
in the tune of reproach and despair: '^ Eh ! mon
Dicu ! Monsieur, de qxiox vovs uindcz-vous de lid
ftiirc }ni etifaiit?' They parted thereupon, with-
out adding: a single word ; and retired to their
St vrpral apartments, overwhelmed and almost
annihilated by the excess of their sorrow." —
Vol. ii. p. 250,

Among all threnetical discourses on record,
this last, between men overwhelmed and almost
annihilated by the excess of their sorrow, has
probably an unexampled character. Some days
afterwards, the first paroxysm of "reproach
and despair" being somewhat assuaged, the
sorrowing widower, not the glad legal one,
composed this quatrain :

L'univer.i a perdii la sublime F.viilie.

Kile aima les plaisirs, les arts, hi viriti :

Les dieux, en liii donnant Uur thiie et leur ginie,

J^'avaient garde pour eiu que I'iiiimorlalile.

After which, reflecting, perhaps, that with
this sublime Emilie, so meriuiriously singular
in loving pleasure, " his happiness had been
chiefly on paper," he, like the bereaved Uni-
verse, consoled himself, and went on his way.

Woman, it has been sufllciently demon-
strated, was given to man as a benefit, and for
mutual support; a precious ornament and
stafl' whereupon to lean in many trying situa-
tions : but to Voltaire she proved, so unlucky
was he in this matter, little el.se than a broken
reed, which only ran into his hand. We con-
fess that looking over the manifold trials of
this poor philosopher with the softer, or as he
may have reckoned it, the harder sex, — from
that Dutchwoman who published his juvenile
letters, to the Niece Denis, who as good as
killed him with racketing, — we see, in this
one province, very great scope for almost all
the cardinal virtues. And these internal con-
vulsions add an incessant series of contro-
versies and persecutions, political, religious,
literary, from without; and we have a life
quite rent asunder, horrent with asperities and
chasms, where even a stout traveller might
have faltered. Over all which Chamouni-
needles and Staubbach-Falls, the great Posi-
fimr skims along in this his little poetical air-
ship, more softly than if he travelled the
smoothest of merely prosaic roads.

Leaving out of view the worth or worthless-
ness of such a temper of mind, we are bound,
in all seriousness, to say, both that it seems to
have been Voltaire's highest conception of
moral excellence, and that he has pursued and
realized it with no small success. One great
praise therefore he deserves, — that of unity
with himself; that of lunHng an aim, and stead-
fastly endeavouring after it, nay, as we have
found, of attaining it; for his ideal Voltaire
seems, to an unusual degree, manifested, made
practically apparent, in the real one. There
can be no doubt that this attainment of Persi-
fliur, in the wide sense we here give it, was
of all others the most admired and sought
after in Voltaire's age and country; nay, in

our own age and country, we have still in
numerable admirers of it, and unwearied
seekers after it, on every hand of us : never-
theless, we cannot but believe that its acme is
past; that the best sense of our generation
has already weighed its significance, and found
it wanting. Voltaire himself, it seems to us,
were he alive at this day, would find other
tasks than that of mockery, especially of
mockery in that style : it is not by Derision
and Denial, but by far deeper, more earnest,
diviner means that aught truly great has been
efl'ected for mankind; that the fabric of man's
life has been reared, through long centuries,
to its present height. If we admit that this
chief of Persj/fwrs had a steady, conscious aim
in life, the still higher praise of having had a
right or noble aim cannot be conceded him
without many limitations, and may, plausibly
enough, be altogether denied.

At the same time, let it not be forgotten, that
amid all these blighting influences, Voltaire
maintains a certain indestructible humanity
of nature ; a soul never deaf to the cry of
wretchedness; never utterly blind to the light
of truth, beauty, goodness. It is even, in some
measure, poetically interesting to observe this
fine contradiction in him: the heart acting
without directions from the head, or perhaps
against its directions ; the man virtuous, as it
were, in spite of himself. For at all events, it
will be granted that, as a private man, his
existence was beneficial, not hurtful, to his
fellow-men : the Calases, the Sirvens, and so
many orphans and outcasts whom he cherished
and protected, ought to cover a multitude of
sins. It was his own sentiment, and, to all ap-
pearance, a sincere one :

J'ai fait un pen de bien ; c'est mon meilleur ouvragc.

Perhaps there are few men, with such princi-
ples and such temptations as his were, that
could have led such a life; few that could
have done his work, and come through it with
cleaner hands. If we call him the greatest
of all Pcrfijlcurs, let us add that, morally speak-
ing also, he is the best : if he excels all men
in universality, sincerity, polished clearness of
mockery, he perhaps combines with it as
much worth of heart as, in any man, that
habit can admit of.

It is now wellnigh time that we snould quit
this part of our subject: nevertheless, in seek-
ing to form some picture of Voltaire's practi-
cal life, and the character, outward as Avell as
inward, of his appearance in society, our
readers will not grudge us a few glances at the
last and most striking scene he enacted there.
To our view, that final visit to Paris has a
strange half-frivolous, half-fateful aspect; there
is, as it were, a sort of dramatic justice in
this catastrophe, that he, who had all his life
hungered and thirsted afterpublic favour,should
at length die by excess of it; should find the
door of his Heaven-on-earth unexpectedly
thrown wide open, and enter there, only to be,
as he himself said, " smothered under roses."
Had Paris any suitable theogony or theology,
as Rome and Athens had, this might almost
be reckoned, as those ancients accounted of
death by lightning, a sacred death, a death

160

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITIMGS.

from the gods; from their many-headed god,
FopuLARiTY. In the benignant quietude of
Ferney, Voltaire had lived long, and, as his
friends calculated, might still have lived long;
but a series of trifling causes lured him to
Paris, and in three months he is no more. At
all hours of his history, he might have said
with Alexander: "O Athenians, what toil do
I undergo to please you;" and the last plea-
sure, his Athenians demand of him, is that he
would die for them.

Considered with reference to the world at
large, this journey is further remarkable. It
is the most splendid triumph of that nature
recorded in these ages ; the loudest and show-
iest homage ever paid to what we moderns
call Literature; to a man that had merely
thought, and published his thoughts. Much
false tumult, no doubt, there Avas in it; yet
also a certain deeper significance. It is inte-
resting to see how universal and eternal in
man is love of wisdom ; how the highest and
the lowest, how supercilious princes, and rude
peasants, and all men must alike show honour
to Wisdom, or the appearance of Wisdom ; nay,
properly speaking, can show honour to nothing
else. For it is not in the power of all Xerxes's
hosts to bend one thought of our proud heart:
these "may destroy the case of Anaxarchus ;
himself they cannot reach;" only to spiritual
worth can the spirit do reverence; only in a
soul deeper and better than ours can we see
any heavenly mystery, and in humbling our-
selves feel ourselves exalted. That the so
ebullient enthusiasm of the French was in
this case perfectly well directed, we cannot
undertake to say; yet we rejoice to see and
Know that such a principle exists perennially
in man's inmost bosom ; that there is no heart
so sunk and stupified, none so withered and
pampered, but the felt presence of a nobler
heart will inspire it and lead it captive.

Few royal progresses, tew Roman triumphs,
have equalled this long triumph of Voltaire.
On his journey, at Bourg-en-Bresse, " he was
recognised," says Wagniere, " while the horses
were changing, and in a few moments the
whole town crowded about the carriage; so
that he was forced to lock himself for some
time in a room of the inn." The Maitre-de-
poste ordered his postilion to yoke better
horses, and said to him with a broad oath :
" Va bon train, neve riics chcvnux, je m' en f — .-
tu rnenes M. de Vollnirc." At Dijon, there were
persons of distinction that wished even to
dress themselves as waiters, that they might
serve him at supper, and see him by this stra-
tagem.

^'At the barrier of Paris," continues Wag-
niere, " the officers asked if we had nothing
with us contrary to the King's regulations:
"On my word, gentlemen," (Ma foi, Messieurs,)
replied M, de Voltaire, "I believe there is
nothing contraband here except myself" I
alighted from the carriage, that the inspector
might more readily examine it. One of the
guards said to his comrade': C'est pardieu! M.
dc Voltaire. He plucked at the coat of the per-
son who was searching, and repeated the same
words, looking fixedly at me. I could not help
laughing; then all gazing with the greatest

astonishment mingled with respect, begged M.
de Voltaire to pass on whither he pleased."—
Vol. i. p. 121.

Intelligence soon circulated over Paris;
scarcely could the arrival of Kien-Long, or the
Grand Lama of Thibet, have excited greater
ferment. Poor Longchamp, demitted or ra Iher
dismissed from Voltaire's service, eight-and-
twent}-- years before, and now, as a retired
map-dealer (having resigned in favour of his
son) living quietly "dans un petit Ingcment d
pari," a fine smooth, garrulous old man, —
heard the news next morning in his remot?
logement, in the Estrapade ; and instantly hud-
dled on his clothes, tholigh he had not been out
for two days, to go and see what truth was in it.

"Several persons of my acquaintance, whom
I met, told me that they had heard the same.
I went purposely to the Cafe Procope, where
this news formed the subject of conversation
among several politicians, or men of letters,
who talked of it with warmth. To assure my-
self still further, I walked thence towards the
Quai dcs Theatins, where he had alighted the
night before, and, as was said, taken up his
lodging in a mansion near the church. Coming
out from the Rue de la Seine, I saw afar otf, a
great number of people gathered on the Quai,
not far from the Pont-Royal. Approaching
nearer, I observed that this crowd was col-
lected in front of the Marquis de Villette's
Hotel, at the corner of the Rue de Beaune.
I inquired what the matter was. The people
answered me, that M. de Voltaire was in that
house ; and they were waiting to see him when
he came out. They were not sure, however,
whether he would come out that day ; for it
was natural to think that an old man of eighty-
four might need a day or two of rest. From
that moment, I no longer doubted the arrival
of M. de Voltaire in Paris." — Vol. ii. p. 353.

By dint of address, Longchamp, in process
of time, contrived to see his old master; had
an interview of ten minutes; was for falling
at his feet; and wept, with sad presentiments,
at parting. Ten such minutes were a great
matter; for Voltaire had his levees, and
couchees, more crowded than those of any
Emperor; princes and perrs thronged his ante-
chamber; and when he went abroad, his car-
riage was as the nucleus of a comet, whose
train extended over whole districts of the city.
He himself, says Wagniere, expressed dissatis-
faction at much of this. Nevertheless, there
were some plaudits, which, as he confessed,
went to his heart. Condorcet mentions that
once a person in the crowd inquiring who this
great man was, a poor woman answered,
'■ C'est snuveur des Calas." Of a quite different
sort was the tribute paid him by a quack, -jn
the Place Louis XV., haranguing a mixed
multitude on the art of juggling with cards;
" Here gentlemen," said he, " is a trick I learned
at Ferney, from that great man who makes so
much noise among you, that famous M. de
Voltaire, the master of us all I" In fact, mere
gaping curiosity, and even ridicule was abroad
as well as real enthusiasm. The clergy too
were recoiling into ominous groups; already
some Jesuitic drums eccelesiastic had beat to
arms.

VOLTAIRE.

15V

Figuring the /ean, tottering, lonely old man
In the midst of all this, how he 'looks into it,
clear and alert, though no longer strong and
calm, we feel drawn towards him by some tie
of affection, of kindly sympathy. Longchamp
says, he appeared "extremely worn, though
5lill in the possession of all his senses, and
■with a very firm voice." The following little
slcetch, by a iiostile journalist of the day, has
fixed itself deeply with us: —

"M. de Voltaire appeared in full dress, on
Tuesday, for the first time since his arrival in
Paris. He had on a red coat lined with er-
mine: a large peruke, in the fashion of Louis
XIV., black, unpowdered; and in which his
withered figure was so buried that you saw
only his two eyes shining like carbuncles.
His head was surmounted by a square red cap
in the form of a crown, which seemed only
laid on. He had, in his hand, a small nibbed
cane; and the public of Paris, not accustomed
to see him in this accoutrement, laughed a
good deal. This personage, singular in all,
wishes doubtless to have nothing in common
Avilh ordinary men." — Vol. ii. p. 466.

This head — this wondrous microcosm in
the Grande pcn((pie a la Louis XIV. — was so
soon to be distenanted of all its cunning gifts;
these eyes, shining like carbuncles, were so
soon to be closed in long night! — We must
now give the coronation ceremony, of which
the reader may have heard so much: borrow-
ing from this same skeptical hand, which,
however, is vouched for by Wagniere ; as, in-
deed, La Harpe's more hcroical narrative of
that occurrence is well known, and hardly dif-
fers from the following, except in style: —

" On Monda)', M. de Voltaire, resolving to
enjoy the triumph which had been so long
promised him, mnunted his carriage, that azure-
coloured vehicle, bespangled with gold stars,
which a wag called the chariot of the empy-
rean ; and so repaired to the Academic Fran-
gaise, which that day had a special meeting.
Tvvent)'-two members were present. None of
the prelates, abbes, or other ecclesiastics, who
belong to it, would attend, or take part in these
singular deliberations. The sole exceptions
were the Abbes de Boismont and Milot; the
one a court rake-hell {roue), with nothing but
the guise of his profession, the other a varlet
{misirc), having no favour to look for, either
from the Court or the Church.

"The Academic M'cnt out to meet M. de
Voltaire: he was led to the director's seat,
which that office-bearer and the meeting in-
vited iiim to accept. His portrait had been
hung up above it. The company, without
drawing lots, as is the custom, proceeded to
work, and named him, by acclamation. Direc-
tor for the April quarter. The old man, once
set a going, was about to talk a great deal ;
but they told him, that they valued his health
too much to hear him, — that they would reduce
him to silence. ]\I. d'Alembert accordingly
occupied the session, by reading his F.loi^c rli:
JJeypremix, which had already been communi-
cated on a public occasion, and where he had
inserted various flattering things for the pre-
sent visiter.

" M. de Voltaire then signified a wish to visit

the Secretary of the Academic, whose apart*
ments are above. With this gentleman he
stayed some time; and at last set out for the
Comedie Franfaise. The court of the Louvre,
vast as it is, was full of people waiting for
him. So soon as his notable vehicle came in
sight, the cry arose, Le J'oUd ! The Savoyards,
the apple-women, all the rabble of the quarter,
had assembled there : and the acclamations,
Vive J'nllairc! resounded as if ihey would never
end. The Marquis de Villette, who had ar-
rived before, came to hand him out of his car-
riage, where the Procureur Clos was seated
beside him: both these gave him their arms,
and could scarcely extricate him from the
press. On his entering the playhouse, a crowd
of more elegance, and seized with true enthu-
siasm for genius, surrounded him: the ladies,
above all, threw themselves in his way, and
stopped it, the better to look at him ; soine
were seen squeezing forward to touch his
clothes; some plucking hair from his fur.
M. le Due de Chartres, not caring to advance
too near, showed, though at a distance, no less
curiosity than others.

" The saint, or rather the god, of the evening,
was to occupy the box belonging to the Gentle-
men of the Bedchamber,* opposite that of the
Counte d'Artois. Madame Denis and Madame
de Villette were already there; and the pit
was in convulsions of joy, awaiting the mo-
ment when the poet should appear. There
was no end till he placed himself on the front
seat, beside the ladies. Then rose a cry : La
Couronne! and Brizard, the actor, came and
put the garland on his head. "Ah, Heaven!
will you kill me then 1" {Ah, Dieu! vous voulcs
done me faire mowir !) cried M. de Voltaire,
weeping with joy, and resisting this honour.
He took the crown in his hand, and presented
it to ]!clIe-c!-l)onnc :-f she withstood; and the
Prince de Beauvau, seizing the laurel, replaced
it on the head of our Sophocles, who could
refuse no longer.

'• The piece {Irene) was played, and with
more applause than usual, though scarcely
with enough to correspond to this triumph of
its author. Meanwhile the players were in
straits as to what they should do; and during
their deliberations the tragedy ended ; the
curtain fell, and the tumult of the people was
extreme, till it rose again, disclosing a show
like that of the Ceittenaire. M. de Voltaire's
bust, which had been placed shortly before in
the foyer (green-room) of the Comedie Fran-
faise, had been brought upon the stage, and
elevated on a pedestal ; the whole body of
comedians stood round it in a semicircle, with
palms and garlands in their hands : there was
a crown already on the bust. The pealing of
musical flourishes, of drums, of trumpets, had
announced the ceremony; and Madame Vestris
held in her hand a paper, which -was soon
undei-stood to contain verses, lately composed
by the Marquis de Saint-Marc. She recited
them with an emphasis proportioned to the
extravagance of the scene. They ran as
follows : —

• lie liiniself, as is pprhnps too well l<no\vn. was one
tTlif Marquise de Villette, a foster-cliild of bLi.
O

{S8

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

^nx yeux de Pans enchanU,

Refois en cejour un hommagg,

Que confirmera d'age en age

La sevire posUrite I
JVan tu n'as pas besoin d'atteindre au noir rivage
tvut Jouir des honneurs de l' immortality :

Voltaire, rc^ois la couronne

Que Von viciit de te presenter ;

// est beau de la meriter,

Qaande'est la France qui la donne !*

" This was encored : the actress I'ecited it
ij^ain, Next, eacii ot them went forward and
ll&id his garland round the bust. Mademoiselle
Fanier, in a fanatical ecstasy, kissed it, and all
the others imitated her.

"This long ceremony, accompanied with
infinite vivnts, being over, the curtain again
dropped ; and when it rose for Nunine, one of
M. de Voltaire's comedies, his bust was seen
on the right-hand side of the stage, where it
remained during the whole play.

" M. le Comte d'Artois did not choose to
show himself too openly ; but being informed,
according to his orders, as soon as M. de Vol-
taire appeared in the theatre, he had gone
thither incognito; and it is thought that the
old man, once when he went out for a moment,
had the honour of a short interview with his
Royal Highness.

" Nunine finished, comes a new hurly-burly,
— a new trial for the modesty of our philoso-
pher ! He had got into his carriage, but the
people would not let him go; they threw them-
selves on the horses, they kissed them : some
young poets even cried to unyoke these ani-
mals, and draw the modern Apollo home with
their own arms; unhappily, there were not
enthusiasts enough to volunteer this service,
and he at last got leave to depart, not without
viva's, which he may have heard on the Pont-
Royal, and even in his own house. . . .

" M. de Voltaire, on reaching home, wept
anew; and modestly protested that if he had
known the people were to play so many follies,
he would not have gone." — Vol. ii.

On all these wonderful proceedings we shall
ieave our readers to their own reflections; re-
marking only, that this happened on the 30th
of March, (1778,) and on the 30th of May,
about the same hour, the object of such ex-
traordinary adulation was in the article of
death; the hearse already prepared to receive
his remains, for which even a grave had to be
stolen. "He expired," says Wagniere, "about
a quarter past eleven at night, with the most
perfect tranquillity, after having sufl^ered the
cruellest pains, in consequence of those fatal
drugs, which his own imprudence, and es-
pecially that of the persons who should have
lojked to it, made him swallow. Ten minutes
before his last breath, he took the hand of
Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watch-
ing by him, pressed it and said Adieu, mon chcr
Morand, je me views, (Adieu, my dear Morand,
I am gone.) These are the last words uttered
by M. de Voltaire."!

*As Dryden said of Swift, so \w\\ we say: Our
ronsin Saint-iMarc has no turn for poetry.

■fOn lliis sickness of Voltaire, and his dealh-bed de-
portnjent, many foolish liociks liave liecn written ; ron-
cerniii"; wliich it is not necessary to say any ihinfr. The
rond'ict of the Parisian clergy, on Ihat' occasion, seems

We have still to consider this man in his
specially intellectual capacity, which, as with
every man of letters, is to be regarded as the
clearest, and, to all practical intents, the most
importantaspcct of him. Voltaire's intellectual
endowment and acquirement, his talent or
genius as a literary man, lies opened to us in
a series of Writings, unexampled, as we be-
lieve, in two respects; their extent, and their
diversity. Perhaps there is no writer, not a
mere compiler, but writing from his own in-
vention or elaboration, who has left so many
volumes behind him; and if to the merely
arithmetical, we add a critical estimate, the
singularity is still greater; for these volumes
are not written without an appearance of due
care and preparation ; perhaps there is not
one altogether feeble and confused treatise,
nay, one feeble and confused sentence, to be
fout:d ifl them. As to variety, again, they
range nearly over all human subjects; from
Theology down to Domestic Economy; from
the Familiar Letter to the Political History;
from the Pasqu.nade to the Epic Poem. Some
strange gift, or union of gifts, must have been
at work here; for the result is, at least, in the
highest degree uncommon, and to be wondered
at, if not to be admired.

If through all this many-coloured versatility,
we try to decipher the essential, distinctive
features of Voltaire's intellect, it seems to us
•that we find there a counterpart to our theory
of his moral character; as, indeed, if that
theory was accurate, we must do : for the
thinking and the moral nature, distinguished
by the necessities of speech, have no such dis-
tinction in themselves ; but, rightly examined,
exhibit in every case the strictest sympathy

totally unworthy of their cloth ; nor was their reward,
so far as concerns these individuals, inappropriate : that
of findin;; themselves once more bilked, once more
persifles by that stran?e old man, in his last decrepitude,
who, in his strength, had wroujrht them and others so
many sriefs. .Surely the parting agonies of a fellow
mortal, when the spirit of our brotiier, rapt in tlie
whirlwinds and thick chastly vapors of death, clutches
blindly for help, and no help is there, are not the scenes
where a wise faith would seek to exult, when it can no
longer hope to alleviate ! For the rest, to touch further
on those their idle tales of dyinsr horrors, remorse, and
the like ; to write of such, to believe them, or disbelieve
them, or in any wise discuss them, were but a continua-
tion of the same ineptitude. lie, who, after the im-
perturbable exit of so many Cartouches and Thiirtells,
in every ape of the world, can continue to regard the
manner of a man's death as a test of liis reliiioua
orthodoxy, may boast himself impregnable to merely
terrestrial logic. Voltaire had enougli of sufferins, and
of mean enouu'Ii suffering, to encounter, without any
addition from theolotfical despair. His last interview
with the clersy. who had been sent for by his friends,
that the riles of burial might not be denied him, is thus
described by Wagniere as it has been by all other
credible reporters of it : —

"Two days before that mournful death, M. I'AbbS
Miffiiot, his nephew, went to seek the Cur^ of Saiiit-
Sulpice and the Abbu Guaticr, and brought them into
his uncle's sick-room ; who, being informed that the
Abb6 Gnatier was there, "Ah, well!" said he, "give
him my compliments and iny thanks." The Abbe
spoke some words to him exhorting hiii! to patience
The Cure of Saint-Sulpice then came forward, having
announced liimself, and asked of M. de Voltaire, elevat-
ing his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of out
Lord .lesiis Christ? The sick man pnshird one of his
hands auainst the (^UTe's cklatte. (coif.) shaving him
back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, " Let
me die in peace ;" (Luifse:-mni tnuunr enpaix.!) The
Cure seemingly considered his person soiled, and hib
coif dishonoured, by the t.'ucli of a philosopher. Hf
made the sick nurse ;,'ive him a liille brushing, and then
went out with the Abbe Guatier."— Vol. i. p. 161.

VOLTAIRE.

159

and corr'-spondence ; are, indeed, but different
phases of the same indissoluble u-nity, — a liv-
ing mind. In life, Voltaire was found to be
■without good claim to the title of philosopher ;
and now, in literature, and for similar reasons,
we find in him the same deficiencies. Here,
too, it is not greatness, but the very extreme
of expertness, that we recognise ; not strength,
so much as agility; not depth, but superficial
extent. That truly surprising ability seems
radier the unparalleled combination of many
common talents, than the exercise of any finer
or higher one : for here, too, the want of
earnestness, of intense continuance, is fatal to
him. Hf has the eye of a lynx; sees deeper,
at the first glance, than any other man ; but
113 second glance is given. Thus Truth,
which, to the philospher, has from of old been
said to live in a well, remains for the most
part hidden from him; we may say for ever
hidden, if we take the highest, and only philo-
sophical species of Truth ; for this does not
reveal itself to any mortal, without quite
another sort of meditation than Voltaire ever
seems to have bestowed on it. In fact, his
deductions are uniformly of a forensic, argu-
mentative, immediately practical nature; often
true, we will admit, so far as they go ; but not
the whole truth ; and false, when taken for the
whole. In regard to feeling, it is the same
with him : he is, in general, humane, mildly
aff'ectionate, not without touches of nobleness ;
but light, fitful, discontinuous; "a smart free-
thinker, all things in an hour." He is no Poet
and Philosopher, but a popular sweet Singer
and Haranguer; in all senses, and in all
styles, Concionu'or, which, for the most part,
Will turn out to be an altogether different
character. It is true, in this last province
he stands unrivalled; for such an audience,
tne most fit and perfectly persuasive of all
preachers; but in many far higher provinces,
he is neither perfect nor unrivalled; has been
often surpassed; was surpassed even in his
own age and nation. For a decisive, thorough-
going, in any measure gigantic, force of
thought, he is far inferior to Diderot; with all
the liveliness, he has not the soft elegance;
with more than the wit, he has but a small
portion of the wisdom that belonged to Fonte-
nelle : as in real sensibility, so in the delinea-
tion of it, in pathos, loftiness, and earnest
eloquence, he cannot, making all fair abate-
ments, and there are many, be compared with
Rousseau.

Doubtless, an astonishing fertility, quick-
ness, address; an openness also, and univer-
sal susceptibilit}' of mind, must have belonged
to him. As little can we deny that he mani-
fests an assiduous perseverance, a capability
of long-continued exertion, strange in so vola-
tile a man ; and consummate skill in hus-
banding and wisely directing his exertion.
The very knowledge he had amassed, granting,
which is but partly true, that it was super-
ficial, remembered knowledge, might have dis-
tinguished him as a mere Dutch commentator.
From Newton's Prindpia to the Shasler and
J'cdam, nothing has escaped him; he has
glanced into all literatures and all sciences;
nay, studied in them, for he can speak a

rational word on all. It is known, for instancet
that he understood Newton when no other
man in France understood him; indeed, his
countrymen may call Voltaire their discoverer
of intellectual England, — a discoiery, it is
true, rather of the Curtis than of the Columbus
sort, yet one which in his day still remained
to be made. Nay, from all sides he brings
new light into his country: now, fcr the first
time, to the upturned wondering eyes of
Frenchmen in general, does it become clear
that Thought has actually a kind of existence
in other kingdoms; that some glimmerings of
civilization had dawned here and there on the
human spacies, prior to the Sievk de Louis
Quatorze. Of Voltaire's acquaintance with
History, at least with what he called History,
be it civil, religious, or literary; of his in-
describable collection of facts, gathered from
all sources, — from European Chronicles and
State Papers, from eastern Zends and Jewish
Tulnmds, we need not remind any reader. It
has been objected that his information was
often borrowed at second-hand; that he had
his plodders and pioneers, whom, as living
dictionaries, he skilfully consulted in time of
need. This also seems to be partly true, but
deducts little from our estimate of him: for
the skill so to borrow is even rarer than the
power to lend. Voltaire's knowledge is not a
mere show-room of curiosities, but truly a
museum for purposes of teaching: every ob-
ject is in its place, and there for its uses ; no-
where do we find confusion, or vain display;
everywhere intention, instructiveness, and the
clearest order.

Perhaps it is this very power of Order, of
rapid, perspicuous Arrangement, that lies at
the root of Voltaire's best gifts; or rather, we
should say, it is that keen, accurate intellectual
vision, from which, to a mind of any intensity,
Order naturally arises. This clear quick
vision, and the raetho^lic arrangement which
springs from it, are looked upon as peculiarly
French qualities; and Voltaire, at all times,
manifests them in a more than French degree.
Let him but cast his eye over any subject, m a
moment he sees, though indeed only to a short
depth, yet with instinctive decision, where the
main bearings of it for that short depth lie;
what is, or appears to be, its logical coherence ;
how causes connect themselves with effects;
how the whole is to be seized, and in lucid
sequence represented to his own or to other
minds. In this respect, moreover, it is happy
fi)r him that, below the short depth alluded lo,
his view docs not properly grow dim, but alto-
gether terminates; thus there is nothing fuiihcr
to occasion him misgivings; has he not
already sounded into that basis of bottomless
Darkness on which all things firmly rest]
What lies below is delusion, imagination, some
form of Superstition or Folly; which he,
nothing doubting, altogether casts away. Ac-
cordingly, he is the most intelligible of writers ;
everywhere transparent at a glance. There
is no delineation or disquisition of his, that has
not its whole purpart written on its forehead;
all is yirecise, all is rightly adjusted; that keen
spirit of drder shows itself in ths whole, and
in every line of the whole.

iify

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

If we say that this power of Arrangement, as
applied both to the acquisition and to the com-
munication of ideas, is Voltaire's most ser-
viceable faculty in all his enterprises, we say
nothing singular: for take the word in its
largest acceptation, and it comprehends the
■whole ofhce of Understanding, logically so
called ; is the means whereby man accom-
plishes whatever, in the way of outward force,
has been made possible for him; conquers all
practical obstacles, and rises to be the "king
of this lower world." It is the organ of all that
Knowledge which can properly be reckoned
synonymous with Power ; for hereby man
strikes, with wise aim, into the infinite agencies
of Nature, and multiplies his own small
strength to unlimited degrees. It has been
said also that man may rise to be the " god of
this lower world;" but that is a far loftier
height, not attainable by such powerful know-
ledge, but by quite another sort, for which
Voltaire in particular shows hardly any apti-
tude.

In truth, readily as we have recognised his
spirit of Method, with its many uses, we are
far from ascribing to him any perceptible por-
tion of that greatest praise in thinking, or in
writing, the praise of philosophic, still less of
poetic Method, which, especially the latter, must
be the fruit of deep feeling as well as of clear
vision, — of genius as well as of talent; and is
much more likely to be found in the composi-
tions of a Hooker, or a Shakspeare, than of a
Voltaire. The Method discernible in Voltaire,
and this on all subjects whatever, is a purely
business Method. The order that arises from
it is not Beautjr, but, at best. Regularity. His
objects do not lie round him in pictorial, not
always in scientific grouping; but rather in
commodious rows, where each may be seen
and come at, like goods in a well-kept ware-
house. We might say there is not the deep
natural symmetry of a forest oak, but the simple
artificial symmetry of a parlor chandelier.
Compare, for example, the plan of the Hen-
riadc to that of our so barbarous Hmnlct. The
plan of the former is a geometrical diagram
by Fermat ; that of the latter a cartoon by
Raphael. The Hcnriade, as we see it com-
pleted, is a polished, square-built Tuileries;
Hamlet, is a mysterious, star-paved Valhalla,
and dwelling of the gods.

Nevertheless, Voltaire's style of Method is,
as we have said, a business one; and for his
purposes, more available than any other. It
carries him swiftly through his work, and
carries his reader swiftly through it; there
is a prompt intelligence between the two;
the whole meaning is communicated clearly,
and comprehended without etfort. From this
also it may follow, that Voltaire will please
the young more than he does the old ; that the
first perusal of him will please better than the
second, if indeed any second be thought neces-
sary. IJut what merit (and it is considerable)
the pleasure and profit of this first perusal pre-
supposes, must be honestly allowed him. Here-
in it seems to us lies the grand quality in all
his performances. Those Histories of his, for
instance, are felt, in spite of their sparkling
-apidity, and knowing air of philosophic in-

sight, to be among the shallowest of all histo
ries ; mere beadrolls of exterior occurrences,
of battles, edifices, enactments, and other quite
superficial phenomena; yet being clear bead-
rolls, well adapted for memory, and recited in
a lively tone, we listen with satisfaction, and
learn somewhat; learn much, if we began
knowing nothing. Nay, sometimes the sum-
mary, in its skilful though crowded arrange-
ment, and brilliant well-defined outlines, has
almost a poetical as well as a didactic merit.
Cluirles the Twelfth may still pass for a model in
that often-attempted species of Biography : the
clearest details are given in the fewest words;
we have sketches of strange men and strange
countries, of wars, adventures, negotiations,
in a style which, for graphic brevity, rivals
that of Sallust. It is a line-engraving, on a
reduced scale, of that Swede and his mad life ;
without colours, yet not without the fore-
shortenings and perspective observances, —
nay, not altogether without the deeper har-
monies which belong to a true Picture. In re-
spect of composition, whatever may be said of
its accuracy or worih otherwise, we cannot but
reckon it greatly the best of Voltaire's Histo-
ries. *

In his other prose works, in his Novels, and
innumerable Essays and fugitive pieces, the
same clearness of order, the same rapid pre-
cision of view, again forms a distinguishing
merit. His Zadigs and Baboucs and Candides,
which, considered as products of imagination,
perhaps rank higher with foreigners than any
of his professedly poetical performances, are
instinct with this sort of intellectual life: the
sharpest glances, though from an oblique point
of sight, into at least the surface of human life,
into the old familiar world of business, which
truly from his oblique station, looks oblique
enough, and yields store of ridiculous combi-
nations. The Wit, manifested chiefly in these
and the like performances, but ever flowing,
unless purposely restrained, in boundless abun-
dance, from Voltaire's mind, has been often and
duly celebrated. It lay deep-rooted in his na-
ture; the inevitable produce of such an un-
derstanding with such a character, and was
from the first likely, as it actually proved in
the latter period of his life, to become the main
dialect in which he spoke and even thought.
Doing all justice to the inexhaustible readiness,
the quick force, the polished acuteness, of Vol-
taire's Wit, we may remark, at the same time,
that it was nowise the highest species of em-
ployment for such a mind as his ; that, indeed,
it ranks essentially among the lowest species
even of Ridicule. It is at all times mere lo-
gical pleasantry ; a gayety of the head, not of
the heart; there is scarcely a twinkling of Hu-
mour in the whole of his numberless sallies.
Wit of this sort cannot maintain a demure
sedateness; a grave yet infinitely kind aspect,
warming the inmost soul with true loving
mirth ; it has not even the force to laugh out-
right, but can only sniff and litter. It grounds
itself, not on fond sportful sympathy, but or.
contempt, or at best, on indifference. It stands
related to Humour as Prose does to Poetry ; of
which, in this depanment at least, Voltaire ex-
hibits no symptom. The most determinedly

VOLTAIRE.

isi

ludicrous composition of his, the Purcllc, which
cannot on other grounds be recommended to
any reader, has no higher merit than that of an
audacious caricature. True, he is not a buf-
foon ; seldom or never violates the rules, we
shall not say of propriety, yet of good breeding:
to this negative praise he is entitled. But as
for any high claim to positive praise, it cannot
be made good. We look in vain, through his
whole writings, for one lineament of a Quirntc
or a Shandy; even of a Hudibras ov Bullle of the
HooL-^. Indeed, it has been more than once ob-
served that Humour is not a national gift with
the French, in late times; that since Mon-
taigne's day it seems to have well nigh vanish-
ed from among them.

Considered in his technical capacity of Poet,
Voltaire need not, at present, detain us very
long. Here too his excellence is chiefly intel-
lectual, and shown in the way of business-like
method. Every thing is well calculated for a
given end; there is the utmost logical fitness
of sentiment, of incident, of general contri-
vance. Nor is he without an enthusiasm that
sometimes resembles inspiration; a clear fel-
low-feeling for the personages of his scene he
always has; with a chameleon susceptibility
he takes some hue of every object ; if he can-
not be that object, he at least plausibly enacts
it. Thus we have a result everywhere con-
sistent with itself; a contrivance, not without
nice adjustments, and brilliant aspects, which
pleases with that old pleasure of " ditiiculties
overcome," and the visible correspondence of
means to end. That the deeper portion of our
soul sits silent, unmoved under all this ; recog-
nising no universal, everlasting Beauty, but
only a modish Elegance, less the work of po-
etical creation than a process of the toilette,
need occasion no surprise. It signifies only that
Voltaire was a French Poet, and wrote as the
French people of that day required and ap-
proved. We have long known that French
poetry aimed at a different result than ours;
that its splendour was what we should call a
dead, artificial one; not the manifold soft sum-
mer glories of Nature, but a cold splendour, as
of polished metal.

On the whole, in reading Voltaire's poetry,
that adventure of the Cafe de Procope should
ever be held in mind. He was not without an
eye to have looked, had he seen others looking,
into the deepest nature of poetry; nor has he
failed here and there to cast a glance in that
direction : but what preferment could such
enterprises earn for him in the Cafe de Pro-
cope/ What could it profit his all-precious
"fame," to pursue them fartherl In the end,
he seems to have heartily reconciled himself
to use and wont, and striven onl)'^ to do better
what he saw all others doing. Yet his private
poetical creed, which could not be a catholic
one, was, nevertheless, scarcely so bigoted as
might have been looked for. That censure of
Shakspeare, which elicited a re-censure in
England, perhaps rather deserved a "recom-
mendatory epistle," all things being considered.
He calls Shakspeare "a genius full of force
and fertility, of nature and sublimfty," though
unhaf pily " without the smallest spark of good
taste, or the smallest acquaintance with the
21

rules," which, in Voltaire's dialect, is not so
false; Shakspeare having really almost nc
Parisian boa gout whatever, and walking
through "the rules," so often as he sees good,
with the most astonishing tranquillity. After
a fair enough account of Hamlet, the best of
those " farces mons^rueuscs qu'on appcllc tragedies,"
where, however, there are " scenes so beauti-
ful, and passages so grand and so terrible,"
Voltaire thus proceeds to resolve two great
problems :

"The first, how so many wonders could ac-
cumulate in a single head '! fcir it must be con-
fessed that all the divine Shakspeare's plays
are written in this taste : the second, how
men's minds could have been elevated so as to
look at these plays with transport ; and how
they are still followed after, in a century which
has produced Addison's Calo ?

"Our astonishment at the first wonder will
cease, when we understand that Shakspeare
took all his tragedies from histories or ro-
mances; and that in this case he only turned
into verse the romance of Claudius, Gertrude^
and Handel, written in full by Saxo Gramraati
cus, to whom be the praise.

"The second part of the problem, that is to
say, the pleasure men take in these tragedies,
presents a little more difficulty ; but here is (en
voiri) the solution, according to the deep reflec-
tions of certain philosophers.

"The English chairmen, the sailors, hack-
ney-coachmen, shop-porters, butchers, clerks
even are passionately fond of shows : give them
cock-fights, bull-baitings, fencing -matches,
burials, duels, gibbets, witchcraft, apparitions,
they run thither in crowds ; nay, there is more
than one patrician as curious as the populace.
The citizens of London found in Shakspeare's
tragedies, satisfaction enough for such a turn
of mind. The courtiers were obliged to follow
the torrent: how can you help admiring what
the more sensible part of the town admires?
There was nothing better for a hundred and
fifty years; the admiration grew with age, and
became an idolatry. Some touches of genius,
some happy verses full of. force and nature,
which you remember in spite of yourself,
atoned for the remainder, and soon the whole
piece succeeded by the help of some beauties
of detail." — CEuvrcs, t. xlvii. p. 300.

Here, truly, is a comfortable little theory,
which throws light on more than one thing.
However, it is couched in mild terms, com-
paratively speaking. Frederic the Great, for
example, thus gives his verdict:

" To convince yourself of the wretched taste
that up to this day prevails in Germany, you
have only to visit the public theatres. Ifou
will there see, in action, the abominable plays
of Shakspeare, translated into our language;
and the whole audience fainting with rapture
(^se pe'nner d'uiae) in listening to those ridiculous
farces, worthy of the savages of Canada. I
call them such, because they sin against all
the rules of the theatre. One may pardcu
those mad sallies in Shakspeare, lor the birth
of the arts is never the point of their maturity.
But here, even now, we have a Goetz de Pet •
liclnngen, which has just made its appearance
on the scene; a detesiible imitation of those
o2

!63

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

miserable English pieces ; and the pit applauds,
and demands with enthusiasm the repetition
of these disgusting ineptitudes {deces degoutanlcs
platiliidcs.) — Be la Lilterature Jlllemandc. Ber-
lin, 1780.*

We have not cited these criticisms with a
view to impugn them ; but simply to ascertain
where the critics themselves are standing.
This passage of Frederic's has even a touch
of pathos in it; may be regarded as the expiring
cry of " Gout" in that country, who sees him-
self suddenly beleaguered by strange, appall-
ing. Supernatural intluences, which he mis-
lakes for Lapland witchcraft, or Cagliostro
jugglery; and so he drowns, grasping his
opera-hat, in an ocean of " De2;oulantcs plati-
tudes" On the whole, it would appear that
Voltaire's view of poetry was radically different
from ours; that, in fact, of what we should
strictly call poetry, he had almost no view
whatever. A Tragedy, a Poem, with him is
not to be " a manifestation of man's Reason in
forms suitable to his Sense ;" but rather a
highly complex egg-dance, to be danced before
the King, to a given tune, and without break-
ing a single egg. Nevertheless, let justice be
shown to him, and to French poetry at large.
This latter is a peculiar growth of our modern
ages; has been labouriously cultivated, and is
not without its own value. We have to re-
mark also, as a curious fact, that it has been,
at one lime or other, transplanted into ail coun-
tries, England, Germany, Spain ; but though
under the sunbeams of royal protection, it
would strike root nowhere. Nay, now it seems
falling into the sere and yellow leaf in its own
natal soil : the axe has already been seen near its
root; and perhaps, in no great lapse of 3'ears,
this species of poetry may be to the French,
what it is to all other nations, a pleasing re-
miniscence. Yet the elder French loved it
with zeal; to them it must have had a true
worth: indeed we can understand how, when
Life itself consisted so much in Display, these
representatives of Life may have been the only
suitable ones. And now, when the nation feels
itself called to a more grave and nobler destiny
among nations, the want of a new literature
also begins to be felt. As yet, in looking at
their too purblind, scrambling controversies
of Romanticists and Classicists, we cannot find
that our ingenious neighbours have done much
more than niake a commencement in this enter-
prise: however, a commencement seems to
be made ; they are in what may be called the
eclectic state ; trying all things, German, Eng-
lish, Italian, Spanish, with a candour and real
'.ove of improvement, which give the best
omens of a still higher success. From the
peculiar gifts of the French, and their peculiar
spiritual position, we may expect, had they
once more attained to an original style, many
important benefits, and important accessions
to the Literature of the World. Meanwhile, in
considering and duly estimating what that
people has, in past times, accomplished, Vol-
taire must always be reckoned among their
riost meritorious Poets. Inferior in what we

♦ We quote from the compilation : Ouethe in den Zeug-
mssen der Millebenden, s. 124.

may call general poetic temperament to Ea«
cine; greatly inferior, in some points of it, tc
Corneille, he has an intellectual vivacity, a
quickness both of sight and of invention, which
belongs to neither of these two. We believe
that, among foreign nations, his Tragedies,
such works as Tiuirc and Mahomet, are con-
siderably the most esteemed of this school.

However, it is nowise as a Poet, Historian,
or Novelist, that Voltaire stands so prominent
in Europe; but chiefly as a religious Polemic,
as a vehement opponent of the Christian
Faith. Viewed in this last character, he may
give rise to many grave reflections, only a
small portion of which can here be so much as
glanced at. We may say, in general, that his
style of controversy is of a piece with himself;
not a higher, and scarcely a lower style than
might have been expected from him. As in a
moral point of view, Voltaire nowise wanted a
love of truth, yet had withal a still deeper love
of his own interest in truth; was, therefore,
intrinsically no Philosopher, but a highly-ac-
complished Trivialist; so likewise, in an in-
tellectual point of view, he manifests himself
ingenious and adroit, rather than noble or
comprehensive; fights for truth or victory, not
by patient meditation, but by light sarcasm,
whereby victory may indeed, for a time, be
gained; but little Truth, what can be named
Truth, especially in such matters as this, is to
be looked for.

No one, we suppose, ever arrogated for Vol-
taire any praise of originality in this discus-
sion ; we suppose there is not a single idea, of
any moment, relating to the Christian religion,
in all his multifarious writings, that had not
been set forth again and again before his en-
terprises commenced. The labours of a very
mixed multitude, from Porphyry down to Shaf-
tesbury, including Hobbeses, Tindals, Tolands,
some of iheiB skeptics of a much nobler class,
had left little room for merit in this kind : nay,
Bayle, his own countryman, had just finished
a life spent in preaching skepticism precisely
similar, and by methods precisely similar,
when Voltaire appeared on the arena. Indeed,
skepticism, as we have before observed, was
at this period universal among the higher ranks
in France, with whom Voltaire chiefly associ-
ated. It is only in the merit and demerit of
grinding down this grain into food for the
people, and inducing so many to eat of it, that
Voltaire can claim any singularity. However,
we quarrel not with him on this head: there
may be cases where the want of originality is
even a moral merit. But it is a much more
serious ground of ofl^ence that he intermeddled
in Religion without being himself, in any mea-
sure. Religious; that he entered the Temple
and continued there, with a levity, which, in
any Temple where men worship, can beseem
no brother man; that, in a word, he ardently,
and with long-continued effort, warred against
Christianity, without understanding beyond the
mere superficies of what Christianity was

His polemical procedure in this matter, i*
appears to us, must now be admitted to have
been, on the whole, a shallow one. Through
all its manifold forms, and involutions, and re-
petitions, it turns, we believe exclusively, oa

VOLTAIRE.

163

i»ii« point; what Theologians have called the
■' plenary Inspiration of ihe Scriptures." This
is the single wall, against which, through long
jrtars, and with innumerable hattering-rams and
catapults and pop-guns, he unweariedly batters.
Concrde him this, and his ram swings freely, to
and I'ro, through space ; there is nothing further
it can even aim at. That the Sacred Books
c«uld be aught else than a Bank-of-Faith Bill,
for such and such quantities of Enjoyment,
payable at sight in the other world, value re-
ceived; which bill becomes waste paper, the
stamp being questioned: — that the Christian
Religion could have any deeper foundation
than Books, could possibly be written in the
purest nature of man, in mysterious, inefface-
able characters, to which Books, and all Reve-
lations, and authentic traditions, were but a
subsidiary matter, were but as the light where-
by that divine jm7(»g was to be read; — nothing
of this seems to have, even in the faintest
manner, occurred to him. Yet herein, as we
believe that the whole world has now begun
to discover, lies the real essence of the ques-
tion ; by the negative or afhrmative decision
of which the Christian Religion, any thing that
is worth calling by that name, must fall, or
endure for ever. We believe, also, that the
wiser minds of our age have ah"eady come to
agreement on this question ; or rather never
were divided regarding it. Christianity, the
"Worship of Sorrow," has been recognised as
divine, on far other grounds than "Essays on
Miracles," and by considerations infinitely
deeper than would avail in any mere "trial by
jury." He who argues against it or for it, in
this manner, may be regarded as mistaking its
nature: the Ithuriel, though to our eyes he
wears a body, and the fashi(m of armour, can-
not be wounded with material steel. Our
fathers were wiser than we, when they said in
deepest earnestness, what we often hear in
shallow mockery, that Religion is " not of
Sense, but of Faith ;" not of Understanding,
but of Reason. He who finds himself without
this latter, who by all his studying has failed
to unfold it in himself, may have studied to
great or to small purpose, we say not which;
but of the Christian Religion, as of many other
things, he has and can have no knowledge.

The Christian Doctrine we often hear
likened to the Greek Philosophy, and found,
on all hands, some measurable way superior
to it: but this also seems a mistake. The
Christian Doctrine, that doctrine of Humility,
in all senses, godlike, and the parent of all
godlike virtues, is not superior, or inferior, or
equal, to any doctrine of Socrates or Thales;
being of a totally different nature; differing
from these, as a perfect Ideal Poem docs from
a Correct Computation in Arithmetic. He
who compares it with such standards may la-
ment that, beyond the mere letter, the purport
of this divine Humility has never been dis-
closed to him ; that the loftiest feeling hitherto
vouchsafed to mankind is as yet hidden from
his eyes.

For the rest, the question how Christianity
jriginated is doubtless a high question ; re-
solvable enough, if we view only its surface,
which was all that Voltaire saw of it; involved

in sacred, silent, tinfathomable depths, if we
investigate its interior meanings ; which mean-
ings, indeed, it may be, every new age will
develop to itself in a new manner, and with
new degrees of light ; for the whole truth may
be called infinite, and to man's eye discernible
only in parts : but the question itself is nowise
the ultimate one in this matter.

We understand ourselves to be risking no
new assertion, but simply reporting what is
already the conviction of the greatest in our
age, wiien we say, — that cheerfully recognising,
gratefully appropriating whatever Voltaire has
proved, or any other man has proved, or shall
prove, the Christian Religion, once here, cannot
again pass away; that, in one or the other
form, it will endure through all time; that, as
in Scripture, so also in the heart of man, is
written, "the Gates of Hell shall not prevail
against it." Were the memory of this Faith
never so obscured, as, indeed, in all times, the
coarse passions and perceptions of the world
do all but obliterate it in the hearts of most;
yet in every pure soul, in every Poet and Wise
Man. it finds a new Missionary, a new Martyr,
till the great volume of Universal History is
finally closed, and man's destinies are fulfilled
in this earth. "It is a height to which the
human species were fated and enabled to at-
tain; and from which, having once attained
if, they can never retrograde."

These things, which it were far out of our
place to attempt adequately elucidating here,
must not be left out of sight, in appreciating
Voltaire's polemical worth. We find no trace
of these, or of any the like essential considera-
tions having been present with him, in examin-
ing the Christian Religion ; nor indeed was it
consistent with his general habits that they
should be so. Totally destitute of religious
Reverence, even of common practical serious-
ness; by nature or habit, undevout both in
heart and head ; not only without any Belief,
in other than a material sense, but without the
possibility of acquiring any, he can be no safe
or permanently useful guide in this investiga-
tion. We may consider him as having opened
the way to future inquirers of a truer spirit;
but for his own part, as having engaged in an
enterprise, the real nature of which was well-
nigh unknown to him; and engaged in it with
the issue to be anticipated in such a case;
producing chiefly confusion, dislocation, de-
struction, on all hands; so that the good he
achieved is still, in these times, found mixed
with an alarming proportion of evil, from
which, indeed, men rationally doubt whether
much of it will in any time be separable.

We should err widely, too, if in estimat-
ing what quantity, altogether overlooking what
quality, of intellect Voltaire may have mani-
fested on this occasion, we took the result
produced as any measure of the force applied.
His task was not one of Aflirmalion, but of
Denial; not a task of erecting and rearing up,
which is slow and laborious; but of destroy-
ing and overturning, which in most cases is
rapid and lar easier. The force necessary for
him was nowise a great and noble one; but a
small, in some respects a mean one, to be
nimbly and seasonably put in use. The

164

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Ephesian Temple, which it had employed
many wise heads and strong arms, for a life-
time, to build, conld be un-buUt by one mad-
man, in a single hour.

Of such errors, deficiencies, and positive
misdeeds, it appears to us, a just criticism
inust accuse Voltaire: at the same time, we
can nowise join in the condemnatory clamour
which so many worthy persons, not without
the best intentions, to this day keep up against
liim. His whole character seems to be plain
enough, common enough, had not extraneous
influences so perverted our views regarding it :
nor, morally speaking, is it a worse character,
^out considerably a better one, than belongs to
the mass of men. Voltaire's aims in opposing
the Christian Religion were unhappily of a
mixed nature : yet, after all, very nearly such
aims as we have often seen directed against
it, and often seen directed in its favour: a
little love of finding Truth, with a great love
of making Proselytes ; which last is in itself
a natural, universal feeling; and if honest, is,
even in the worst cases, a subject for pit}-, ra-
ther than for hatred. As a light, careless,
courteous Man of the World, he offers no
hateful aspect; on the contrary, a kindly, gay,
rather amiable one: hundreds of men, with
half his worth of disposition, die daily, and
their little world laments them. It is time
that he too should be judged of by his intrin-
sic, not by his accidental qualities; that jus-
tice should be done to him also ; for injustice
can profit no man and no cause.

In fact, Voltaire's chief merits belong to
Nature and himself; his chief faults are of
his time and country. In that famous era of
the Pompadours and Enryrlopeilies, he forms the
main figure ; and was such, we have seen,
more by resembling the multitude, than by
differing from them. It was a strange age
that of Louis XV.'; in several points, a novel
one in the history of mankind. In regard to
its luxury and depravity, to the high culture
of all merely practical and material faculties,
and the entire torpor of all the purely contem-
plative and spiritual, this era considerably re-
sembles that of the Roman Emperors. There,
too, was external splendour and internal
squalour; the highest completeness in all sen-
sual arts, including among these not cookery
and its adjuncts alone, bat even "effect-paint-
ing" and "effect-writing;" only the art of
virtuous living was a lost one. Instead of
Love for Poetry, there was "Taste" for it;
refinement in manners, with utmost coarse-
ness in morals : in a word, the strange spec-
tacle of a social system, embracing large,
cultivated portions of the human species, and
founded only on Atheism. With the Romans,
things went what we should call their natural
course: Liberty, public spirit, quietly declined
into a rapiit-nwrtvum : Self-love, Materialism,
Baseness even to the disbelief in all possibi-
lity of Virtue, stalked more and more imperi-
«>usly abroad ; till the body-politic, long since
deprived of its vital circulating fluids, had
now become a putrid carcass, and fell in pieces
to be the prey of ravenous wolves. Then
was there, under those Attilas and Alarics, a
xvorld's spectacle of destruction and despair,

compared with which the often-commemorateij
"horrors of the French Revolution," and all
Napoleon's wars, were but the gay jousting of
a tournament to the sack of stormed cities.
Our European community has escaped the like
dire consummation; and by causes, which,
as may be hoped, will always secure it from
such. Nay, were there no other cause, it may
be asserted, that in a commonwealth where
the Christian religion exists, where it once
has existed, public and private Virtue, the
basis of all Strength, never can become ex
linct; but in every new age, and even from the
deepest decline, there is a chance, and in the
course of ages, a certainty of renovation.

That the Christian Religion, or any Religion,
continued to exist; that some martyr heroism
still lived in the heart of Europe to rise against
mailed Tyranny when it rode triumphant, —
was indeed no menit in the age of Louis XV.,
but a happy accident which it could not alto-
gether get rid of. For that age too is to be
regarded as an experiment, on the great scale,
to decide the question, not yet, it would ap-
pear, settled to universal satisfaction : With
what degree of vigour a political system,
grounded on pure Self-interest, never so en-
lightened, but without a God, or any recogni-
tion of the godlike in man, can be expected to
flourish; or whether, in such circumstd,nces,
a political system can be expected to flourish,
or even to subsist at all ? It is contended by
many that our mere love of personal Pleasure,
or Happiness as it is called, acting on every
individual, with such clearness as he may
easily have, will of itself lead him to respect
the rights of others, and wisely emjiloy his
own : to fulfil, on a mere principle of eco-
nomy, all the duties of a good patriot; so that,
in what respects the State, or the merely so-
cial existence of mankind, Belief, beyond the
testimony of the senses, and Virtue, beyond
the veiy common Virtue of loving what is
pleasant, and hating what is painful, are to be
considered as supererogatory qualifications,
as ornamental, not essential. Many there are,
on the other hand, who pause over this doc-
trine; cannot discover, in such a universe of
conflicting atoms, any principle by which the
whole shall cohere : for, if every man's self-
ishness, infinitely expansive, is to be hemmed
in only by the infinitelj'-expansive selfishness
of every other man, it seems as if we should
have a world of mutually-repulsive bodies
with no centripetal force to bind them toge-
ther; in which case, it is well known they
would, by and by, diffuse themselves over
space, and constitute a remarkable Chaos, but
no habitable Solar or Stellar System.

If the age of Louis XV. was not made an
experimeuiv.m cruris in regard to this question,
one reason may be that such experiments are
too expensive. Nature cannot afford, above
once or twice in the thousand years, to destroy
a whole world, for purposes of science;
but must content herself with destroying one
or two kingdoms. The age of Louis XV., so
far as it went, seems a highly illustrative ex-
periment. We are to remark, also, that its
operation was clogged by a very considtrable
disturbing force ; by a large remnant, namely

VOLTAIRE.

1«5

of the old faith in Religion, in the invisible,
celestial nature of Virtue, which'our French
Purifiers, by their utmost efl'urts of lavation,
had not been able to wash away. The men
did their best, but no man can do more. Their
worst enemy, we imagine, will not accuse
them of any undue regard to things unseen
and spiritual: far from practising this invisi-
ble sort of Virtue, they cannot even believe
in its possibility. The high exploits and en-
durances of old ages were no longer virtues,
but " passions ;" these antique persons had a
taste for being heroes, a certain fancy to die
for the truth: the more fools they! With our
Philosophers, the only virtue of any civilization
was that they call " Honour," the sanctioning
deity of which is that wonderful "Force of
Public Opinion." Concerning which virtue
of Honour, we must be permitted to say that
she reveals herself too clearly, as the daughter
and heiress of our old acquaintance Vanity,
who indeed has been known enough, ever
since the foundation of the world, at least
since the date of that " Lucifer, son of the
Morning;" but known chiefly in her proper
character of strolling actress, or cast-clothes
Abigail ; and never till that new era had seen
her issue set up as Queen and all-sufficient
Dictatress of man's whole soul, prescribing
with nicest precision what, in all practical
and all moral emergencies, he was to do and
to forbear. Again, with regard to this same
Force of Public Opinion, it is a force well
known to all of us, respected, valued as of in-
' dispensable utility, but nowise recognised as
a final or divine force. We might ask what
divine, what trul}^ great thing had ever been
effected by this force ! Was it the Force of
Public Opinion that drove Columbus to Ame-
rica; John Kepler, not to fare sumptuously
among Rodolph's Astrologers and Fire-eaters,
but to perish of want, discovering the true
System of the Stars 1 Still more ineffectual
do we find it as a basis of public or private
Morals. Nay, taken by itself, it may be called
a baseless ba^is ; for without some ulterior
sanction, common to all minds; without some
belief in the necessary, eternal, or which is
the same, in the supramundane, divine nature
of Virtue, existing in each individual, what
could the moral judgment of a thousand or a
thousand thousand individuals avail us 1
Without some such celestial guidance, whence-
soever derived, or howsoever named, it ap-
pears to us the Force of Public Opinion would,
by and by, become an extremely unprofitable
one. "Enlighten Self-interest!" cries the
Philosophe : "Do but sufficiently enlighten it!
We ourselves have seen enlightened Self-in-
terests, ere now; and truly, for most part,
their light was only as that of a horn-lantern,
sufficient to guide the bearer himself out of
various puddles : but to us and the world of
comparatively small advantage. And figure the
human species, lik"e an endless host, seeking
its way onwards through undiscovered Time,
in black darkness, save that each had his horn-
lantern, and the vanguard some few of glass!
However, we will not dwell on controversial
niceties. What we had to remark was that
this era. called of Philosophy, was in itself but

a poor era ; that any little rnoral'.*y it had was
chiefly borrowed, and from those very ages
which it accounted so barbarous. For this
"Honour," this "Force of Public Opinion," is
not asserted, on any side, to have much reno-
vating, but only a sustaining or preventive
power ; it cannot create new Virtue, but at best
may preserve what is already there. Nay, of
the age of Louis XV., we may say that its very
Power, its material strength, its knowledge, all
that it had, was borrowed. It boasted itself to
be an age of illumination; and truly illumina-
tion there was of its kind : only, except the
illuminated windows, almost nothing to be seen
thereby. None of those great Doctrines or In-
stitutions that have "made man in all points
a man ;" none even of those Discoveries that
have the most subjected external Nature to his
purposes, were made in that age. What
Plough, or Printing-press, what Chivalry, or
Christianity ; nay, what Sieam-engine, or Qua-
kerism, or Trial by Jury, did these Encyclo-
pedists invent for mankind? They invented
simply nothing; not one of man's virtues, not
(me of man's powers, is due to them: in all
these respects, the age of Louis XV. is among
the most barren of recorded ages. Indeed, the
whole trade of our Philo^nphcs was directly the
opposite of invention : it was not to produce,
that they stood there ; but to criticise, to quarrel
with, to rend in pieces, what had been already
produced; — a quite inferior trade : sometimes
a useful, but on the whole a mean trade ; often
the fruit, and always the parent, of meanness,
in every mind that permanently follows it.

Considering the then position of aflairs, it is
not singular that the age of Louis XV. should
have been what it was : an age without noble-
ness, without high virtues, or high manifesta-
tions of talent; an age of shallow clearness, of
polish, self-conceit, skepticism, and all forms
of Persiflage. As little does it seem surprising,
or peculiarly blamable, that Voltaire, the lead-
ing man of that age, should have partaken
laigely of all its qualities. True, his giddy
activity took serious effect, the light firebrands,
which he so carelessly scattered abroad, kin-
dled fearful conflagrations : but in these there
has been good as well as evil ; nor is it just
that, even for the latter, he, a limited mortal,
should be charged with more than mortal's
responsibility. After all, that parched, blighted
period, and the period of earthquakes and
tornadoes which followed it, have now well-
nigh cleared away: they belong to the Past,
and for us and those that come after us, are
not without their benefits, and calm historical
meaning.

"The thinking heads of all nations," says a
deep observer, " had in secret come to majority ,•
and, in a mistaken feeling of their vocation,
rose the more fiercely against antiquated con-
straint. The Man of Letters is, by instinct,
opposed to a Priesthood of old standing: the
literary class and the clerical must wage a war
of extermination, when they are divided ; for
both strive after one place. Such division
became more and more perceptible, the nearer
we approached the period of European man-
hood, the epoch of triumphant Learning; and
Knowledge and Faith came into more decided

166

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

contradiction. In the prevailing Faith, as was
rhoiight, lay the reason of the universal degra-
dation ; and by a more and more searching
Knowledge men hoped to remove it. On all
hands, the Religious feeling suffered, under
manifold attacks against its actual manner of
existence, against the Forms in which hitherto
it had imbodied itself. The result of that mo-
dern way of thought was named Philosophy ;
and in this all was included that opposed itself
to the ancient way of thought, especially,
therefore, all that opposed itself to Religion.
The original personal hatred against the
Catholic faith passed, by degrees, into hatred
against the Bible; against the Christian Reli-
gion, and at last against Religion altogether.
Nay, more, this hatred of Religion naturally
extended itself over all objects of enthusiasm
in general, proscribed Fancy and Feeling,
Morality and love of Art, the Future and the
Antique ; placed man, with an effort, foremost
in the series of natural productions; and
changed the infinite, creative music of the
Universe into the monotonous clatter of a
boundless Mill, which, turned by the stream
of Chance, and swimming thereon, was a Mill
»f itself, without Architect and Miller, properly,
a genuine perpetuum mobile, a real, self-grinding
Mill.

" One enthusiasm was generously left to poor
mankind, and rendered indispensable as a
touchstone of the highest culture, for all job-
bers in the same: Enthusiasm for this mag-
nanimous Philosophy, and above all, for these
its priests and mystagogues. France was so
happy as to be the birthplace and dwelling of
this new Faith, which had thus, from patches
of pure knowledge, been pasted together. Low
as Poetry ranked in this new Church, there
■were some poets among them, who for effect's
sake made use of the old ornaments and old
lights; but, in so doing, ran a risk of kindling
the new world-system by ancient fire. More
cunning brethren, however, were at hand to
help ; and always in season poured cold water
on the warming audience. The members of
this Church were restlessly employed in clear-
ing Nature, the Earth, the Souls of men, the
Sciences, from all Poetry ; obliterating every
vestige of the Holy: disturbing, by sarcasms,
the memory of all lofty occurrences, and lofty
men ; disrobing the world of all its variegated
vesture. * » * » pity that Nature con-
tinued so wondrous and incomprehensible, so
poetical and infinite, all efforts to modernize
her notwithstanding! However, if any-
where an old superstition, of a higher world
and the like, came to light, instantly, on all
hands, was a springing of rattles ; that, if pos-
sible, the dangerous spark might be extin-
guished, by appliances of philosophy and wit:
yet Tolerance was the watchword of the culti-
vated; and in France, above all, synonymous
with Philosophy. Highly remarkable is this
history of modern Unbelief; the key to all the
vast phenomena of recent times. Not till last
century, till the latter half of it, does the no-
velty begin ; and in a little while, it expands to
an immeasurable bulk and variety: a second
Reformation, a more comprehensive, and more
specific, was unavoidable : and naturally it first

visited that land which was the most modern-
ized, and had the longest lain in an asthenic
state, from the want of freedom. * * •

"At the present epoch, however, we stand
high enough to look back with a friendly smile
on those bygone days ; and even in those
marvellous follies to discern curious crystal-
lizations of historical matter. Thankfully wil,
we stretch out our hands to those Men of
Letters and Philosophcs: for this delusion too
required to be exhausted; and the s-cientific
side of things to have full value given it. More
beauteous and many-coloured stands Poesy,
like a leafy India, when contrasted with the
cold, dead Spitzbergen of that closet-logic
That in the middle of the globe, an India, st
warm and lordly, might exist, must also a cold
motionless sea, dead cliffs, mist instead of the
starry sky, and a long night, make both Poles
uninhabitable. The deep meaning of the laws
of Mechanism lay heavy on those anchorites
in the deserts of Understanding: the charm of
the first glimpse into it overpowered them : the ,
Old avenged itself on them; to the first feel-
ing of self-consciousness, they sacrificed, with
wondrous devotedness, what was holiest and
fairest in the world! and were the first that,
in practice, again recognised and preached
forth the sacredness of Nature, the infinitude
of Art, the independence of Knowledge, the
worth of the Practical, and the all-presence of
the Spirit of History ; and so doing, put an end
to a Spectre-dynast}^ m^re poieut, universal,
and terrific than perhaps they themselves were
aware of."*

How far our readers will accompany Novalis
in such high-soaring speculation is not for us
to say. Meanwhile, that the better pait of
them have already, in their own dialect, united
with him, and with us, in candid tolerance, in
clear acknowledgment, towards French Phi-
losophy, towards this Voltaire and the spiritual
period which bears his name, we do not hesi-
tate to believe. Intolerance, animosity, can
forward no cause; and least of all beseems the
cause of moral and religious truth. A wise
man has well reminded us, that "in any con-
troversy, the instant we feel anger, we have
already ceased striving for Truth, and begun
striving for Ourselves." Let no man doubt that
Voltaire and his disciples, like all men and
all things that live and act in God's world,
will one day be found to have "worked to-
gether for good." Nay that with all his evil,
he has already accomplished good, must be
admitted in the soberest calculation. How
much do we include in this one little word :
He gave the death-stab to modern Superstition.
That horrid incubus, which dwelt in darkness,
shunning the light, is passing away; with all
its racks, and poison-chalices, and foul sleep-
ing-draughts, is passing away without return.
He who sees even a little way into the signs
of the times, sees well that both the Smithfield
fires and the Edinburgh thumbscrews (for
these too must be held in remembrance) are
things which have long, very long, lain be-
hind us ; divided from us by a wall of cen-
turies, transparentindeed, but more impassable

* Novalis Schriften, i., ». 198.

NOVALIS.

IVt

than adamant. For, as we said, Superstition
is in its death-lair; the last agonies may endure
for decades, or for centuries ; but it carries the
iron in its heart, and will not vex the earth any
more.

That, with Superstition, Religion is also
passing away, seems to us a still more un-
grounded fear. Religion cannot pass away.
The burning of a little straw may hide the
stars of the sky ; but the stars are there, and
will re-appear. On the whole, we must repeat
the often-repeated saying, that it is unworthy
a religious man to view an irreligious one
either with alarm or aversion or witii any other
feeling than regret, and hope, and brotherly

commiseration. If he seek Truth, is he not
our brother, and to be pitied ? If he do not
seek truth, is he not still our brother, and to
be pitied still more 1 Old Ludovicus Vives
has a story of a clown that killed his ass be-
cause it had drunk up the moon, and he thought
the world could ill spare that luminary. So he
killed his ass, ut lumim redderet. The clown
was well-intentioned, but unwise. Let us not
imitate him ; let us not slay a faithful servant
who has carried us far. He has not drunk the
moon ; but only the reflection of the moon, in
his own poor water-pail, where, too, it may be,
he was drinking with purposes the most harm-
less.

NOVALIS.*

[FoRHiGN Review, 1829.]

A NUMBER of years ago, Jean Paul's copy
of Novulis led him to infer that the German
reading world was of a quick disposition; in-
asmuch as with regard to books that required
more than one perusal, it declined perusing
them at all. Paul's AWn/is, we suppose, was
of the first Edition, uncut, dusty, and lent him
from the Public Library with willingness, nay,
with joy; but times, it would appear, must be
considerably changed since then ; indeed, were
we to judge of German reading habits from
these volumes of ours, we should draw quite
an opposite conclusion of Paul's ; for they are
of the fourth Edition, perhaps therefore the
ten-thousandth copy, and that of a Book de-
manding, whether deserving or not, to be
oftener read than almost any other it has ever
been our lot to examine.

Without at all entering into the merits of
Novalis, we may observe that we should reckon
it a happy sign of Literature, were so solid a
fashion of study here and there established in
all countries ; for directly in the teeth of most
" intellectual tea-circles," it may be asserted
that no good Book, or good thing of any sort,
shows its best face at first; nay, that the com-
monest quality in a true work of Art, if its ex-
celleace have any depth and compass, is that
at first sight it occasions a certain disappoint-
ment; perhaps even, mingled with its undeni-
able beauty, a certain feeling of aversion. Not
as if we meant, by this remark, to cast a stone
at the old guild of literary Improvisators, or
any of that diligent brotherhood whose trade it
is to blow soap-bubbles for their fellow-crea-
tures; which bubbles, of course, if they are
not seen and admired this moment, will be
altogether lost to men's eyes the next. Con-
sidering the use of these blowers, in civilized
communities, we rather wish them strong
Jungs, and all manner of prosperity: but simply

♦ J\r0valis Schriften. Herausg-egeben von Ludiri/r Tieclc
■und Friedricli Schlen-el. (Novalis' Writings. Edited by
Ludwig Tierk and Friedrich Schlegel.) Fourth Edition.
K vols. Berlin, 1»26.

we would contend that such soap-bubble guild
should not becom.e the sole one in Literature ;
that being indisputably the strongest, it should
content itself with this pre-eminence, and not
tyrannically annihilate its less prosperous
neighbours. For it should be recollected that
Literature positively has other aims than this
of amusement from hour to hour; nay, per-
haps, that this, glorious as it may be, is not
its highest or true aim. We do say, therefore,
that the Improvisator corporation should be
kept within limits; and readers, at least a
certain small class of readers, should under-
stand that some few departments of human
inquiry have still their depths and difficulties ;
that the abstruse is not precisely synonymous
with the absurd; nay, that light itself may be
darkness, in a certain state of the eyesight;
that, in short, casts may occur when a little
patience and some attempt at thought would
not be altogether superfluous in readmg. Let
the mob of gentlemen keep their own ground,
and be happy and applauded there: if they
overstep that ground, they indeed may flourish
the better for it, but the reader will suffer
damage. For in this way, a reader, accustomed
to see through every thing in one second of
time, comes to forget that his wisdom and
critical penetration are finite and not infinite;
and so commits more than one mistake in his
conclusions. The Reviewer, too, who indeed
is only a preparatory reader, as it were, a sort
of sieve and drainer for the use of m< re luxuri-
ous readers, soon follows his example: these
two react still further on the mob of gentle-
men ; and so among them all, with this action
and reaction, matters grow worse and worse.

It rather seems to us as if, in this respect
of faithfulness in reading, the Germans were
somewhat ahead of us English ; at least we
have no such proof to show of it as that fourth
Edition of Novalis. Our Coleridge's Friend,
for example, and Biogruphia Litennia, are but
a slight business compared with these Schrif-
1 ten ; little more than the Alphabet, and that i&

16S

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

gilt letters, of such Philosophy and Art as is
here taught in the form of Grammar and Rhe-
torical Compend : yet (Joleridge's works were
triumphantly condemned by the whole review-
ing world, as clearly unintelligible; and among
readers they have still but an unseen circula-
tion ; like living brooks, hidden for the present
tinder mountains of froth and theatrical snow-
paper, and which only at a distant day, when
these mountains shall have decomposed them-
selves into gas and earthly residuum, may
roll forth in their true limpid shape, to glad-
den the general eye with what beauty and
everlasting freshness does reside in them. It
is admitted, too, on all hands, that Mr. Cole-
ridge is a man of "genius," that is, a man
having more intellectual insight than other
men; and strangely enough, it is taken for
granted, at the same time, that he has less in-
tellectual insight than any other. For why
else are his doctrines to be thrown out of
doors, without examination, as false and
worthless, simply because they are obscure?
Or how is their so palpable falsehood to be
accounted for to our minds, except on this ex-
traordinary ground; that a man able to origi-
nate deep thoughts (such is the meaning of
genius) is unable to scf them when originated;
that the creative intellect of a Philosopher is
destitute of that mere faculty of logic which
belongs to " all Attorneys, and men educated
in Edinburgh?" The Cambridge carrier,
■when asked whether his horse could " draw
inferences," readily replied, " Yes, any thing
in reason;" but here, it seems, is a man of
genius who has no similar gift.

We ourselves, we confess, are too young in
the study of human nature to have met with
any such anomaly. Never yet has it been our
fortune to fall in with any man of genius,
whose conclusions did not correspond better
with his premises, and not worse, than those
of other men ; whose genius, when it once
came to be understood, did not manifest itself in
a deeper, fuller, truer view of all things human
and divine, than the clearest of your so laud-
able "practical men" had claim to. Such,
we say, has been our uniform experience ; so
uniform, that we now hardly ever expect to
see it contradicted. True it is, the old Pytha-
gorean argument of " the master said it," has
long ceased to be available : in these days, no
man, except the Pope of Rome, is altogether
exempt from error of judgment ; doubtless a
man of genius may chance to adopt false opi-
nions ; nay, rather, like all other sons of Adam,
except that same enviable Pope, must occa-
sionally adopt such. Nevertheless, we reckon
it a good maxim, that "no error is fully con-
futed till we have seen not only that it is an
exior, but how it became one ; " till finding that
it clashes with the principles of truth, estab-
lished in our own mind, we find also in what
way it had seemed to harmonize with the prin-
ciples of truth established in that other mind,
perhaps so unspeakably superior to ours.
Treated by this method it still appears to us,
according to the old saying, that the errors of
the wise man are literally more instructive
than the truths of a fool. For the wise
man travels in lofty, far-seeing regions ; the

fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes : retracing
the footsteps of the former, to discover where
he deviated, whole provinces of the Universe
are laid open to us; in the path of the lattr>r,
granting even that he have not deviated at all,
little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and
two hedges.

On these grounds we reckon it more profit-
able, in almost any case, to have to do with
men of depth, than with men of shallowness :
and were it possible, we would read no book
that was not written by one of the former
class; all members of which we would love
and venerate, how perverse soever they may
seem to us at first ; nay, though, after the full-
est investigation, we still found many things
to pardon in them. Such of our readers as at
all participate in this predilection will not
blame us for bringing them acquainted with
Novalis, a man of the most indisputable talent,
poetical and philosophical ; whose opinioijs,
extraordinary, nay, altogether wild and base-
less as they often appear, are not without a
strict coherence in his own mind, and will
lead any other mind, that examines them faith-
fully, into endless considerations ; opening
the strangest inquiries, new truths, or new
possibilities of truth, a whole unexpected
world of thought, where, whether for belief or
denial, the deepest questions await us.

In what is called reviewing such a book as
this, we are aware that to the judicious crafts-
man two methods present themselves. The
first and most convenient is for the Reviewer
to perch himself resolutely, as it were, on the
shoulder of his Author, and therefrom to show
as if he commanded him, and looked down on
him by natural superiority of stature. What-
soever the great man says or does, the little
man shall treat him with an air of knowing-
ness and light condescending mockery ; pro-
fessing, with much covert sarcasm, that this
and that other is beyond his comprehension,
and cunningly asking his readers if they com-
prehend it! Herein it will help him mightily,
if besides description, he can quote a few pas-
sages, which, in their detached state, and taken
most probably in quite a wrong acceptation
of the words, shall sound strange, and to cer-
tain hearers, even absurd; all which will be
easy enough, if he have any handiness in the
business, and address the right audience ;
truths, as this world goes, being true only for
those that have sumc understanding of them ;
as, for instance, in the Yorkshire Wolds, and
Thames Coal-ships, Christian men enough
might be found, at this day, who, if you read
them the Thirty-ninth of the Principia, would
"grin intelligence from ear to ear." On the
other hand, should our Reviewer meet with
any passage, the wisdom of which, deep, plain,
and palpable to the simplest, might cause mis-
givings in the reader, as if here were a man
of half-unknown endowment, whom perhaps
it were better to wonder at than laugh at, our
Reviewer either quietly suppresses it, or citing
it with an air of meritorious candour, calls
upon his Author, in a tone of command and
encouragement, to lay aside his transcendental
crotchets, and write always thus, and he will
admire him. Whereby the reader again feels

NOVALIS.

169

comforted ; proceeds swimmingly to the con-
clusion of the "Article," and shuts it with a
victorious feeling, not only that he and the
Keviewer understand this man, but also that,
with some rays of fancy and the like, the man
is little better than a living mass of darkness.

In this way does the small Reviewer triumph
ove" great Authors: but it is the triumph of a
fool In this way, too, does he recommend
himself to certain readers, but it is the recom-
mendation of a parasite, and of no true servant.
The servant would have spoken truth, in this
case; truth, that it might have profited, how-
ever harsh: the parasite glosses his master
with sweet speeches, that he may filch ap-
plause, and certain "guineas per sheet," from
him; substituting . for Ignorance, which was
harmless. Error v/hich is not so. And yet to
the vulgar reader, naturally enough, that flat-
tering unction is full of solacement. In fact,
to a reader of this sort few things can be more
alarming than to find that his own little Parish,
where he lived so snug and absolute, is, after
all, )jo^ the whole Universe; that beyond the
hill which screened his house from the west
wind, and grew his kitchen vegetables so
sweetly, there are other hills and other ham-
lets, nay, mountains and towered cities ; with
all which, if he would continue to pass for a
Geographer, he must for-thwith make himself
acquainted. Now this Reviewer, often his fel-
low Parishioner, is a safe man; leads him
pleasantly to the hill top; shows him, that in-
deed there are, or seem to be, other expanses,
these, too, of boundless extent : but with only
cloud mountains, and falanwrgana cities; the
true character of that region being Vacuity, or
at best a stony desert tenanted by Gryphons
and Chimceras.

Surely, if printing is not, like courtier speech,
" the art oi concealing thought," all this must be
blamable enough. Is it the Reviewer's real
trade to be the pander of laziness, self-conceit,
and all manner of contemptuous stupidity on
the part of his reader; carefully minister-
ing to these propensities ; carefully fencing otf
whatever might invade that fool's-paradise
with news of disturbance] Is he the priest of
Literature and Philosophy, to interpret their
mysteries to the common man ; as a faithl'ul
preacher, teaching him to understand what is
adapted for his understanding, to reverence
what is adapted for higher understandings
than hisl Or merely the lackey of Dullness,
striving for certain wages, of pudding or praise,
by the month or quarter, to perpetuate the reign
of presumption and triviality on earth 1 If the
latter, will he not be counselled to pause for an
instant, and reflect seriously, whether starva-
tion were worse or were better than such a
dog's-existence?

Our reader perceives that we are for adopt-
ing the second method with regard to Novalis ;
that we wish less to insult over this highly-
gifted man, than to gain some insight into him ;
that we look upon his mode of being and
thinking as very singular, but not, therefore,
necessarily very contemptible; as a matter, in
fact, worthy of examination, and difficult be-
yond most others to examine wisely and with
profit. Let no small man expect that, in this
22

case, a Samson is to be led forth, blinded and
manacled, to make him sport. Naj% might it
not, in a spiritual sense, be death, as surely it
would be damage, to the small man himself!
For is not this habit of sneering at all great-
ness, of forcibly bringing down all greatness to
his own height, one chief cause which keeps
that height so very inconsiderable? Come of
it what may, we have no refreshing dew for
the small man's vanity in this place, nay,
rather, as charitable brethren, and fellov/-suf-
ferers from that same evil, we would gladly lay
the sickle to that reed-grove of self-conceit,
which has grown round him, and reap it alto-
gether away, that so the true figure of the
world, and his own true figure, might no longer
be utterly hidden from him. Does this our
brother, then, refuse to accompany us, without
such allurements ? He must even retain our
best wishes, and abide by his own hearth.

Farther, to the honest few that still go along
with us on this occasion, we are bound in jus-
tice to say that, far from looking down on
Novalis, we cannot place either them or our-
selves on a level with him. To explain so'
strange an individuality, to exhibit a mind of
this depth and singularity before the minds of
readers so foreign to him in every sense, would
be a vain pretension in us. With the best will,
and after repeated trials, we have gained but a
feeble notion of Novalis for ourselves; his
Volumes come before us with every disad
vantage; they are the posthumous works of a
man cut off" in earl}' life, while his opinions,
far from being matured for the public eye
were still lying crude and disjointed before his
own : for most part written down in the shape
of detached aphorisms, "none of them," as he
sa3'S himself, "untrue or unimportant to his
own mind," but naturally requiring to be re-
modelled, expanded, compressed, as the matter
cleared up more and more into logical unity;
at best but fragments of a great scheine which
he did not live to realize. If his editors, Fried-
rich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, declined com-
menting on these Writings, we may well be
excused for declining to do so. "It cannot be
our purpose here," says Tieck, " to recommend
the following Works, or to judge them ; pro-
bable as it must be that any judgment delivered
at this stage of the matter would be a prema-
ture and unripe one: for a spirit of such
originality must first be comprehended, his will
understood, and his loving intention felt and
replied to; so that not till his ideas have takea
root in other minds, and brought forth new
ideas, shall we see rightly, from the histo ical
sequence, what place he himself occupied, and
what relation to his country he truly bore."

Meanwhile, NoA'alis is a figure of such im-
portance in German Literature, that no stu-
dent of it can pass him by without attention.
If we must not attempt interpreting this Work
for our readers, we are bound at least to point
out its existence, and according to our best
knowledge, direct such of them as take an in-
terest in the matter how to investigate it farther
for their own benefit. For this purpose, it may
be well that we leave our Author to speak
chiefly for himself; subjoining only such ex-
positions as cannot be dispensed with for even

170

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANELUS WRITINGS.

verbal intelligibility, and as we can offer on
our own surety willi some degree of confidence.
By way of basis to the whole inquiry, we pre-
fix some particulars of his short life ; a pait of
our task which Tieck's clear and graceful
Narrai>e, given as " Preface to the Third Edi-
tion," renders easy for us.

Friedrich von Hardenberg, better known in
Literature by the pseudonym " Novalis," was
born on the 2d of May, 1773, at a country resi-
dence of his family in the Grafstdiafi of Mans-
field, in Saxony. His father, who had been a
soldier in youth, and still retained a liking for
that profession, was at this time Director of the
Saxon Salt-works; an oiiice of some consider-
able trust and dignity. Tieck says, " he was a
vigorous, unweariedly active man, of open,
resolute character, a true German. His reli-
gious feelings made him a member of the
Herrnhut Communion ; yet his disposition con-
tinued gay, frank, rugged, and downright."
The mother also was distinguished for her
worth; "a pattern of noble piety and Christian
mildness;" virtues which her subsequent life
gave opportunity enough for exercising.

On young Friedrich, whom we may con-
tinue to call Novalis, the qualities of his parents
must have exercised more than usual influ-
ence ; for he was brought up in the most re-
tired manner, with scarcely any associate but
a sister one year older than himself, and the
two brothers that were next to him in age. A
decidedly religious temper seems to have dif-
fused itself, under many benignant aspects,
over the whole family: in Novalis especially
it continued the ruling principle through life;
manifested no less in his scientific specula-
tion, than in his feelings and conduct. In
childhood he is said to have been remarkable
chiefly for the entire, enthusiastic affection
with which he loved his mother; and for a
certain still secluded disposition, such that he
took no pleasure in boyish sports, and rather
Shunned the society of other children. Tieck
mentions that, till his ninth year, he was
reckoned nowise quick of apprehension ; but,
at this period, strangely enough, some violent
biliary disease, which had almost cut him ofl",
seemed to awaken his faculties into proper
life, and he became the readiest, eagerest
learner in all branches of his scholarship.

In his eighteenth year, after a few months
of preparation in some Gymnasiuiu, the only in-
struction he appears to have received in any
public school, he repaired to Jena; and con-
tinued there for three years; after which he
spent one season in the Leipzig University,
and another, "to complete his studies," in that
of Wittenberg. It seems to have been at Jena
that he became acquainteql with Friedrich
Schlegel; where also, we suppose, he studied
under Fichte. For both of these men he con-
ceived a high admiration and affection ; and
both of them had, clearly enough, " a great and
abiding efl'ect on his whole life." Fichte, in
particular, whose lofty eloquence, and clear
calm enthusiasm are said to have made him
irresistible as a teacher,* had quite gained
Novalis to his doctrines ; indeed the Wissen-

* Sclielling, we have been informed, gives account of
Fichte and his Winsenschaflslehre, to the following

schdflslehre, which, as we are told of the latter,
" he studied with unwearied zeal," appears to
to have been the groundwork of all his future
speculations in Philosophy. Besides these
metaphysical inquiries, and the usual attain-
ments in classical literature, Novalis seems
" to have devoted himself with ardour to the
Physical Sciences, and to Mathematics, the
basis of them :" at an early period of his life,
he had read much History " with extraordinary
eagerness;" Poems had from of old been "the
delight of his leisure;" particularly that species
denominated Mahnhen, (Traditionary Tale,)
which continued a favourite with him to the
last ; as almost from infancy it had been a
chosen amusement of his to read these composi-
tions, and even to recite such, of his own in-
venlion. One remarkable piece of that sort he
has himself left us, inserted in Heinrirh von
0/ crdw^cii, his chief literary performance.

But the time had now arrived, when study
must become subordinate to action, and what
is called a profession be fixed upon. At the
breaking out of the French War, Novalis had
been seized with a strong and altogether un-
expected taste for a military life : however, the
arguments and pressing entreaties of his
friends ultiniatelv prevailed over this whim;
it seems to have been settled that he should
follow his father's line of occupation; and so
about the end of 1794, he removed to Arnstadt
in Thuringia; "to train himself in practical
affairs under the Kreis-Amtmcum Just." In this
Kreis-Aintiniinn (manager of a Circle) he found
a wise and kind friend ; applied himself honest-
ly to business ; and in all his serious calcula-
tions, may have looked forward to a life as
smooth and commonplace as his past years
had been. One incident, and that too of no
unusual sort, appears in Tieck's opinion to
have altered the whole form of his existence.

" It was not very long after his arrival at
Arnstadt, when in a country mansion of the
neighbourhood, he became acquainted with

Sophie von K . The first glance of this

fair and wonderfully lovely form was decisive
for his whole life; nay, we may say that the
feeling, which now penetrated and inspired
him, was the substance and essence of his
whole life. Sometimes, in the look and figure
of a child, there will stamp itself an expres-
sion, which, as it is too angelic and etherially
beautiful, we are forced to call unearthly or
celestial ; and commonly at sight of such
purified and almost transparent faces there
comes on us a fear that they are loo tender
and delicately fashioned for this life: that it is
Death, or Immortality, which looks forth so
expressively on us from these glancing eyes ;
and too often a quick decay converts our
mournful foreboding into certainty. Still more
afl'ecting are such figures, when their first
period is happily passed over, and they come
before us blooming on the eve ofmaidhood.
All persons, that have known this wondrous
loved one of our Friend, agree in testifying
that no description can express in what grace
and celestial harmony the fair being moved,

efTect : "The Philosophy of Fichte was like light-
ning; it appeared only f >r a moment, but it kindled a
fire which will burn for ever."

NOVALIS.

171

what beauty shone in her, what softness and
majesty encircled her. Novalis became a poet
every time he chanced to speak of it. She had
conchided her thirteenth year when lie first saw
her: the spring and summer of 1795 were the
blooming time of his life; every hour that he
could spare from business he spent in Griin-
ingen ; and in the fall of that same year he ob-
tained the wished-for promise from Sophie's
parents."

Unhappily, however, these halcyon days
were of too short continuance. Soon after this,
Sophie fell dangerously sick " of a fever, at-
tended with pains in the side ;" and her lover
had the worst consequences to fear. By and
by, indeed, the fever left her; but not the pain,
" which by its violence still spoiled for her
many a fair hour," and gave rise to various
apprehensions, though the Physician asserted
that it was of no importance. Partly satisfied
with this favourable prognostication, Novalis
had gone to Weissenfels, to his parents, and
was lull of business; being now appointed
Auditor in the department of which his father
M'as Director; through winter the news from
Grilningen were of a favourable sort; in
spring he visited the family himself, and found
his Sophie to all appearance well. But sud-
denly, in summer, his hopes and occupations
were interrupted by tidings that, "she was in
Jena, and had undergone a surgical operation."
Her disease was an abscess in the liver : it
had been her wish that he should not hear of
her danger till the worst were over. The
Jena surgeon gave hopes of a recovery though
a slow one ; but ere long the operation had to
be repeated, and now it was feared that his
patient's strength was too far exhausted. The
young maiden bore all this with inflexible
courage, and the cheerfulest resignation : her
Mother and Sister, Novalis, with his Parents,
and two of his Brothers, all deeply interested
in the event, did their utmost to comfort her.
In December, by her own wish, she returned
home ; but it was evident that she grew weaker
and weaker. Novalis went and came between
Grilningen and Weissenfels, where also he
found a house of mourning; for Erasmus, one
of these two Brothers, had long been sickly,
and M'as now believed to be dying.

"The 17th of March," says Tieck, "was the
fifteenth birthday of his Sophie; and on the
19th about noon she departed. No one durst
tell Novalis these tidings: at last his Brother
Carl undertook it. The poor youth shut him-
self up, and after three days and three nights of
weeping, set out for Arnstadt,that there with his
true friend he might be near the spot, which
now hid the remains of what was dearest to
him. On the 14th of April, his Brother Eras-
mus also left this world. Novalis wrote to in-
form his Brother Carl of the event, who had
been obliged to make a journey into Lower Sax-
ony: ' Be of good courage,' said he, 'Erasmus
has prevailed ; the flowers of on r fair garland are
dropping off Here, one by one, that they may
be united Yonder, lovelier and for ever.'"

Among the papers published in these Vo-
lumes are three letters written about this time,
which mournfully indicate the author's mood.
"It has grown Evening around me," says he,

" while I was looking into the red Morning. M»
grief is boundless as my love. For three years
she has been my hourly thought. She alone
bound me to life, to the country, to my occu-
pations. With her I am parted from all ; for
now I scarcely have inysilf any more. But it
has grown Evening; and I feel as if I had to
travel early ; and so I would fain be at rest,
and see nothing but kind faces about me; — all
in her spirit would I live, be soft and mild-
hearted as she was." And again, some weeks
later: "I live over the old, bygone life here, in
still meJitation. Yesterday I was twenty-five
years old. I was in Grilningen, and stood be-
.♦ide her grave. It is a friendly spot; enclosed
with a simple white railing ; lies apart, and
high. There is still room in it. The Village,
with its blooming gardens, leans up around the
hill; and at this point and that the eye loses
itself in blue distances. I know you would
have liked to stand by me, and stick the flowers,
my birthday gifts, one by one into her hillock.
This time two years, she made me a gay pre-
sent, with a flag and national cockade on it. To-
day her parents gave me the little things which
she, still jo)'fully, had received on her last birth-
day. Friend, — it continues Evening, and will
soon be Night. If you go away, think of
me kindly, and visit, when you return, the still
house, where your Friend rests for ever, with
the ashes of his beloved. Fare you well !" —
Nevertheless, a singular composure came over
him : from the very depths of his griefs, arose
a peace and pure joy, such as till then he had
never known.

"In this season," observed Tieck, "Novalis
lived only to his sorrow : it was natural for him
to regard the visible and the invisible world as
one; and to distinguish Life and Death, only
by his longing for the latter. At the same time,
too. Life became for him a glorified Life ; and
his whole being melted away as into a bright,
conscious vision of a higher Existence. From
the sacredness of Sorrow, from heartfelt love,
and the pious wish for death, his temper, and
all his conceptions are to be explained: and it
seems possible that this time, with its deep
griefs, planted in him the germ of death, if it
was not, in any case, his appointed lot to be so
soon snatched away from us.

"He remained many weeks in Thuringia;
and came back comforted and truly purified, to
his engagements: which he pursued more zea-
lously than evei*, though he now regarded him-
self as a stranger on the earth. In this period,
some earlier, many later, especially in the Au-
tumn of this year, occur most of those compo-
sitions, which, in the way of extract and selec-
tion, we have here given to the Public, under
the title of Fragments : so likewise the Hymns
to the Kight."

Such is our Biographer's account of this mat-
ter, and of the weighty inference it has led him
to. We have detailed it the more minutely,
and almost in the very words of the text, the
better to put our readers in a condition for
judging on what grounds Tieck rests his opi-
nion, that herein lies the key to the whole spi
ritual history of Novalis, that " the feeling which
now penetrated and inspired him, may be said
to have been the substance of his Life '" It

172

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

would ill become us to contradict one so well
qualified to jud^e of all subjects, and who en-
joyed such peculiar opportunities for forming
a right judgment of this: meanwhile we may
say that, to our own minds, after all considera-
tion, the certainty of this hypothesis will nowise
become clear. Or rather, perhaps, it is to the
expression, to the too determinate and exclusive
language in which the hypothesis is worded,
that we should abject; for so plain does the
truth of the case seem to us, we cannot but be-
lieve that Tieck himself would consent to
modify his statement. That the whole philo-
sophical and moral existence of such a man
as Novalis should have been shaped and de-
termined by the death of a young girl, almost
a child, specially distinguished, so far as is
shown, by nothing save her beauty, which at
any rate must have been very short-lived, will
doubtless seem to every one a singular conca-
tenation. We cannot but think that some re-
sult precisely similiar in moral effect might
have been attained by many different means;
nay, that by one means or another, it would not
have failed to be attained. For spirits like
Novalis, earthly fortune is in no instance so
sweet and smooth, that it does not by and b}'
teach the great doctrine of EntRagen, of "Re-
nunciation," by which alone, as a wise man
well known to Herr Tieck has observed, " can
the real entrance on Life be properly said to
begin." Experience, the grand School-master,
seems to have taught Novalis this doctrine
very early by the wreck of his first passionate
wish ; and herein lies the real influence of So-
phie von K. on his character; an influence
which, as we imagine, many other things might
and would have equally exerted : for it is less
the severity of the Teacher than the aptness of
the Pupil that secures the lesson ; nor do the
purifying effects of frustrated Hope, and Afl^ec-
tion that in this world will ever be homeless, de-
pend on the worth or loveliness of its objects,
but on that of the heart which cherished it, and
can draw mild wisdom from so stern a disap-
pointment. We do not say that Novalis con-
tinued the same as if this young maiden had
not been; causes and eflfects connecting every
man and thing with every other extend through
all Time and all Space; but surely it appears un-
just to represent him as so altogether pliant in
the hands of Accident; a mere pipe for Fortune
to play tunes on; and which sounded a mystic,
deep, almost unearthly melody, simply because
a young woman was beautiful and mortal.

We feel the more justified in these hard-
hearted and so unromantic strictures on read-
ing the very next paragraph of Tieck's Narra-
tive. Directly on the back of this occurrence,
Novalis goes to Frcyberg; and there \n 1798,
it may be therefore somewhat more or some-
what less than a year after the death of his first
love, forms an acquaintance, and engagement

to marry, with a " Julie von Ch !" Indeed,

ever afterwards, to the end, his life appears to
have been more than usually cheerful and hap-
py. Tieck knows not what well to say of this be-
trothment, which in the eyes of most Novel-
readers v/ill have so shocking an appearance :
me admits that " perhaps to any but his intimate
friends if may seem singular;" asserts, notwith-

standing, that "Sophie, as maybe seen also in
his writings, continued the centre of his
thoughts ; nay, as one departed, she stood in
higher reverence with him than when visible
and near;" and hurrying on, almost as over an
unsafe subject, declares that Novalis felt never-
theless " as if loveliness of mind and person
might in some measure replace his loss;" and
so leaves us to our own reflections on the mat-
ter. We consider it as throwing light on the
above criticism ; and greatly restricting our ac-
ceptance of Tieck's theory. Yet perhaps, after
all, it is only in a Minerva-Press Novel, or to
the more tender Imagination, that such a pro-
ceeding would seem very biamable. Constancy,
in its true sense, may be called the root of all
excellence; especially excellent is constancy
in active well-doing, in friendly helpfulness to
those that love us, and to those that hate us :
but constancy in passive suffering, again, in
spite ofthe high value put upon it in Circulating
Libraries, is a distinctly inferior virtue, rather
an accident than a virtue, and, at all events, is
of extreme rarity in this world. To Novalis,
his Sophie might still be as a saintly presence,
mournful and unspeakably mild, to be wor-
shipped in the inmost shrine of his memory :
but worship of this sort is not man's sole busi-
ness; neither should we censure Novalis that
he dries his tears, and once more looks abroad
with hope on the earth, which is still, as it was
before, the strangest complex of mystery and
light, of joy as well as sorrow. " Life belongs
to the living'; and he that lives must be pre-
pared for vicissitudes." The questionable cir-
cumstance with Novalis is his perhaps too great
rapidity in that second courtship; a fault or
misfortune the more to be regretted, as this
marriage also was to remain a project, and only
the anticipation of it to be enjoyed by him.

It was for the purpose of studying mine-
ralogy, under the famous Werner, that Novalis
had gone to Freybcrg. For this science he had
great fondness, as indeed for all the physical
sciences : which, if Ave may judge from his
writings, he seems to have prosecuted on a
great and original principle, very different both
from that of our idle theorizers and general-
izers, and that of the still more melancholy
class who merely " collect facts," and for the
torpor or total extinction ofthe thinking faculty,
strive to make up by the more assiduous use
of the blowpipe and goniometer. The com-
mencement of a work, entitled the Disciples at
Siiis, intended, as Tieck informs us, to be a
"Physical Romance," was written in Freyberg,
at this time: but it lay unfinished, unprose-
cuted ; and now comes before us as a very
mysterious fragment, disclosing scientific
depths, which we have not light to see into,
much less means to fathom and accurately
measure. The various hypothetic views of
" Nature," that is, of the visible Creation,
which are here given out in the words of the
several " Pupils," differ, almost all of them,
more or less, from any that we have ever else-
where met with. To this work we shall have
occasion to refer more particularly in thr;
sequel.

The acquaintance which Novalis formed,
soon after this, with the elder Schlegel, (August

NOVALIS.

173

Wilhelm,) and still more that of Tieck, whom
also he first met in Jena, seems ^o have ope-
rated a considerable diversion in his line of
study. Tieck and the Schlrgels, with some
less active associates, among whom are now
meniioned Wackenroder and Novalis, were at
this time engaged in their far-famed campaign
against Duncedom, or what called itself the
"Old School" of Literature; which old and
rather despicable "School" they had alread}',
both by regular and guerrilla warfare, reduced
to gre-"' /traits; as ultimately, they are reckon-
ed to Iiave succeeded in utterly extirpating it,
or at least driving it back to the very confines
of its native Cimmeria. It seems to have been
in connection with these men, that Novalis
first came before the world as a writer: certain
of his Fragiiicnts, under the title oi Bliithcnslaub
(Pollen of Flowers;) \\\ii Jlymns to the Night,
and various poetical compositions, were sent
forth in F. Schlegel's Musen-JHiiianaih, and
other periodicals under the same or kindred
management. Novalis himself seems to pro-
fess that it was Tieck's influence which
chiefly "reawakened Poetry in him." As to
what reception these pieces met with, we have
no information: however, Novalis seems to
have been ardent and diligent in his new pur-
suit, as in his old ones; and no less happy
than diligent.

"In the summer of 1800," says Tieck, "I
saw him for the first time, while visiting my
friend Wilhelm Schlegel ; and our acquaint-
ance soon became the most confidential friend-
ship. They were bright days those, which we
passed with Schlegel, Schelling, and some
other friends. On my return homewards, I
visited him in his house, and made acquaint-
ance with his family. Here he read me the
Dixciplcs at Sais, and many of his Frugrnoils.
He escorted me as far as Halle,; and we en-
joyed in Giebichenstein, in the Reichardts'
nouse, some other delightful hours. About
this time, the first thought of his Oflerdingen
had occurred. At an earlier period, certain of
his Spiri'uul Songs had been composed ; they
were to form part of a Christian Hymn-book,
which he meant to accompany with a collec-
tion of Sermons. For the rest, he was very
di'lgent in his professional labours; whatever
he did was done with the heart ; the smallest
concern was not insignificant to him."

The professional labours here alluded to,
seem to have left much leisure on his hands:
room for frequent change of place, and even
of residence. Not long afterwards, we find
him " living for a long wiiile in a solitary spot
of tlie Giildne Aue in Thuringia, at the foot of
"he Kyll haiiser Mountain ;" his chief society
two military men, subse(iucntly Generals ; "in
vhich solitude great part of his Ofierdhigen was
written." The first volume of this Heinrirh
von (•fcrdiii'j.en, a sort of Art-Romance, intend-
ed, as he himself said, to be an "Apothesis of
Poetry," was ere long published ; under what
circumstatices, or with what result, we have,
as before, no notice. Tieck had fi)r some time
been resident in Jena, and at intervals saw
much of Novalis. On preparing to quit that
abode, he went to pay him a farewell visit at
Weissenfels; found him "somewhat paler,"

but full of gladness and hope; quite inspired
with plans of his future happiness ; his house
was already fitted up ; in a few months he was
to be Avedded: no less zealously did he speak
of the speedy conclusion of Ofierdingen, and
other books; iTis life seemed expanding in the
richest activity and love." This was in 1800;
four years ago Novalis had longed and looked
for death, and it was not appointed him ; now
life is again rich, and far extending in his
eyes, and its close is at hand. Tieck parted
with him, and it proved to be for ever.

In the month of August, Novalis, preparing
for his journey to Freyberg, on so joyful an
occasion, was alarmed with an appearance of
blood proceeding from the lungs. The Physi-
cian treated it as a slight matter; nevertheless,
the marriage was postponed. He went to
Dresden with his parents, for medical advice ;
abode there for some time in no improving
state ; on learning the accidental death of a
young brother at home, he ruptured a blood-
vessel ; and the Doctor then declared his
malady incurable. This, as usual in such
maladies, Avas nowise the patient's own opi-
nion ; he wished to try a warmer climate, but
was thought too weak for the journey. In
January (1801) he returned home, visibly to
all, but himself, in rapid decline. His bride
had already been to see him, in Dresden. We
may give the rest in Tieck's words:

"The nearer he approached his end, the
more confidently did he expect a speedy reco-
very; for the cough diminished, and excepting
languor, he had no feeling of sickness. With
the hope and the longing for life, new talent
and fresh strength seemed also to awaken in
him; he thought, with renewed love, of all his
projected labours; he determined on writing
Oftcidingcn over again from the very begin-
ning; and shortly before his death, he said on
one occasion, ' Never till now did I know -what
Poetry was; innumerable Songs and Poems,
and of quite diflerenl stamp from any of my
former ones, have arisen in me.' From the
nineteenth of March, the death-day of his
Sophie, he became visibly weaker: many of
his friends visited him; and he felt great joy
when, on the twenty-first, his true and oldest
fi'iend, Friedrich Schlegel, came to him from
Jena. With him he conversed at great length ;
especially upon their several literary opera-
tions. During these days he was very lively; his
nights too were quiet; and he enjoyed pretty
sound sleep. On the twent3-fifth, about six in
the morning, he made his brother hand him
certain books, that he might lock for some-
thing; then he ordered breakfast and talked
cheerfully till eight; towards nine he bade his
brother play a little to him on the harpsichord,
and in the course of the music fell asleep.
Friedrich Schlegel soon afterwards came inu>
the room, and found him quietly sleeping : this
sleep lasted till near twelve, when without the
smallest motion he passed away, and unchang-
ed in death, retained his common friendly
looks as if he yet lived.

"So died," continues the affectionate Bio-
grapher," before he had completed his twenty-
ninth year, this our Friend; in whom his ex-
tensive acquirements, his philosophical talent.
p 2

174

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and his poetic genius, must alike obtain our
love and admiration. As he had so far outrun
his time, our countr}' might have expected
extraordinary things from such gifts, had this
early death not overtaken him: as it is, the
unfinished writings he left behind him have
already had a wide influence; and many of
his great thoughts will yet, in time coming,
lend their inspiration, and noble minds and
deep thinkers will be enlightened and enkindled
by the sparks of his genius.

" Novaiis was tall, slender, and of noble pro-
portions. He wore his light-brown hair in
long clustering locks, which at that time was
less unusual than it would be now; his hazel eye
■was clear and glancing; and the colour of his
face, especially of the fine brow, almost trans-
parent. Hand and foot were somewhat too
large, and without fine character. His look
was at all times cheerful and kind. For those
who distinguish a man only in so far as he
puts himself forward, or by studious breeding,
by fashionable bearing, endeavours to shine or
to be singular, Novaiis was lost in the crowd :
to the more practised eye, again, he presented
a figure which might be called beautiful. In
outline and expression, his face strikingly re-
sembled that of the Evangelist John, as we see
him in the large noble painting by Albrecht
Diirer, preserved at Niirnberg and Miinchen.

" In speaking, he was lively and loud, his
gestures strong. I never saw him tired:
though we had talked till far in the night, it
was still only on purpose that he stopped, for
the sake of rest, and even then he used to read
before sleeping. Tedium he never felt, even
in oppressive company, among mediocre men ;
for he was sure to find out one or other, who
could give him some yet new piece of know-
ledge, such as he could turn to use, insignifi-
cant as it might seem. His kindliness, his
frank bearing, made him a universal favourite :
his skill in the art of social intercourse was so
great, that smaller minds did not perceive how
high he stood above them. Though in con-
versation he delighted the most to unfold the
deeps of the soul, and spoke as inspired of the
regions of invisible worlds, yet was he mirth-
ful as a child; would jest in free artless gayety,
and heartily give in to the jestings of his com-
pan}'. Withoutvanity, without learned haughti-
ness, far from every afi^ectation and hypocrisy,
he was a genviine, true man, the purest and
loveliest imbodiment of a high immortal
spirit."

So much for the outward figure and history
of Novaiis. Respecting his inward structure
and significance, which our readers are here
principally interested to understand, we have
already acknowledged that we had no com-
plete insight to boast of. The slightest perusal
of his writings indicates to us a mind of won-
derful depth and originality ; but at the same
time, of a nature or habit so abstruse, and
altogether different from any thing we ourselves
have notice or experience of, that to penetrate
fairly into its essential character, much more
to picture it forth in visual distinctness, would
be an extremely difficult task. Nay, perhaps,
if attempted by the means familiar to us, an
impossible task; for Novaiis belongs to that

class of persons, who do not recognise the
"syllogistic method," as the chief organ for
investigating truth, or feel themselves bound
at all times to stop short where its light fails
them. Many of his opinions he would despair
of proving in the most patient Court of Law;
and would remain well content that they
should be disbelieved there. He much loved,
and had assiduously studied, Jacob Bdhme
and other mystical writers; and was, openly
enough, in good part a Mystic himself. Not
indeed what we English, in common speech,
call a Mystic ; which means only a man whom
we do not understand, and, in self-defence,
reckon or would fain reckon a Dunce. Nova-
iis was a Mystic, or had an ainnity with Mys-
ticism, in the primary and true meaning of
that word, exemplified in some shape among
our own Puritan Divines, and which at this
day carries no opprobrium with it in Germany,
or except among certain more unimportant
classes, in any other country. Nay, in this
sense, great honours are recorded of Mysti-
cism : Tasso, as may be seen in several of his
prose writings, was professedly a Mystic;
Dante is regarded as a chief man of that class.

Nevertheless, with all due tolerance or rever-
ence for Novalis's Mysticism, the question still
returns on us: How shall we understand it,
and in any measure shadow it forth 1 How
may that spiritual condition which by its own
account is like pure Light, C(dourless, formless,
infinite, be represented by mere Logic-Painters,
mere Engravers we might say, who, except
copper and burin, producing the most finite
black-on-white, have no means of representing
any thing? Novaiis himself has a line or two,
and no more, expressly on Mysticism ; " What
is Mysticism 1" asks he. "What is it that
should come to be treated mystically? Reli-
gion, Love, Nature, Polity. — All selected things
(alles Jliifcru\ihllc) have a reference to Mysti-
cism. If all men were but one pair of lovers,
the difl^"erence between Mysticism and Non-
Mysticism were at an end." In which little
sentence, unhappily, our reader obtains no
clearness ; feels rather as if he were looking
into darkness visible. We must entreat him,
nevertheless, to keep up his spirits in this
business ; and above all, to assist us with his
friendliest, cheerfullest endeavour: perhaps
some faint far-off view of that same mysterious
Mysticism may at length rise upon us.

To ourselves, it somewhat illustrates the na-
ture of Novalis's opinions, when we consider
the then and present state of German meta-
ph3'^sical science generally; and the fact, stated
above, that he gained his first notions on this
subject from Fichle's Wissenschaf.slehre. It is
true, as Tieck remarks, " he sought to open
for himself a new path in Philosophy ; to unite
Philosophy with Religion ;" and so diverged in
some degree from his first instructor; or, as it
more probably seemed to himself, prosecuted
Fichte's scientific inquiry into its highest prac-
tical results. At all events, his metaphysical
creed, so far as we can gather it from these
writings, appears everywhere in its essential
lineaments, synonymous with what little we
understand of Fichte's, and might indeed,
safely enough for our present purpose, be

NOVALIS.

176

classed under the head of Kantism, or German
metaphysics generally.

Now, without entering into the intricacies
of German Philosophy, we need here only ad-
vert to the character of Idealism, on which it
is everywhere founded, and which universally
pervades it. In all German systems, since the
time of Kant, it is the fundamental principle to
deny the existence of Matter; or rather we
should say to believe it in a radically difierent
sense from that in which the Scotch Philoso-
pher strives to demonstrate it, and the English
Unphilosopher believes it without demonstra-
tion. To any of our readers, who has dipped
never so slightly into metaphysical reading,
this Idealism will* be no inconceivable thing.
Indeed it is singular how widely difi'used, and
under what different aspects we meet with it
among the most dissimilar classes of mankind.
Our Bishop Berkeley seems to have adopted it
from religious inducements : Father Boscovich
was led to a very cognate result, in his Theoria
PMlosophicE Nntv.ralis, from merely mathematical
considerations. Of the ancient Pyrrho or the
modern Hume Ave do not speak: but in the
opposite end of the Earth, as Sir W. Jones in-
forms us, a similar theory, of immemorial age,
prevails among the theologians of Hindostan.
Nay, Professor Stuart has declared his opinion,
that whoever at some time of his life has not
entertained tiiis theory, may reckon that he
has yet shown no talent for metaphysical re-
search. Neither is it an}' argument against
the Idealist to say that, since he denies the
absolute existence of Matter, he ought in con-
science likewise to deny its relative existence ;
and plunge over precipices, and run himself
through with swords, by way of recreation,
since these, like all other material things, are
only phantasms and spectra, and therefore of
no consequence. If a man, corporeally taken,
is but a phantasm and spectrum himself, all
this will, ultimately amount to much the same
as it did before. Yet herein lies Dr. Reid's
grand triumph over the Skeptics; which is as
good as no triumph whatever. For as to the
argument which he and his followers insist on,
under all possible variety of figures, it amounts
only to this very plain consideration, that " men
naturally, and without reasoning, believe in the
existence of Matter ;" and seems, Philosophi-
cally speaking, not to have any value; nay,
the introduction of it into Philosojihy may be
considered as an act of suicide on the part of
that science, the life and business of which,
that of "interpreting Appearances," is hereby
at an end. Curious it is, moreover, to observe
liow these Common-sense Philosophers, men
who brag chiefly of their irrefragable logic,
and keep watch and ward, as if this were
their special trade, against "Mysticism," and
"Visionary Theories," are themselves obliged
to base their whole system on Mysticism, and
a Theory; on Faith, in short, and that of a
very comprehensive kind ; the Faith, namely,
either that man's Senses are themselves
Divine, or that they afford not only an honest,
but a literal representation of the workings of
some Divinity. So true is it that for these
naen also, all knowledge of the visible rests

on belief of the invisible, and derives its first
meaning and certainty therefrom !

The Idealist again boasts that his Philoso-
phy is Transcendental, that is, "ascending 6e.
yond the senses ;" which, he asserts, all Philo-
sophy, properly so called, by its nature is and
must be : and in this way he is led to various
unexpected conclusions. To a Transcenden-
talist. Matter has an existence but only as a
Phenomenon : were icc not there, neither would
it be there ; it is a mere Relation, or rather the
result of a Relation between our living Souls
and the great First Cause ; and depends for
its apparent qualities on our bodily and mental
organs; having itself no intrinsic qualities,
being, in the common sense of that word. No-
thing. The tree is green and hard, not of its
own natural virtue, but simply because my
eye and my hand are fashioned so as to dis-
cern such and such appearances under such
and such conditions. Nay, as an Idealist
might say, even on the most popular grounds,
must it not he sol Bring a sentient Being,
with eyes a little different, with fingers ten
times harder than mine ; and to him that Thing
which I call Tree shall be yellow and soft, as
truly as to me it is green and hard. Form his
Nervous structure in all points the reverse of
mine, and this same Tree shall not be combus-
tible, or heat producing, but dissoluble and
cold-producing, not high and convex, but deep
and concave ; shall simply have all properties
exactly the reverse of those I attribute to it.
There is, in fact, says Fichte, no Tree there ;
but only a Manifestation of Power from some-
thing which is not J. The same is true of ma-
terial Nature at large, of the whole visible
Universe, with all its movements, figures, ac-
cidents, and qualities; all are Impressions
produced on 7)ie by something different front me.
This, we suppose, may be the foundation of
what Fichte means by his far-famed Irh and
Ntcld-Ich (I and Not-I) ; words which, taking
lodging (to use the Hudibrastic phrase) in cer-
tain " heads that were to be let unfurnished," oc-
casioned a hollow echo, as of Laughter, fmm
the empty Apartments; though the words are
in themselves quite harmless, and may repre-
sent the basis of a metaphysical Philosophy
as fitly as any other words. But farther, and
what is still stranger than such Idealism, ac-
cording to these Kantean systems, the organs
of the Mind too, what is called the Under-
standing, are of no less arbitrary, and, as it
were, accidental character than those of the
Bi-)dy. Time and Space themselves are not
external but internal entities : they have no
outward existence, there is no Time and no
Space out of the mind ; they are mere forms
of man's spiritual being, laws under which his
thinking nature is constituted to act. This
seems the hardest conclusion of all ; but it is
an imporiant'one with Kant; and is not given
forth as a dogma; but carefully deduced in
his Critik dcr Ikinen J'ernunft with great preci
sion, and the strictest form of argument.

The reader would err widely who supposed
that this Transcendental system of Metaphy-
sics was a mere intellectual card-castle,- or
logical hocus-pocus, contrived from sheer idle

178

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ness, and for sheer idleness, being without
any bearing on the practical interests of men.
On the contrary, however false, or however
true, it is the most serious in its purport of all
Philosophies propounded in these latter cen-
turies ; has been taught chiefly by men of the
loftiest and most earnest character; and does
bear, with a direct and highly comprehensive
influence, on the most vital interests of men.
To say nothing of the views it opens in regard
to the course and management of what is
called Natural Science, we cannot but per-
ceive that its efl'ects, for such as adopt it, on
Morals and Religion, must in these days be of
almost boundless importance. To take only
that last and seemingly strangest doctrine, for
example, concerningTime and Space, we shall
find that to the Kantist it yields, almost imme-
diately, a remarkable result of this sort. If
Time and Space have no absolute existence
out of our minds, it removes a stumbling-
block from the very threshold of our Theology.
For on this ground, when we say that the
Deity is omnipresent and eternal, that with
Him it is a universal Here and Now, we say
nothing wonderful : nothing but that He also
created Time and Space, that Time and Space
are not laws of His being, but only of ours.
Nay to the Transcendentalist, clearl}^ enough,
the whole question of the origin and existence
of Nature must be greatly simplified ; the old
hostility of Matter is at an end, for Matter is
itself annihilated, and the black Spectre,
Atheism, "with all its sickly dews," melts into
nothingness for ever. But farther, if it be, as
Kant maintains, that the logical mechanism
of the mind is arbitrary, so to speak, and
might have been made different, it will follow
that all inductive conclusions, all conclusion?
of the Understanding, have only a relative
truth, are true only for us, and if some other
thing be true. Thus far Hume and Kant go
together, in this branch of the inquiry : but
here occurs the most total, diametrical diverg-
ence between them. We allude to the recog-
nition, by these Transcendental ists, of a
higher faculty in man than Understanding;
of Reason, {Venmnfi,) the pure, ultimate light
of our nature; wherein, as they assert, lies the
foundation of all Poetry, Virtue, Religion;
things which are properly beyond the province
ef the Understanding, of which the Under-
standing c;n take no cognisance except a false
one. The elder Jacobi, who indeed is no
Kantist, says once, we remember — "It is the.
instinct of Understanding to contradict Reason."
Admitting this last distinction and subordina-
tion, supposing it scientifically demonstrated,
what numberless and weightiest consequences
would follow ii-om it alone ! These we must
leave the considerate reader to deduce for
himself; observing only fariher, that the I'co-
logia Misiira, so much venerated by Tasso in his
philosophical writings ;. the " Mysticism " al-
luded to above byNovalis; and generally all
true Chri'jCian Faith and Devotion, appear, so
far as we can see, more or less included in
this doctrine of the Transcendentalisls ; under
their several shapes, the essence of them all
being what is here designated by the name

Reason, and set forth as the true sovereign of
man's mind.

How deep these and the like principles had
impressed themselves on Novalis,we see more
and more, the further we study his Writings.
Naturally a deep, religious, contemplative
spirit ; purified also, as we have seen, by harsh
Affliction, and familiar in the " Sanctuary of
Sorrow," he comes before us as the most ideal
of all Idealists. For him the material Crea-
tion is but an Appearance, a typical shadow
in which the Deity manifests himself to Man.
Not only has the unseen world a reality, but
the only reality: the rest being not metaphori-
cally, but literally and in scientific strictness,
" a show ;" in the words of the Poet, Schall und
Ranch umnebclnd Ilinmich Glu.'Ii, " Sound and
Smoke overclouding the Splendour of Heaven."
The Invisible World is near us : or rather it
is here, in us and about us; were the fleshly
coil removed from our Soul, the glories of the
Unseen were even now around us ; as the
Ancients fabled of the Spheral Music. Thus
not in word only, but in truth and sober belief,
he feels himself encompassed by the Godhead;
feels in every thought, that "in Him he lives,
moves, and has his being."

On his Philosophic and Poetic Procedure,
all this has its natural influence. The aim of
Novalis's whole Philosophy, we might say, is
to preach and establish the Majesty of Reason,
in that stricter sense; to conquer for it all
provinces of human thought, and everywhere
reduce its vassal. Understanding, into fealty,
the right and only useful relation for it.
Mighty tasks in this sort lay before himself*
of which, in these Writings of his, we trace
only scattered indications. In fact, all that he
has left is in the shape of fragment; detached
expositions and combinations, deep, brief
glimpses: but such seems to be their general
tendency. One character to be noted in many
of these, often too obscure, speculations, is his
peculiar manner of viewing Nature ; his habit,
as it were, of'considering Nature rather in the
concrete, not analytically and as a divisible
Aggregate, but as a self-subsistent universally
connected Whole. This also is perhaps partly
the fruit of his Idealism. " He had formed the
Plan," we are informed, "of a peculiar Ency-
clopedical Work, in which experiences and
ideas from all the different Sciences were mu-
tually to elucidate, confirm, and enfi)rce each
other." In this work he had even made some
progress. Many of the " Thoughts," and short
Aphoristic observations, here published, were
intended for it; of such, apparently, it was,
for the most part, to have consisted.

As a Poet, Novalis is no less Idealistic than
as a Philosopher. His poems are breathings
of a high devout soul, feeling always that here
he has no home, but looking, as in clear vision,
to a "city that hath foundations." He loves
external Nature with a singular depth; nay,
we might say, he reverences her, and holds
unspeakable communings with her: for Na-
ture is no longer dead, hostile Matter, but the
veil and mysterious Garment of the Unseen;
as it were, the Voice with which the Deity
proclaims himself to man. These two quali-

NOVALIS.

177

ties, — hh pure religious temper, and heart-felt
love of Nature, — bring him into true poetic
relations both with the spiritual and the mate-
rial World, and perhaps constitute his chief
Avorth as a Poet; for which art he seems to
have originally a genuine, but no exclusive or
even very decided endowment.

His moral persuasions, as evinced in his
Writings and Life, derive themselves naturally
enough from the same source. It is the mo-
rality of a man, to whom the Earth and all its
glories are in truth a vapour and a Dream, and
the Beauty of Goodness the only real possession.
Poetry, Virtue, Religion, which for other men
have but, as it were, a traditionary and ima-
gined existence, are for him the everlasting
basis of the Universe; and all earthly acquire-
ments, all with which ambition, Hope, Fear,
can tempt us, to toil and sin, are in very deed
but a picture of the brain, some rellex sha-
dowed on the mirror of the Infinite, but in
themselves air and nothingness. Thus, to
live in that Light of Reason, to have, even
while here, and encircled with this vision of
Existence, our abode in ihat Eternal City, is
the highest and sole duty of man. These
things Novalis figures to himself under va-
rious images: sometimes he seems to repre-
sent the Primeval essence of Being as Love;
at other times, he speaks in emblems, of which
it would be still more difhcult to give a just
account; which, therefore, at present, we shall
not further notice.

For now, with these far-off sketches of an
exposition, the reader must hold himself ready
to look into Novalis, for a little, with his own
eyes. W"hoever has honestly, and with atten-
tive outlook, accompanied us along these won-
drous outskirts of Idealism, may find himself
as able to interpret Novalis as the majority of
German readers would be; which, we think,
is fair measure on our part. We shall not
attempt any further commentary; fearing that
it might be too difficult, and too unthankful a
business. Our first extract is from the Lchr-
liiige zu Sais, (Pupil at Sais,) adverted to above.
That " Physical Romance," which for the rest
contains no story or indication of a story, but
only poetized philosophical speeches, and the
s /angest shadowy allegorical allusions, and
indeed is only carried the length of two Chap-
ters, commences, without note of preparation,
in this singular wise :

"I. The Pupil. — Men travel in manifold
paths : whoso traces and compares these, will
find strange Figures come to light; Figures
which seem as if they belonged to that great
Cipher-writing which one meets with every-
where, on wings of birds, shells of eggs, in
clouds, in the snow, in crystals, in forms of
rocks, in freezing waters, in the interior and
exterior of mountains, of plants, animals, men,
in the lights of the sky, in plates of glass and
pitch when touched and struck on, in the filings
round the magnet, and the singular conjunc-
tures of Chance. In such Figures one antici-
pates the key to that wondrous Writing, the
grammar of it; but this Anticipation will not
fix itself into shape, and appears as if, after
all, it would not become such a key for us.
An Akahcst seems poured out over the senses
23

of men. Only for a moment will their wishes,
their thoughts thicken into form. Thus do
their Anticipations arise ; but after short whiles,
all is again swimming vaguely before them,
even as it did.

"From afar I heard say, that Uninlelligibi-
lity was but the result of unintelligence ; that
this sought what itself had, and so could find
nowhere else ; also that we did not understand
Speech, because Speech did not, would not,
understand itself; (hat the genuine Sanscrit
spoke for the sake of speaking, because speak-
ing was its pleasure and its nature.

" Not long thereafter, said one : no explana-
tion is required for Holy W^riting. Whoso
speaks truly is full of eternal life, and won-
derfully related to genuine mysteries does his
Writing appear to us, for it is a concord from
the Symphony of the Universe.

"Surely this voice meant our Teacher; for
it is he that can collect the indications which
lie scattered on all sides. A singular light
kindles in his looks, when at length ihe high
Rune lies before us, and he watches in our
eyes whether the star has yet risen upon us,
which is to make the Figure visible and intel-
ligible. Does he see us sad, that the darkness
will not withdraw ? he consoles us, and pro-
mises the faithful assiduous seer better for-
tune in time. Often has he told us how, when
he was a child, the impulse to employ his
senses, to busy, to fill them, left him no rest.
He looked at the stars, and imitated their
courses and positions in the sand. Into the
ocean of air he gazed incessantly; and never
wearied contemplating its clearness, its move-
ments, its clouds, its lights. He gathered
stones, flowers, insects, of all sorts, and spread
them out in manifold wise, in rows, before
him. To men and animals he paid heed; on
the shore of the sea he sat, collected mussels.
Over his own heart and his own thoughts he
watched attentively. He knew not whither his
longing was carrying him. As he grew up, he
wandered far and wide; viewed other lands,
other seas, new atmospheres, new rocks, un-
known plants, animals, men ; descended into
caverns, saw how in courses and varying strata
the edifice of the Earth was completed, and
fashioned clay into strange figures of rock.s.
By and by, he came to find everywhere ob-
jects already known, but wonderfully mingled,
united; and thus often cxtraordinarv things
came to shape in him. He soon oecame
aware of combinations in all, of conjunctures,
concurrences. Ere long, he no more saw any
thing alone. — In great, variegated images, the
perceptions of his senses crowded round him;
he heard, saw, touched, and thought at once.
He rejoiced to bring strangers together. Now
the siars were men, now men were stars, the
stones animals, the clouds plants; he sported
with powers and appearances ; he knew where
and how this and that was to be found, to be
brought into action; and so himself struck
over the strings, for tones and touches of his
own.

"What has passed with him since then he
does not disclose to us. He tells us that wC
ourselves, led on by him and our own desire
will discover what has passed with him

178

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Many of us have withdrawn from him. They
returned to their parents, and learned trades.
Some have been .sent out by him, we Icnovv not
whither; he selected them. Of these, some
had been but a short time there, others longer.
One was still a child; scarcely was he come,
when our Teacher was for passing him any
more instruction. Tiiis Child had large dark
eyes with azure ground, his skin shone like
lilies, and his locks like light little clouds when
it is growing evening. His voice pierced
through all onr hearts; willingly would we
have given him our flowers, stones, pens, all
we had. He smiled with an infinite earnest-
ness ; and we had a strange delight beside him.
One day he will come again, said our Teacher,
and then our lessons end. — Along with him he
sent one, for whom we had often been sorry.
Always sad he looked; he had been long years
here; nothing would succeed with him; when
we sought crystals or flowers, he seldom found.
He saw dimly at a distance ; to lay down varie-
gated rows skilfully he had no power. He was
so apt to break every thing. Yet none had such
eagerness, such pleasure in hearing and listen-
ing. At last, — it was before that Child came
into our circle, — he all at once grew cheerful
and expert. One day he had gone out sad; he
did not return, and the night came on. We
were very anxious for him ; suddenly as the
morning dawned, we heard his voice in a
neighbouring grove. He was singing a high,
joyful song; we were all surprised ; the Teacher
looked to the East, such a look as I shall never
see in' him again. The singer so(m came forth
lo us, and brought, with unspeakable blessed-
ness on his face, a simple-looking little stone,
of singular shape. The Teacher took it in his
hand, and kissed him long; then looked at us
*'ith wet eyes, and laid this little stone on an
empty space, which lay in the midst of other
stones, just where, like radii, many rows of
them met together.

" I shall in no time forget that moment. We
felt as if we had had in our souls a clear pass-
ing glimpse into this wondrous World."

In these strange Oriental delineations, the
judicious reader will suspect that more may
be meant than meets the ear. But who this
Teacher at Sais is, whether the personified
Intellect of Mankind; and who this bright-faced
golden-locked Child, (Reason, Religious Faith?)
that was " to come again," to conclude these
lessons; and that awkward unwearied Man,
(Understanding?) that " was so apt to break
every thing," we have no data for determining,
and would not undertake to conjecture with
any certainty. We subjoin a passage from
the second chapter, or section, entitled "Na-
ture," which, if possible, is of a still more sur-
prising character than the first. After speak-
ing at some length on the primeval views Man
s>eems to have f )rmed with regard to the ex-
ternal Universe, " the manifold objects of his
Senses ," and how in those times his mind had
a peculiar u<iily, and only by Practice divided
itself into separate faculties, as by Practice it
may yet further do, "our Pupil" proceeds to
describe the conditions requisite in an inquirer
into Nature, observing, in conclusion, with
rrgard lo this, —

"No one, of a surety, wanders further froia
the mark, than he who fancies to himself that
he already understands this marvellous King-
dom, and can, in few words, fathom its consti-
tution, and everywhere find the right path. To
no one, Avho has broken oflT, and made himself
an Island, will insight rise of itself, nor even
without toilsome effort. Only to children, or
child-like men, who know not what they do,
can this happen. Long, unwearied intercourse,
free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint
tokens and indications; an inward poet-life,
practised senses, a simple and devout spirit ;
these are the essential requisites of a true
Friend of Nature; without these no one can
attain his wish. Not wise does it seem to
attempt comprehending and understanding a
Human World without full perfected Humanity.
No talent must sleep; and if all are not alike
active, all must be alert, and not oppressed and
enervated. As we see a future Painter in the
boy who fills every wall with sketches and
variedly adds colour to figure; so we see a
future Philosopher in him who restlessly traces
and questions all natural things, pays heed to
all, brings together whatever is remarkable,
and rejoices when he has become master and
possessor of a new phenomenon, of a new
power and piece of knowledge.

"Now to Some it appears not at all worth
while to follow out the endless divisions of
Nature; and moreover a dangerous undertak-
ing, without fruit and issue. As we can never
reach, say they, the absolutely smallest grain
of material bodies, never find their simplest
compartments, since all magnitude loses itself,
forwards and backwards, in infinitude, so like-
wise is it with the species of bodies and pow-
ers ; here too one comes on new species, new
combinations, new appearances, even to infini-
tude. These seem only to stop, continue they,
when our diligence tires; and so it is spending
precious time with idle contemplations and
tedious enumerations ; and this becomes at
last a true delirium, a real vertigo over the
horrid Deep. For Nature too remains, so far
as we have yet come, ever a frightful Machine
of Death: everywhere monstrous revolution,
inexplicable vortices of movernent; a kingdom
of Devouring, of the maddest tyranny; a bale-
ful Immense: the few light points disclose but
a so much the more appalling Night, and ter-
rors, of all sorts, must palsy every observer.
Like a Saviour does Death stand by the hapless
race of Mankind; for without Death, the mad-
dest were the happiest. And precisely this
striving to fathom that gigantic Mechanism is
already a draught towards the Deep, a com-
mencing giddiness ; for every excitement is an
increasing whirl, which soon gains full mastery
over its victim, and hurls him forward with it
into the fearful Night. Here, say those lament-
ers, lies the crafty snare for Man's understand-
in?, which Nature everywhere seeks to anni-
hilate as her greatest foe. Hail to that child-
like ignorance and innocence of men, which
kept them blind to the horrible perils, that
' everywhere, like grim thunder-clouds, lay
j round their penceful dwelling, and each mo-
ment were ready to rush down on them. Only
I inward disunion among the powers of Nature

NOVALIS.

179

has preserved men hitherto; nevertheless, that
great epoch cannot fail to arrive, when the
whole family of mankind, by a grand universal
Resolve, will snatch themselves from this sor-
rowful condition, from this frightful imprison-
ment; and by a voluntary Abdication of their
terrestrial abode, redeem their race from this
anguish, and seek refuge in a happier world,
with their ancient Father. Thus might they
end worthily ; and prevent a necessary, violent
destruction ; or a still more horrible degenerat-
ing into Beasts, by gradual dissolution of their
thinking organs, thro'ugh Insanity- Intercourse
with the powers of Nature, with animals,
plants, rocks, storms, and waves, must neces-
sarily assimilate men to these objects ; and this
Assimilation, this Metamorphosis, and dissolu-
tion of the Divine and the Human, into ungo-
vernable Forces, is even the Spirit of Nature,
that friglufully voracious Power: and is not all
that we see even now a prey from Heaven, a
great Kuin of former Glories, the Remains of a
terrific Repast!

" Be it so, crj' a more courageous Class ; let
our species maintain a stubborn, well-planned
war of destruction with this same Nature. By
slow pnit^ons must we endeavour to subdue
her. The Inquirer into Nature is a noble hero,
who rushes into the open abyss for the deliv-
erance of his fellow Citizens. Artists have
already played her many a trick ; do but con-
tinue in this course ; get hold of the secret
threads, and bring them to act against each
other. Profit by these discords, that so in the
end you may lead her, like that fire-breathing
Bull, according to your pleasure. To you she
must become obedient. Patience and Faith
beseem the children of men. Distant Brothers
are united with us for one object; the wheel
of the Stars must become the cistern-wheel of
our life, and then, by our slaves, we can build
us a new Fairyland. With heart-felt triumph
let us look at her devastations, her tumults ;
she is selling herself to us, and every violence
she will pay by a heavy penalty. In the in-
spiring feeling of our Freedom, let us live and
die; here gushes forth the stream, which will
one day overflow and subdue her; in it let us
bathe, and refresh ourselves for new exploits.
Hither the rage of the Monster does not reach;
one drop of Freedom is suflicientto cripple her
for ever, and for ever set limits to her havoc.

"They are right, say Several; here, or no-
where, lies the talisman. By the well of Free-
dom we sit and look; it is the grand magic
Mirror, where the whole creation images itself,
pure and clear ; in it do the tender Spirits and
Forms of all Natures bathe ; all chambers we
here behold unlocked. What need have we
toilsomely to wander over the troublous World
of visible things? The purer World lies even
in us, in this Well. Here discloses itself the
true meaning of the great, many-coloured,
complected Scene; and if full of these sights
we return into Nature, all is well known to
us, with certainty we distinguish every shape.
We need not to inquire long; a light Compa-
rison, a few strokes in the sand, are enough
to inform us. Thus, for us, is the whole a
great Writing, to which we have the key ; and
nothing comes to us unexpected, for the course

of the great Horologe is known to us before
hand. It is only we that enjoy Nature with
full senses, because she does not frighten us
from our senses; because no fever-dreams
oppress us, and serene consciousness makes
us calm and confiding.

"They are not right, says an earnest Man to
these latter. Can they not recognise in Na-
ture the true impress of their own Selves 1
It is even they that consume themselves in
wild hostility to Thought. They know not
that this so-called Nature of theirs is a Sport
of the Mind, a waste Fantasy of their Dream.
Of a surety, it is for them a horrible Monster,
a strange grotesque Shadow of their own Pas-
sions, The waking man looks without fear
at this offspring of his lawless Imagination;
for he knows that they are but vain Spectres
of his weakness. He feels himself lord of
the world: his il/c hovers victorious over the
Abyss; and will through Eternities hover
aloft above that endless Vicissitude. Har-
mony is what his spirit strives to promulgate,
to extend. He will, even to infinitude, grow
more and more harmonious with himself and
with his Creation ; and, at every step, behold
the all-efficiency of a high moral order in the
Universe, and what is purest of his 3Ic, come
forth into brighter and brighter clearness.
The significance of the World is Reason ; for
her sake is the World here ; and when it is
grown to be the arena of a child-like, expand-
ing Reason, it will one day become the divine
Image of her Activity, the scene of a genuine
Church. Till then let men honour Nature as
the Emblem of his own Spirit; the Emblem
ennobling itself, along with him, to unlimited
degrees. Let hiin, therefore, who would arrive
at knowledge of Nature, train his moral sense,
let him act and conceive in accordance with
the noble Essence of his Soul; and as if of
herself. Nature will become open to him.
Moral Action is that great and only Experi-
ment, in which all riddles of the most mani-
fold appearances explain themselves. Whoso
understands it, and in rigid sequence of
Thought can lay it open, is for ever Master
of Nature." — J'd. ii. s. 43 — 57.

"The Pupil," it is added, " listens with alarm
to these conflicting voices." If such was the
case in half-supernatural Sais, it may well be
much more so in mere sublunary London.
Here again, however, in regard to these vapor-
ous lucubrations, we can only imitate Jean
Paul's Quinlus Fixlein, who, it is said, in his
elaborate Catalogue of Germnn Errors of the
Press, " states that important inferences are to
be drawn from it, and advises the reader to
draw them." Perhaps these wonderful para-
graphs, which look, at this distance, so like
chasms filled with mere sluggish mist, might
prove valleys, with a clear stream, and soft
pastures, were we near at hand. For one
thing, either Novalis, with Tieck and Schlegel
at his back, are men in a state of derange-
ment; or there is more in Heaven and Earth
than has been dreamt of in our Philosophy .
We may add that, in our view, this last
Speaker, the " earnest Man," seems evidently
to be Fichle ; the first two Classes look like
some skeptical or atheistic brood, unacquainted

inb

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

with Bacon's Novum Organum, or having, the
First class at least, almost no faith in it.
Thai theory of the human species ending; by a
universal simultaneous act of Suicide, will, to
the more simple sort of readers, be new.

As further and more directly illustrating
Novalis's scientific views, we may here sub-
join two short sketches, taken from another
department of this volume. To all who pro-
secute Philosophy, and take interest in its his-
tory and present aspects, they will not be
without interest. The obscure parts of them
are not perhaps unintelligible, but only ob-
scure; which unluckily cannot, at all times,
be helped in such cases :

"Common Logic is the Grammar of the
higher Speech, that is, of Thought; it ex-
amines merely the rclntinns of ideas to one
another, the Mrrhni.icf. of Thought, the pure
Physiology of ideas. Now logical ideas stand
related to one another, like words without
thoughts. Logic occupies itself with the mere
dead Body of the science of Thinking. — Meta-
physics, again, is the Dynnniirs of Thought ;
treats of the primary Power? of Thought: oc-
cupies itself with the mere Soul of the Science
of 'I'hinking. Metaphysical ideas stand re-
lated to one another, like thoughts without
•words. Men ofien wondered at the stubborn
Incompletibility of these two' Sciences; each
followed its own business by itself: there was
a want everywhere, nothing would suit rightly
■with either. From the very First, attempts
were made to unite them, as every thing about
them indicated relationship; but every attempt
failed; the one or the other Science still suf-
fered in these attempts, and lost its essential
character. We had to abide by metaphysical
JyOgic, and Logical metaphysic, but neither of
them was as it should be. With Physiology
and Psychology, with Mechanics and Chemis-
try, it fared no better. In the latter half of
this Century there arose, with us Germans, a
more violent commotion than ever; the hos-
tile masses towered themselves up against
each other more fiercely than heretofore ; the
fermentation was extreme; there followed
powerful explosions. And now some assert
that a real Compenetration has somewhere or
other taken place; that the germ of a union
lias arisen, which will grow by degrees, and
assimilate all to one indivisible form : that
this principle of Peace is pressing out irresist-
ibly, on all sides, and that ere long there will
be but one Science and one Spirit, as one Pro-
phet and one God." —

"The rude, discursive Thinker is the Scho-
lastic [Schoolman Logician]. The true Scho-
lastic is a mystical Subtilist; out of logical
Atoms he builds his Universe ; he annihilates
all living Nature, to put an Artifice of Thoughts
[Geclnvkeiihnnslstnrk, literally, Conjuror's-trick
of Thoughts] in its room. His aim is an infi-
nite Automaton. Opposite to him is the rude,
intuitive Poet: this is a mystical Macrologist;
he hates rules, and fixed form ; a wild, violent
life reigns instead of it in Nature; all is an-
imate, no law; wilfulness and wonder every-
where. Hi is mere dynamical. Thus does
he Philosophic Spirit arise at first, in altoge-
ther separate masses. In the second stage of

culture these masses begin to come in contact,
multifariously enough ; and, as in the union
of infinite Extremes, the Finite, the Limited
arises, so here also arise 'Eclectic Philoso-
phers' without number; the time of misun-
derstandings begins. The most limited is, in
this stage, the most important, the purest Phi-
losopher of the second stage. This class oc-
cupies itself wholly with the actual, present
world, in the strictest sense. The Philoso-
phers of the first class look down with con-
tempt on those of the second ; say, they are a
little of every thing, and so nothing; hold their
views as results of weakness, as Inconse- J
quentism. On the contrary, the second clas."*, |
in their turn, pity the first; lay the blame on
their visionary enthusiasm, which they say is
absurd, even to insanity. If, on the one hand,
the Scholastics and Alchemists seem to be ut-
terly at variance, and the Eclectics on the
other hand quite at one, yet, strictly examined,
it is altogether the reverse. The former, in
essentials, are indirectly of one opinion;
namely, as regards the non-dependence, and
infinite character of Meditation, the both set
out from the absolute: whilst the Eclectic and
limited sort are essentially at variance; and
agree only in what is deduced. The former
are infinite but uniform, the latter bounded
but multiform; the former have genius, the
latter talent: those have Ideas, these have
knacks, (Hinidgriffe ;) those are heads Avith-
out hands, these are hands without heads.
The Ihird stage is for the Artist, who can be at "J
once implement and genius. He finds that I
that primitive Separation in the absolute Phi-
losophical Activities [between the Scholastic,
and the 'rude intuitive Poet'] is a deeper-
lying Separation in his own Nature; which
Separation indicates, by its existence as such,
the possibility of being adjusted, of being
joined : he finds that, heterogeneous as these
Activities are, there is yet a faculty in him of
passing from the one to the other, of chang
ing his pohiriiy at will. He discovers in them,
therefore, necessary members of his spirit,
he observes that both must be united in som«
common Principle. He infers that Eclectic
ism is nothing but the imperfect defective em

ployment of this Principle. It becomes "

But we need not struggle farther, wringing
a significance out of these mysterious words;
in delineating the genuine Transcendentalist,
or "Philosopher of the third stage," properly
speaking, the Philosopher, Novalis ascends into
regions, whither few readers would follow
him. It may be observed here, that British
Philosophy, tracing it from Duns Scotus to
Dugald Stewart, has now gone through the
first and second of these "stages," the Scho-
lastic and the Eclectic, and in considerable
honour. With our amiable Professor Stewart,
than whom no man, not Cicero himself, was J
ever inore entirely Eclectic, that second or fl
Eclectic class may be considered as having
terminated ; and now Philosophy is at a stand
among us, or rather there is now no Philosoj)hy
visible in these Islands. It remains to be
seen, whether we also are to have our "third
stage ;" and how that new and highest "class"
will demean itself here. The French Philof^o-

NOVALIS.

'J8i

phers seem busy studying Kant, and writing
of him: but we rather imagine Nivalis would
pronounce them still only in the Eclectic; stage.
He says afterwards, that "all Eclectics are
essentially and at bottom skeptics ; the more
comprehensive, the more skeptical."

These two passages have been extracted
from a large series of Fras;nienl$, which, under
the three divisions of Philosophical, Critical,
Moral, occupy the greatest part of Volume
second. They are fractions, as we hinted
above, of that grand "encyclopedical work"
which Novalis had planned. Friedrich Schle-
gel is said to be the selector of those published
here. They come before us, without note or
comment; worded for the most part in very
unusual phraseolog}', and without repealed
and most patient investigation, seldom yield
any significance, or rather we should say, often
yield a false one. A i'ew of the clearest we
have selected for insertion : whether the reader
will think them "Pollen of Flowers," or a
baser kind of dust, we shall not predict. We
give them in a miscellaneous shape; over-
looking those classifications which, even in
the text, are not and could not be very rigidly
adhered to.

"Philosophy can bake no bread; but she
can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality.
Which then is more practical, Philosophy or
Economy Ti —

" Philosophy is properly Home-sickness ;
the wish to be everywhere at home. —

" We are near awakening when we dream
that we dream. —

"The true philosophical Act is annihilation
of self, (Silbstiodtvvg :) this is the real beginning
of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a
Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This
Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and
characteristics of transcendental conduct. —

"To become properly acquainted with a
truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and
disputed against it. —

"Man is the higher Sense of our Planet;
the star which connects it with the upper
world ; the eye which it turns towards Hea-
ven.—

"Life is a disease of the spirit; a working
incited by Passion. Rest is peculiar to the
spirit. —

"Our Life is no Dream, but it may and will
perhaps become one. —

"What is Nature? An encyclopedical, sys-
tematic Index, or Plan of our Spirit. Why
will we content us with the mere Catalogue of
our Treasures 1 Let us contemplate them
ourselves, and in all ways elaborate and use
them. —

"If our Bodily Life is a burning, our spi-
ritual Life is a being-burnt, a Combustion (or,
is precisely the inverse the case?); Death,
therefore, perhaps a Change of Capacity. —

" Sleep is for the inhabitants of Planets only.
In another time, Man will sleep and wake
continually at once. The greater part of our
Body, of our Humanity itself, yet sleeps a deep
sleep. —

"There is but one Temple in the World;
and that is the BoiW of Man. Nothing is
holier than this high form- Bending before

\

men is a reverence done to this Revelation in
the Flesh. — We touch Heaven, when we lay
our hand on a human body. —

" Man is a 8un ; his Senses are the Planets.—

"Man has ever expressed some symbolical
Philosophy of his Being in his Works and
Conduct; he announces himself and his Gos-
pel of Nature ; he is the Messiah of Nature. —

" Plants are Children of the Earth ; we are
Children of the .^ther. Our Lungs are pro-
perly our Root; we live, when we breathe;
we begin our life with breathing. —

"Nature is an Eolian Harp, a musical in-
strument ; whose tones again are ke3's to
higher strings in us. —

"Every beloved object is the centre of a
Paradise. —

"The first Man is the first Spiritseer; all
appears to him as Spirit. What are children,
but first men? The fresh gaze of the Child
is richer in significance than the forecasting
of the most indubitable Seer. —

" It depends only on the weakness of our
organs and of our self-excitement (Selbsl bei-iih-
rung) that we do not see ourselves in a Fairy-
world. All Fabulous Tales, {Malirchev,) are
merely dreams of that home-world, which is
everywhere and nowhere. The higher powers
in us, which one day, as Genies, shall fulfil our
will,* are, for the present. Muses, which re-
fresh us on our toilsome course with sweet
remembrances- —

" Man consists in Truth. If he exposes
Truth, he exposes himself. If he betrays
Truth, he betrays himself. We speak not here
of Lies, but of acting against Conviction.

"A character is a completely fashioned will
(^vollkommcn gcbildctcr Wilk.) —

"There is, properly speaking, no Misfortune
in the world. Happiness and Misfortune stand
in continual balance. Every Misfortune is, as
it were, the obstruction of a stream, which,
after over-coming this obstruction, but bursts
through with the greater force. —

"The ideal of Morality has no more dan-
gerous rival than the ideal of highest Strength,
of most powerful life; M'hich also has been
named (very falsely as it was there meant) the
ideal of poetic greatness. It is the maximum
of the savage ; and has, in these times, gained,
precisely among the greatest weaklings, very
many proselytes. By this ideal, man becomes
a Beast-Spirit, a Mixture; whose brutal wit
has, for weaklings, a brutal power of attrac-
tion.—

"The spirit of Poesy is the morning light,
which makes the statue of Memnon sound. —

"The division of Philosopher and Poet i.s
only apparent, and to the disadvantage of both.
It is a sign of disease, and of a sickly con-
stitution.—

"The true Poet is all-knowing; he is an
actual world in miniature.. —

* N-ovalis's ideas, on what lias tieeii called the "per-
ffclitiility of man," ground themselves on his peculiar
views of the constitution of material and spiritual Na-
ture, and are of the most oricinal and extraordinary
character. With our utmost effort, we should despaif
of communicating otlu^r than a quit* false notion of
them. He asks, for instance, with scientific sravity:
Whether any one, that recollects the first kind ^lanca
of her he loved, can doubt the possibility of Magic?

Q

.89

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

"Klcpstock's works appear, for the most
part, free Translations of an unknown Poet,
by a veiy talented but unpoetical Philologist. —

"Goetiie is an altogether practical poet. He
is in his works what the English are in their
wares: highl}' simple, neat, convenient, and
durable. He has done in German Literature
what Wedgewood did in English Manufacture.
He has, like the English, a natural turn for
Economy, and a noble Taste acquired by Un-
derstanding. Both these are very compatible,
and have a near affinitj' in the chemical
sense. * * — Wilhelni Meislcr's ^pprc7iticcship may
be called throughout prosaic and modern. The
Romantic sinks to ruin, the Poesy of Nature,
the Wonderful. The Book treats merely of
common Worldly things : Nature and Mysti-
cism are altogether forgotten. It is a poetized,
civic, and household History; the Marvellous
is expressly treated therein as imagination and
enthusiasm. Artistic Atheism is the spirit of
the Book. * * * It is properly a Candide, di-
rected against Poetry; the Book is highly un-
poetical in respect of spirit, poetical as the
dress and body of it is. * * * The introduction
of Shakspeare has almost a tragic effect. The
hero retards the triumph of the Gospel of
Economy; and economical Nature is finally
the true and only remaining one. —

" When we speak of the aim and Art observa-
ble in Shakspeare's works, we must not forget
that Art belongs to Nature; that it is, so to
speak, self-viewing, self-imitating, self-fashion-
ing Nature. The Art of a well-developed genius
is far diflerent from the Artfulness of the Under-
standing, of the merely reasoning mind. Shak-
speare was no calculator, no learned thinker ;
he was a mighty many-gifted soul, whose feel-
ings and works, like products of Nature, bear
the stamp of the same spirit ; and in which the
last and deepest of observers will still find new
harmonies with the infinite structure of the
Universe ; concurrences with later ideas, afifini-
ties with the higher powers and senses of man.
They are emblematic, have many meanings,
are simple, and inexhaustible, like products of
Nature; and nothing more unsuitable could be
said of them than that they are works of Art,
in that narrow mechanical acceptation of the
word."

The reader understands that we ofter these
specimens not as the best to be found in
Novalis's Fragments, but simply as the most in-
telligible. Far stranger and deeper things there
are, could we hope to make them in the smallest
degree understood. But in examining and re-
examining many of his Fragments, we find
ourselves carried into more complex, more
subtle regions of thought than any we are else-
where acquainted with : here we cannot always
find our own latitude and longitude, some-
times not even approximate to finding them ;
much less teach others such a secret.

What has been already quoted may afford
some knowledge of Novaiis, in the characters
of Philosopher and Critic : there is one other
aspect under which it would be still more
curious to view and exhibit him, but still more
difficult, — we mean that of his Religion. No-
vaiis nov/here specially records his creed, in
>hese Writings : he many limes expresses, or

implies, a zealous, heartfelt belief in the Chris-
tian system; yet with such adjuncts, and co
existing persuasions, as to us might seem
rather surprising. One or two more of these
his Aphorisms, relative to this subject, we
shall cite, as likely to be better than any
description of ours. The whole essay at the
end of volume first, entitled Die Chris.'eiilieit odcr
Eiiropa (Christianity or Europe), is also welt
worthy of study, in this as in many other points
of view.

"Religion contains infinite sadness. If we
are to love God, he must be in distress (hiilf'
bediir/tig, help-needing). In how far is this
condition answered in Christianity 1 —

"Spinoza is a God-in tosicated-man {Gott-
trunkcner Mcnsch.') —

" Is the Devil, as Father of Lies, himself but j
a necessary illusion ? — I

"The Catholic Religion is to a certain ex- •
tent applied Christianity. Fichte's Philosophy
too is perhaps applied Christianity. —

"Can Miracles work Conviction 1 Or is
not real Conviction, this highest function of
our soul and personality, the only true God-
announcing Miracle?

"The Christian Religion is especially re-
markable, moreover, as il so decidedly lays
claim to mere good will in Man, to his essen-
tial Temper, and values this independently of
all Culture and Manifestation. It stands ia
opposition to Science and to Art, and ^rope>7y
to Kiijoyment.*

" Its origin is with the common people. It
inspires the great majority of the limitedin ihin
Earth. i

" It is the Light that begins to shine in the ]
Darkness. '

" It is the root of all Democracy, the highest
Fact in the Rights of Man {dkhochsle Thutsaclie
der Populariliil.)

"Its unpoetical exterior, its resemblance to
a modern family-picture, seems onlij to be lent
■It*—

" Martyrs are spiritual heroes. Christ was
the greatest martyr of our species; through
him has martyrdom become infinitely signifi-
cant and holy. —

"The Bible begins nobly, with Paradise, the
symbol of youth ; and concludes with the |
Eternal Kingdom, the Holy City. Its two main \
divisions, also, are genuine grand-historical
divisions {licht grosslnstnriscli.y For in every
grand-historical compartment, {Glicd,) the grand
history must lie, as it were, symbolically re-
created, (verjiingt, r»ade young again.) The
beginning of the New Testament is the second
higher Fall, (the Atonement of the Fall,) and
the commencement of the new Period. The
history of every individual man should be a
Bible. Christ is the new Adam. A Bible is
the highest problem of Authorship. —

"As yet there is no Religion. You must i
first make a Seminary (Bildmigs-schulc) of M
genuine Religion. Think ye that there is Re- ■
ligion 1 Religion has to be made and produced
{gemacht und hcrvorgebrachty by the union of a
number of persons."

Hitherto our readers have seen nothing of

* Italics alsa in the text.

NOVALIS.

183

Novalis in his character of Poet, properly so I Light was snapped asunder. Vanishes the
called; the Pupils al Sais being fully more of Glory of Earth, and -with it my Lamenting
a scientific than poetic nature. As hinted rushes together the infinite Sadness into a new
above, we do not account his gifts in this | unfathomable World: thou Night's-inspiration,
latter province as of the first, or eVen of a Slumberof Heaven, camest over me; the scene
high order; unless, indeed, it be true, as he ] rose gently aloft; over the scene hovered my
himself maintains, that "the distinction of ; enfranchised new-born spirit; to a cloud of dust
Poet and Philosopher is apparent only, and to \ that grave changed itself; through the cloud I be-
the injury of both." In his profes*;dly poetical held the transfigured features of my Beloved. In
compositions, there is an indubitable prolixity, | her eyes lay Eternity; I clasped her hands, and
a degree of languor, not weakness but slug- j my tears became a glittering indissoluble chain,
gishness; the meaning is too much diluted; Centuries of Ages moved away into the distance,

and diluted, we might say, not in a rich, lively,
varying music, as we find in Tieck, for ex-
ample; but rather in a low-voiced, not un-
melodious monotony, the deep hum of which
is broken only at rare intervals, though some-
times by tones of purest, and almost spiritual
softness. We here allude chiefly to his un-
metrical pieces, his piose fictions: indeed the
metrical are few in number; for the most part
on religious subjects ; and in spite of a decided
truthfulness both in feeling and word, seem to
bespeak no great skill or practice in that form
of composition. In his prose style he may be
accounted happier; he aims in general at
simplicity, and a certain familiar expressive-
ness; here and there, in his more elaborate
passages, especially in his Hymns to the Kii;ht,
he has reminded us of Herder.

These Hymns to the Night, it will be remem-
bered, were written shortly after the death of
his mistress : in that period of deep sorrow,
or rather of holy deliverance from sorrow.
Novalis himself regarded them as his most
finished productions. They are of a strange
veiled, almost enigmatical character; never-
theless, more deeply examined, they appear
nowise without true poetic worth; there is a
vastness, an immensity of idea; a still solem-
nity reigns in them, a solitude almost as of
extinct worlds. Here and there, too, some
lightbeam visits us in the void deep; and we
cast a glance, clear and wondrous, into the
secrets of that mysterious soul. A full com-
mentary on the Hymns to the Nisht would be an
exposition of Novali.s's whole theological and
moral creed; for it lies recorded there, though
symbolically, and in lyric, not in didactic lan-
guage. We have translated the third, as the
shortest and simplest; imitating its light, half-
measured style; above all, decyphering its
vague deep-laid sense, as accurately as we
could. By the word "Night," it will be seen,
Novalis means much more than the common
opposite of Day. "Light" seems, in these
poems, to shadow forth our terrestrial life ;
Night the primeval and celestial life:

"Once when I was shedding bitter tears,
when dissolved in pain my Hope had melted
away, and I stood solitary by the grave that in
its (lark narrow space concealed the Form of
my life; solitary as no other had been ; chased
by unutterable anguish; powerless; one thought
and that of misery; — here now as I looked
round for help ; forward could not go, nor back-
ward, but clung to a transient extinguished
Life with unutterable longing; — lo, from the
azure distance, down from the heights of my

like thunder-clouds. On her neck I wept, for
this new life, enrapturing tears. — It was my
first only Dream ; and ever since then do I feel
this changeless everlasting faith in the Heaven
of Night, and its Sun my Beloved."

What degree of critical satisfaction, what
insight into the grand crisis of Novalis's spi-
ritual history, which seems to be here sha-
dowed forth, our readers may derive from this
Third Hymn lo the Night, we shall not pretend
to conjecture. Meanwhile, it were giving them
a false impression of the Poet, did weleave hira
here; exhibited only under his more mystic
aspects : as if his Poetry were exclusively a
thing of Allegory, dwelling amid Darkness and
Vacuity, far from all paths of ordinary mortals
and their thoughts. Novalis can write m the
most common style, as well as in this most un-
common one; and there too not without ori-
ginality. By far the greater part of his First
volume is occupied with a Romance, Heinrich
von Oftcrdingen, written, so far as it goes, much
in the every-day manner; we have adverted
the less to it, because we nowise reckon it
among his most remarkable compositions.
Like many of the others, it has been left
as a Fragment; nay, from the account Tieck
gives of its ulterior plan, and how from the
solid prose world of the first part, this "Apo-
theosis of Poetry" was to pass, in the Second,
into a mythical, faiiy, and quite fantastic world,
critics have doubted, whether, strictly speak-
ing, it cGidd have been completed. From this
work, we select two passages, as specimens of
Novalis's manner in the more common style of
composition ; premising, which in this one in-
stance we are entitled to do, that whatever ex-
cellence they may have will be universally
appreciable. The first is the introduction to
the whole Narrative, as it were, the text of the
whole ; the " Blue Flower" there spoken of being
Poetry, the real object, passion and vocation
of young Heinrich, which, through manifold
adventures, exertions, and sufferings, he is to
seek and find. His history commences thus:
"The old people were already asleep; the
clock was beating its monotonous tick on the
wall ; the wind blustered over the rattling win-
dows: by turns, the chamber was lighted by
the sheen of the moon. The young man lay
restless in his bed ; and thought of the stranger
and his stories. 'Not the treasures, is it'
said he to himself, ' that have awakened in me
so unspeakable a desire ; far from me is all co-
vetousness ; but the Blue Flower is what I lon^
to behold. It lies incessantly in my heart, and
I can think and fancy of nothing else. Never

old Blessedness, came a chill Breath of Dusk, did I feel so before: it is as if, till now, I had
and suddenly the band of Birth, the fetter of i been dreaming, or as if sleep had carried me

IM

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

into another world ; for in the world I used
to live in, who troubled himself about flowers 1
Such wild passion for a Flower was never
heard of there. But whence could that stran-
ger have come"! None of us ever saw such
a man; yet I know not how I alone was so
caught with his discourse; the rest heard the
very same, yet none seems to mind it. And
then that I cannot even speak of my strange
condition ! I feel such rapturous contentment ;
and only then Avhen I have not the Flower
rightly before my eyes, does so deep heartfelt
an eagerness come over me, these things no one
will or can believe. I could fancy I were mad,
if I did not see, did not think with such perfect
clearness; since that day, all is far better known
to me. I have heard tell of ancient times ; how
animals and trees and rocks used to speak with
men. This is even my feeling; as if they were
on the point of breaking out, and I could see
in them, what they wished to say to me. There
must be many a word which I know not : did I
know more, I could better comprehend these
matters. Once I liked dancing; now I had
rather think to the music' — The young man lost
himself, by degrees, in sweet fancies, and fell
asleep. He dreamed first of immeasurable
distances, and wild unknown regions. He
wandered over seas with incredible speed;
strange animals he saw ; he lived with many
varieties of men, now in war, in wild tumult,
now in peaceful huts. He was taken captive,
and fell into the lowest wretchedness. All
emotions rose to a height as yet unknown to
him. He lived through an infinitely variegated
life ; died, and came back; loved to the highest
passion, and then again was for ever parted
from his loved one. At length towards morn-
ing, as the dawn broke up without, his spirit
also grew stiller, the images grew clearer and
more permanent. It seemed to him he was
walking alone in a dark wood. Only here and
there did day glimmer through the green net.
Ere long he came to a rocky chasm, which
mounted upwards. He had to climb over many
crags, which some former stream had rolled
down. The higher he came, the lighter grew
the wood. At last he arrived at a little mea-
dow, which lay on the declivity of the mountain.
Beyond the meadow rose a high cliff, at the
foot of which he observed an opening, that
seemed to be the entrance of a passage hewn
in the rock. The passage led him easily on,
for some time, to a great subterranean expanse,
out of which from afar a bright gleam was vi-
sible. On entering, he perceived a strong beam
of light, which sprang as if from a fountain to
the roof of the cave, and sprayed itself into in-
numerable sparks, which collected below in a
great basin : the beam glanced like kindled
gold : not the faintest noise was to te heard, a
sacred silence encircled the glorious sight. He
approached the basin, which waved and qui-
vered with infinite hues. The walls of the
cave were coated with this fluid, which was not
hot but cool, and on the walls, threw out a faint
bluish light. He dipt his hand in the basin,
and wetted his lips. It was as if the breath of
a spirit went through him ; and he felt himself
in his inmost heart strengthened and refreshed.
An irresistible desire seized him to bathe; he

undressed himself and stept into the basin. Hff
felt as if a sunset cloud were floating round him
a heavenly emotion streamed over his soul ; in
deep pleasure innumerable thoughts strove to
blend within him ; new, unseen images arose,
which also melted together, and became visi-
ble beings around him; and every w;ive of thai
lovely element pressed itself on him like a soft
bosom. The flood seemed a Spirit of Beauty,
which from moment to moment was taking
form round the youth.

"Intoxicated with rapture, and yet ccmscious
of every impression, he floated softly down that
glittering stream, which flowed out from the
basin into the rocks. A sort of sweet slumber
fell upon him, in which he dreamed indescriba-
ble adventures, and out of which a new light
awoke him. He found himself on a soft sward
at the margin of a spring, which welled out
into the air, and seemed to dissipate itself there.
Dark-blue rocks, with many-coloured veins,
rose at some distance; the daylight which en-
circled him was clearer and milder than the
common; the sky was black-blue, and alto-
gether pure. But what attracted him infinitely
most was a high, light-blue Flower, which stood
close by the spring, touching it with its broad
glittering leaves. Round it stood innumerable
flowers of all colours, and the sweetest perfume
filled the air. He saw nothing but the Blue
Flower; and gazed on it long with nameless
tenderness. At last he was for approaching,
when all at once it began to move and change ;
the leaves grew more resplendent, and clasped
themselves round the waxing stem ; the Flower
bent itself towards him ; and the petals showed
like a blue spreading rufl^, in which liovered a
lovely face. His sweet astonishment at this
transformation was increasing, — when sudden-
ly his mother's voice awoke him, and he found
himself in the house of his parents, which the
morning sun was already gilding."

Our next and last extract is likewise of a
dream. Young Heinrich with his mother
travels a long journey to see his grandfather
at Augsburg; converses, on the way, with
merchants, miners, and red-cross warriors,
(for it is in the time of the crusades ;) and soon
after his arrival, falls immeasurably in love
with Matilda, the Poet Klingsohr's daughter, in
whose face was that fairest one he had seen in
his old vision of the Blue Flower. Matilda, it
would appear, is to be taken from him b}' death
(as Sophie was from Novalis:) meanwhile,
dreading no such event, Heinrich abandons
himself with full heart to his new emotions :

" He went to the window. The choir of the
Stars stood in the deep hea.en; and in the
east, a white gleam announced the coming
day.

" Full of rapture, Heinrich eAclaimed: ' You,
ye everlasting Stars, ye silent wanderers, I call
you to witness my sacred oath. For Matilda
will I live, and eternal faith shall unite my
heart and hers. For me, too, the morn of an
everlasting day is dawning. The night is by
to the rising Sun, I kindle myself, as a sacrifice
that will never be extinguished.'

"Heinrich was heated; and not till late,
towards morning, did he fall asleep. In strange
dreams the thoughts of his soul imbodied

NOVALIS.

185

themselves. A deep blue river gleamed from
the plain. On its smooth surface floated a
bark ; Matilda was sitting there, and steering.
She was adorned with garlands : was singing
a simple Song, and looking over to him with
fond sadness. His bosom was full of anxietj'.
He knew not why. The sky was clear, the
stream calm. Her heavenly countenance was
mirrored in the waves. All at once the bark
began to whirl. He called earnestly to her.
She smiled, and laid down her helm in the
boa""-, which continued whirling. An unspeak-
able terror took hold of him. He dashed into
the stream; but he could not get forward; the
water carried him. She beckoned, she seemed
as if she wished to say something to him; the
bark was filling with water; yet she smiled
with unspeakable affection, and looked cheer-
fully into the vortex. All at once it drew her
in. A faint breath rippled over the stream,
which flowed on as calm and glittering as be-
fore. His horrid agony robbed him of con-
sciousness. His heart ceased beating. On
returning to himself, he was again on dry land.
It seemed as if he had floated far. It was a
strange region. He knew not what had passed
with him. His heart was gone. Unthinking
he walked deeper into the country. He felt
inexpressibly weary. A little well gushed
from a hill; it sounded like perfect bells.
With his hands he lifted some drops, and
wetted his parched lips. Like a sick dream,
lay the frightl'ul event behind him. Farther
and farther he walked; flowers and trees
spoke to him. He felt so well, so at home
in the scene. Then he heard that simple
Song again. He ran after the sounds. Sud-
denly some (ine held him by the clothes. ' Dear
Henry,' cried a well-known voice. He looked
round, and Maltilda clasped him in her arms
'Why didst thou run from me, dear heart !'•
said she, breathing deep: 'I could scarcely
overtake thee.' Heinrich wept. He pressed
her to him. 'Where is the river 1' cried he
in tears. — ' Seest thou not its blue waves
above us V He looked up, and the blue river
was flowing softly over their heads. 'Where
are we, dear Matilda!' — 'With our Fathers.'
. — 'Shall we stay together 1' — 'For ever,' an-
swered she, pressing her lips to his, and so
clasping him that she could not again quit
hold. She put a wondrous, secret Word in his
mouth, and it pierced through all his being.
lie was about to repeat it, when his Grand-
father called, and he awoke. He would have
given his life to remember that Word."

This image of Death, and of the River being
the Sky in that other and eternal conntr)',
seems to us a fine and touching one; there is
in it a trace of that simple sublimity, that soft
still pathos, which are characteristics of Nova-
lis, and doubtless the highest of his special!}'
poetic gifts.

But on these, and what other gifts and de-
ficiencies pertain to him, we can no farther
insist: for now, after such multifarious quota-
lions, and more or less stinted commentaries,
we must consider our little enterprise in respect
of Novalis to have reached its limits, to be, if not
completed, concluded. Our reader has heard
him largely; on a great variety of topics,
24

selected and exhibited nere in such manner as
seemed the fittest for our object, and with a
tiue wish on our part, that what little judg.
ment was in the meanwhile to be formed of
such a man, might be a fair and honest one
Some of the passages we have translated wij).
appear obscure; others, we hope, are not with-
out symptoms of a wise and deep meaning ; thv
rest may excite wonder, which wonder agaiv
it will depend on each reader for himself
whether he (urn to right account or to wronj
account, whether he entertain as the parent of
Knowledge, or as the daughter of Ignorance
For the great body of readers, we are aware,
there can be little profit in Novalis, who rather
employs our time than helps us to kill it; for
such any farther study of him would be unad-
visable. To others again, who prize Truth as
the end of all reading, especially to that class
who cultivate moral science as the develop-
ment of purest and highest Truth, we can re-
commend the perusal and re-perusal of -Nova-
lis with almost perfect confidence. If they
feel, with us, that the most profitable employ-
ment any book can give them, is to study
honestly some earnest, deep-minded, truth-
loving Man, to work their way into his manner
of thought, till they see the world with his
eyes, feel as he felt, and judge as he judged,
neither believing nor denying, till they can in
some measure so feel and judge, — then we may
assert, that few books known to us are more
worthy of their attention than this. They will
find it, if we mistake not, an unfathomed mine
of philosophical ideas, where the keenest intel-
lect may have occupation enough ; and in
such occupation, without looking farther, re-
ward enough. All this, if the reader proceed
on candid principles; if not, it will be all
otherwise. To no man, so much as to Novalis,
is that famous motto applicable:

Leser, wie gefulV ich Dir ?
Leser, wie geftillst Dv, viir ?

Reader, how likest thou me 1
Reader, how lilte I ihee ?

For the rest, it were but a false proceeding
did we attempt any formal character of Novalis
in this place; did we pretend with such means
as ours to reduce that extraordinary nature
under common formularies; and in few words
sum up the net total of his worth and worth-
lessness. We have repeatedly expressed our
own imperfect knowledge of the matter, and
our entire despair of bringing even an approxi-
mate picture of it before readers so foreign
to him. The kind words, " amiable enthusiast,"
" poetic dreamer;" or the unkind ones, "Ger-
man mystic," "crackbrained rhapsodist," are
easily spoken and written ; but would avail
little in this instance. If we are not altogether
mistaken, Novalis cannot be ranged under
any of these noted categories; but, belongs to
a higher and much less known one, the signifi-
cance of which is perhaps also worth studying,
at all events, will not till after long study be-
come clear to us.

Meanwhile, let the reader accept some vague

impressions of ours on this subject, since we

have no fixed judgment to offer him. We

might say that the chief excellence, we have

a2

186

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

remarked in Novalis, is his to us truly wonder- 1
ful subtlety of intellect; his power of intense
abstraction, of pursuing the deepest and most
evanescent ideas, through their thousand com-
plexities, as it were, with lynx vision, and to
'.he very limits of human Thought. He was well
skilled in mathematics, and, as we can easily
believe, fond of that science; but his is a far
finer species of endowment than any required
in mathematics, where the mind, from the
very beginning of Euclid to the end oi Laplace,
is assisted with visible symbols, with safe im-
planen/s for thinking; nay, at least in what is
called the higher mathematics, has often little
more than a mechanical superintendence to
exercise over these. This power of abstract
meditation, when it is so sure and clear as we
sometimes find it with Novalis, is a much
higher and rarer one; its element is not mathe-
matics, but that Malhcsis, of which it has been
said many a Great Calculist has not even a
notion. In this power truly, so far as logical
and not moral power is concerned, lies the
suinmary of ail Philosophic talent: which talent
accordingly we imagine Novalis to have pos-
sessed ir a very high degree; in a higher de-
gree than almost any other modern writer we
have met with.

His chief fault again figures itself to us as
a certain undue softness, want of rapid energy ;
something which we might term passiveness ex-
tending both over his mind and his character.
There is a tenderness in Novalis, a purity, a
clearness, almost as of a woman ; but he has
not, at least not at all in that degree, the em-
phasis and resolute force of a man. Thus, in
his poetical delineations, as we complained
above, he is too diluted and diffuse; not verbose
properly; not so much abounding in superflu-
ous words, as in superfluous circumstances,
which indeed is but a degree better. In his
philosophical speculations, we feel as if, under
a different form, the same fault were now and
then manifested. Here again, he seems to us,
in one sense, too languid, too passive. He sila,
we might say, among the rich, fine, thousand-
fold combinations, which his mind almost of
itself presents him; but, perhaps, he shows too
little activity in the process, is too lax in sepa-
rating the true from the doubtful, is not even
at the trouble to express his truth with any la-
borious accuracy. With his stillness, with
his deep love of Nature, his mild, lofty, spiritual
tone of contemplation, he comes before us in
a sort of Asiatic character, almost like our
ideal of some antique Gymnosophisl, and with
the weakness as well "as the strength of an
Oriental. However, it should be remembered
that his works both poetical and philosophical,
as we now see them, appear under many dis-
advantages; altogether immature, and not as
doctrines and delineations, but as the rude
draught of such ; in which, had they been com-
pletec, much was to have changed its shape,
and this fault with many others might have
disappeared. It may be, therefore, that this
is only a superficial fault, or even only the ap-
pearance of a fault, and has its origin in these
circumstances, and in our imperfect under-
standing of him. In personal and bodily ha-
bits, at least, Novalis appears to have been the

opposite of inert; we hear expressly of hi»
quickness and vehemence of movement.

In regard to the character of his genius, oi
rather perhaps of his literary significance, and
the form under which he displayed his genius,
Tieck thinks he may be likened to Dante. "For
him," says he, "it had become the most natu-
ral disposition to regard the commonest and
nearest as a wonder, and the strange, the super-
natural as something common ; men's every-
day life itself lay round him like a won-
drous fable, and those regions which the most
dream of or doubt of as of a thing distant, in-
comprehensible, were for him a beloved home.
Thus did he, uncorrupted by examples, find
out for himself a new method of delineation;
and in his multiplicity of meaning; in his vit/w
of Love, and his belief in Love, as at once his
Instructor, his Wisdom, his Religion ; in this
too that a single grand incident of life, and one
deep sorrow and bereavement grew to be the
essence of his Poetry and Contemplation, — he
alone among the moderns resembles the lofty
Danle ; and sings us, like him, an unfathom-
able, mystic song, far different from that of
many imitators, who think to put on mysticism
and put it off, like a piece of dre>s." Con-
sidering the tendency of his poetic endeavours,
as well as the general spirit of his philosophy,
this flattering comparison may turn out to be
better founded than at first sight it seems to be.
Nevertheless, were we required to illustrate
Novalis in this way, which at all limes must
be a very loose one, we should incline rather
to call him the German Pascal than the Ger-
man Dante. Between Pascal and Novalis, a
lover of such analogies might trace not a few
points of resemblance. Both are of the purest,
most affectionate moral nature; both of a high,
fine, discursive intellect; both are mathemati-
cians and naturalists, yet occupy themselves
chiefly with Religion : nay, the best writings
of both are left in the shape of "Thoughts,"
materials of a grand scheme, which each of
them, with the views peculiar to his age, had
planned, we may say, for the furtherance of
Religion, and which neither of them lived to
execute. Nor in all this would it fail to be
carefully remarked, that Novalis was not the
French but the Gcnnnn Pascal; and from the
intellectual habits of the one and the other,
many national contrasts and conclusions might
be drawn ; which we leave to those that have
a taste for such parallels.

We have thus endeavoured to communicate
some views, not of what is vulgarly called, but
of what ts German Mystic; to afford English
readers a few glimpses into his actual house-
hold establishment, and show them by their
own inspection how he lives and works. We
have done it, moreover, not in the style of de-
rision, which would have been so easy, but in
that of serious inquiry, which seemed so much
more profitable. For this we anticipate not
censure, but thanks, from our readers. Mys-
ticism, whatever it may be, should, like other
actually existing things, be understood in well-
informed minds. We have observed, indeed,
that the old-established laugh on this subject
has been getting rather hollow of late ; and
seems as if, ere long, it would In a great mea-

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

187

sure die away. It appears to us that, in Eng-
land, there is a distinct spirit of tolerant and
sober invest)p;ation abroad, in regard to this
and other kindred matters; a persuasion, fast
spreading wider and wider, that the plummet
of French or Scotch Logic, excellent, nay, in-
dispensable as it is for surveying all coasts
and harbours, will absolutely not sound the
deep-seas of human Inquiry; and that many a
Voltaire and Hume, well-gifted and highly me-
ritorious men, were far wrong in reckoning
that when their six hundred fathoms were out,
they had reached the bottom, which, as in the
Atlantic, may lie unknown miles lower. Six
hundred fathoms is the longest, and a most
valuable nautical line: but many men sound
with six and fewer fathoms, and arrive at pre-
cisely the same conclusion.

"The day will come," said Lichtenberg, in
bitter irony, " when the belief in God will be

like that in nursery Spectres ;" or, as Jean Paul
has it, " Of the World will be made a World-
Machine, of the ^iher a Gas, of God a Force,
and of the Second World — a Coffin." We ra-
ther think, such a day will not come. At all
events, while the battle is still waging, and
that Coffin-and-Gas Philosophy has not yet se-
cured itself with Tithes and penal Statutes, let
there be free scope for Mysticism, or whatever
else honestly opposes it. A fair field, and no
favour, and the right will prosper ! " Our pre-
sent time," says Jean Paul elsewhere, " is in-
deed a criticising and critical time, hovering
betwixt the wish and the inability to believe ;
a chaos of conflicting times ; but even a cha-
otic world must have its centre, and revolution
round that centre; there is no pure entire Con-
fusion, but all such presupposes its opposite,
before it can begin."

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

[Edinburgh Review, 1829.]

It is no very good symptom either of nations
or individuals, that they deal much in vatici-
nation. Happy men are full of the present,
for its bounty suffices them ; and wise men
also, for its duties engage them. Our grand
business undoubtedly is, not to sec what lies
dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly
at hand.

Know'st thou Yesterday, its aim and reason ?

Worl\'st thou well To-day, for worthy tilings'!

Then calmly wait the Murrow's hidden season,

And fear not thou, what hap soe'er it brings !

But man's " large discourse of reason" ivill
look " before and after ;" and, impatient of " the
ignorant present time," wall indulge in antici-
pation far more than profits him. Seldom can
the unhappy be persuaded that the evil of the
day is sufficient for it; and the ambitious will
not be content with present splendour, but
paints yet more glorious triumphs, on the
cloud-curtain of the future.

I'he case, however, is still worse with na-
tions. For here the prophets are not one, but
many; and each incites and confirms the
other; so that the fatidical fury spreads wider
and wider, till at last even Saul must join in it.
For there is still a real magic in the action
and reaction of minds on one another. The
casual deliration of a few becomes, by this
mysterious reverberation, the frenzy of many ;
men lose the use, not only of their understand-
ings, but of their bodily senses; while the
most obdurate, unbelieving hearts melt, like
the rest, in the furnace where all are cast as
victims and as fuel. It is grievous to think,
that this noble omnipotence of Sympathy has
been so rarely the Aaron's-rod of Truth and
A''irtue, and so often the Enchanter's-rod of
Wickedness and Folly ! No solitary miscre-
ant, scarcely any solitary maniac, would ven-

ture on such actions and imaginations, as
large communities of sane men have, in such
circumstances, entertained as sound wisdom.
Witness long scenes of the French Revolution !
a whole people drunk with blood and arrogance,
and then with terror and cruelty, and with des-
peration, and blood again ! Levity is no pro«
tection against such visitations, nor the utmost
earnestness of character. The New England
Puritan burns -witches, wrestles for months
with the horrors of Satan's invisible world,
and all ghastly phantasms, the daily and
hourly precursors of the Last Day; then sud-
denly bethinks him that he is frantic, weeps
bitterly, prays contritely, and the history of
that gloomy season lies behii.d him like a
frightful dream.

And Old England has had her share of such
frenzies and panics ; though happily, like
other old maladies, they have grown milder of
late : and since the days of Titus Gates, have
mostly passed Avithout loss of men's lives, or
indeed without much other loss than that of
reason, for the time, in the suiferers. In this
mitigated form, however, the distemper is of
pretty regular recurrence ; and may be reck-
oned on at intervals, like other natural visita-
tions ; so that reasonable men deal with it, as
the Londoners do with their logs, — go cauti-
ously out into the groping crowd, and patiently
carry lanterns at noon; knowing, by a well-
grounded faith, that the sun is still in existence,
and will one day reappear. How often have
we heard, for the last fifty years, that the
country w-as wreclced, and fast sinking; where-
as, up to this date, the country is entire and
afloat! The "State in Danger" is a condition
of things, which we have witnessed a hundred
times ; and as for the church, it has seldom beeii
out of " danger" since we can remembei i-

ISS

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

All men are aware, that the present is a
crisis of this sort; and why it has become so.
The repeal of the Test Acts, and then of the
Catholic disabilities, has struck many of their
admirers with an indescribable astonishment.
Those things seemed fixed and immovable ;
deep as the foundations of the world ; and lo !
in a moment they have vanished, and their
place knows them no more ! Our worthy
friends mistook the slumbering Leviathan for
an island ; often as they had been assured,
that intolerance was, and could be nothing but
a Monster ; and so, mooring under the lee, they
had anchored comfortably in his scaly rind,
thinking to take good cheer ; as for some space
they did. But now their Leviathan has sud-
denly dived under; and they can no longer
be fastened in the stream of time; but must
drift forward on it, even like the rest of the
world; no very appalling fate, we think, could
they but understand it: which, however, they
will not yet, for a season. Their little island
is gone, and sunk deep amid confused eddies;
and what is left worth caring for in the uni-
verse ? What is it to them, that the great con-
tinents of the earth are still standing ; and the
polestar and all our loadstars, in the heavens,
still shining and eternal? Their cherished
little haven is gone, and they will not be com-
forted! And therefore, day after day, in all
manner of periodical or perennial publica-
tions, the most lugubrious predictions are sent
forth. The king has virtually abdicated ; the
church is a widow, without jointure; public
principle is gone; private honesty is going;
society, in short, is fast falling in pieces; and
a time of unmixed evil is come on us. At
such a period, it was to be expected that the
rage of prophecy should be more than usually
excited. Accordingly, the Millenarians have
come forth on the right hand, and the Millites
on the left. The Fifth-monarchy men pro-
phesy from the Bible, and the Utilitarians from
Bentham. The one announces that the last of
the seals is to be opened, positively, in the
year 1860 ; and the other assures us, that " the
greatest happiness principle" is to make a
heaven of earth, in a still shorter time. We
know these symptoms too well, to think it ne-
cessary or safe to interfere Math them. Time
and the hours will bring relief to all parties.
The grand encourager of Delphic or other
noises is — the Echo. Left to themselves, they
will soon dissipate, and die away in space.

Meanwhile, we too admit that the present is
an important time ; as all present time neces-
sarily is. The poorest day that passes over
us is the contlux of two Eternities ! and is
made up of currents that issue from the remot-
est Past, and flow onwards into the remotest
Future. We were wise indeed, could we dis-
cern truly the signs of our own time; and by
knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely
adjust our own position in it. Let us then,
instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance,
look calmly around us for a little, on the per-
plexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on
a more serious inspection, something of its
perplexity will disappear, some of its distinc-
tive characters, and deeper tendencies, more
Clearly reveal themselves ; whereby our own

relations to it, our own true aims and endea«
vours in it, may also become clearer.

Were we required to characterize this age
of ours by any single epithet, we should be
tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional,
Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all
others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of
Machinery, in every outward and inward sense
of that word ; the age which, with its whole
undivided might, forwards, teaches, and prac-
tises the great art of adopting means to ends.
Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all
is by rule and calculated contrivance, For
the simplest operation, some helps and accom-
paniments, some cunning, abbreviating pro-
cess is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion
are all discredited, and thrown aside. On
every hand, the living artisan is driven from
his workshop, to make room for a speedier,
inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the
fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fin-
gers that ply it faster. The sailor furls his
sail, and lays down his oar, and bids a strong,
unwearied servant, on vapourous wings, bear
him through the waters. Men have crossed
oceans by steam ; the Birmingham Fire-king
has visited the fabulous East; and the genius
of the Cape, were there any Camoens now to
sing it, has again been alarmed, and with far
stranger thunders than Gama's. There is no
end to machinery. Even the horse is stripped
of his harness, and finds a fleet fire-horse
yoked in his stead. Nay, we have an artist
that hatches chickens by steam ; the very
brood-hen is to be superseded ! For all
earthly, and for some unearthly purposes, we
have machines and mechanic furtherances;
for mincing our cabbages ; for casting us into
magnetic sleep. We remove mountains, and
make seas our smooth highway; nothing can
resist us. We war with rude nature; and, by
our resistless engines, come off" always vic-
torious, and loaded with spoils.

What wonderful accessions have thus been
made, and are still making, to the physical
power of mankind ; how much better fed,
clothed, lodged, and, in all outward respects,
accommodated, men now are, or might be, by
a given quantity of labour, is a grateful reflec-
tion which forces itself on every one. What
changes, too, this addition of power is intro-
ducing into the social system; how wealth
has more and more increased, and at the same
time gathered itself more and more into masses,
strangely altering the old relations, and in-
creasing the distance between the rich and the
poor, will be a question for Political Econo-
mists, and a much more complex and import-
ant one than any they have yet engaged with.
But leaving these matters for the present, let
us observe how the mechanical genius of our
time has diffused itself into quite other pro-
vinces. Not the external and physical alone
is now managed by machinery, but the inter-
nal and spiritual also. Here, too, nothing fol-
lows its spontaneous course, nothing is left to
be accomplished by old, natural methods.
Every thing has its cunningly devised imple-
ments, its pre-established apparatus; it is not
done by hand, but by machinery. Thus we
have machines for JEducation : Lancastrian

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

189

machines; Hamiltoiiian machines; Monitors,
maps, and emblems. Insiruction, thai myste-
rious communing of Wisdom witli Ignorance,
is no longer an indefinable tentative 'process,
requiring a study of individual aptitudes, and
a perpetual variation of means and methods,
to attain the same end; but a secure, univer-
sal, straight-forward business, to be conducted
in the gross, by proper mechanism, with such
intellect as comes to hand. Then, we have
Religihu? machines, of all imaginable varie-
ties; the Bible Society, professing a far higher
and heavenly structure, is found, on inquiry,
to be altogether an earthly contrivance, sup-
ported by collection of moneys, by fomenting
(«f vanities, by puffing, intrigue, and chicane;
and yet, in eflect, a very excellent machine for
converting the Heathen. It is the same in all
other departments. Has any man, or any
soci-ety of men, a truth to speak, a piece of
spiritual work to do, they can nowise proceed
at once, and with the mere natural organs, but
must first call a public meeting, appoint com-
mittees, issue prospectuses, eat a public din-
ner; in a word, constructor borrow machinery,
wherewith to speak it and do it. Without
machinery they were hopeless, helpless ; a
colony of Hindoo weavers squatting in the
heart of Lancashire. Then every machine
must have its moving power, in some of the
great currents of society: Every little sect
among us, Unitarians, titilitarians. Anabap-
tists, Phrenologists, must each have its periodi-
cal, its monthly or quarterly magazine, —
hanging out, like its windmill, into ihe popularis
aura, to grind meal for the society.

With individuals, in like manner, natural
strength avails little. No individual now
hopes to accomplish the poorest enterprise
single-handed, and without mechanical aids ;
he must make interest with some existing
corporation, and till his field with their oxen.
In these days, more emphatically than ever,
"to live, signifies to unite with a party, or to
make one." Philosophy, Science, Art, Litera-
ture, all depend on machinery. No Newton,
by silent meditation, now discovers the system
of the world from the falling of an apple; but
some quite other than Newton stands in his
Museum, his Scientific Institution, and behind
whole batteries of retorts, digesters, and gal-
vanic piles imperatively "interrogates Nature,"
— who, however, shows no haste to answer. In
defect of Raphaels, and Angelos, and Mozarts,
we have Royal Academies of Painting, Sculp-
ture, Music; whereby the languishing spirit
of art may be strengthened by the more gene-
rous diet of a Public Kitchen. Literature, too,
lias its Palernoster-row mechanism, its Trade
dinners, its Editorial conclaves, and huge sub-
terranean puffing bellows; so that books are
not only printed, but, in a great m.easure,
written and sold, by machinery. National
culture, spiritual benefit of all sorts, is under
the same management. No Queen Christina,
in these times, needs to send for her Descartes ;
iiu King Frederic for his Voltaire, and pain-
fully nourish him with pensions and flattery:
b'lt any sovereign of taste, who wishes to en-
■igliien his peo])lc, has only to impose a new
ax, and with the proceeds establish Philoso-

phic Institutes. Hence the Royal and Imperial
Societies, the Bibliothcques, Glyptotheques,
Technothcques, which front us in all capital
cities, like so many well-fiiiished hives, to
which it is expected the stray agencies of
Wisdom will swarm of their own accord, and
hive and make honey. In like manner, among
ourselves, when it is thought that religion is
declining, we have only to vole half a million's
worth of bricks and mortar, and build new
churches. In Ireland, it seems they have gone
still farther ; having actually established a
" Penny-a-week Purgatoiy Society !" Thus
does the Genius of Mechanism stand by to
help us in all difficulties and emergencies;
and, with his iron back, bears all our burdens.

These things, which we state lightly enough
here, are yet of deep import, and indicate a
mighty change in our whole manner of exist-
ence. For the same habit regulates not our
modes of action alone, but our modes of
thought and feeling. Men are grown mechani-
cal in head and in heart, as well as in hand.
They have lost faith in individual endeavour,
and in natural force, of any kind. Not for
internal perfection, but for external combina-
tions and arrangements, for institutions, con-
stitutions,— for Mechanism of one sort or other,
do they hope and struggle. Their whole efforts,
attachments, opinions, turn on mechanism, and
are of a mechanical character.

We may trace this tendency, we think, very
distinctly, in all the great manifestations of
our time; in its intellectual aspect, the studies
it most favours, and its manner of conductin°^
them ; in its practical aspects, its politics, arts,
religion, morals; in the whole sources, and
throughout the whole currents, of its spiritual,
no less than its material activity.

Consider, for example, the state of Science
generally, in Europe, at this period. It is ad-
mitted, on all sides, that the Metaphysical and
Moral Sciences are falling into decay, while
the Physical are engrossing, every day, more
respect and attention. In most of the European
nations, there is now no such thing as a Sci-
ence of Mind; only more or less advancement
in the general science, or the special sciences,
of matter. The French were the first to desert
this school of Metaphysics; and though they
have lately afl'ected to revive it, it has yet no
signs of vitality. The land of Malebranche,
Pascal, Descartes, and Fenelon, has now only
its Cousins and Villemains; while, in the
department of Physics, it reckons far other
names. Among ourselves, the Philosophy of
Mind, after a rickety infancy, which never
reached the vigour of manhood, fell suddenly
into decay, languished, and finall}' died out,
with its last amiable cultivator. Professor
Stewart. In no nation hut Germany has any
decisive eflTort been made in psychological
science; not to speak of any decisive result,
The science of the age, in short, is physical,
chemical, physiological, and, in all shapes,
mechanical. Our favourite Mathematics, the
highly prized exponent of all these other
sciences, has also become more and more
mechanical. Excellence, in what is called its
higher departments, depends less on natural
genius, than on acquired experlness in wield

190

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ins; its machinery. Without undervaluing the 1
wonuerl'ul results which a Lagrange, or La-
place, educes bv means of it, we may remark,
that its calculus, ditferential and integral, is
little else than a more cunningly-constructed
arithmetical mill, where the factors being put
in, are, as it were, ground into the true pro-
duct, under cover, and without other effort, on
our part, than steady turning of the handle.
We have more Mathematics certainly than
ever; but less Mathesis. Archimedes- and
Plato could not have read the Mcccmique Celeste ;
but neither would the whole French Institute
see aught in that saying, "God geometrizes !"
but a sentimental rodomontade.

From Locke's time downwards, our whole
Metaphysics have been physical; not a spi-
ritual Philosophy, but a material one. The
singular estimation in which his Essay was
so long held as a scientific work, (for the
character of the man entitled all he said to
veneration,) will one day be thought a curious
indication of the spirit of these times. His
whole doctrine is mechanical, in its aim and
origin, in its method and its results. It is a
mere discussion concerning the origin of our
consciousness, or ideas, or whatever else they
are called; a genetic history of what we see
in the mind. But the grand secrets of Neces-
sity and Free-will, of the mind's vital or non-
vital dependence on matter, of our mysterious
relations to Time and Space, to God, to the
universe, are not, in the faintest degree, touch-
ed on in these inquiries ; and seem not to have
the smallest connection with them.

The last class of our Scotch Metaphysicians
had a dim notion that much of this was wrong ;
out they knew not how to right it. The school
of Reid had also from the first taken a me-
chanical course, not seeing any other. The
singular conclusions at which Hume, setting
out from their admitted premises, was arriv-
ing, brought this school into being; they let
loose Instinct, as anundiscriminating han-dog,
to guard them against these conclusions; —
they tugged lustily at the logical chain by
which Hume was so coldly towing them and
the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism
and Fatalism. But the chain somehow snap-
ped between them; and the issue has been
that nobody now cares about either, — any
more than about Hartley's, Darwin's, or Priest-
ley's contemporaneous doings in England.
Hartley's vibrations and vibratiuncles one
would think were material and mechanical
enough; but our continental neighbours have
gone still farther. One of their philosophers
has lately discovered, that " as the liver se-
cretes bile, so does the brain secrete tiiought ;"
which astonishing discovery Dr. Cabanis,
more lately still, in his Rapports du Physique el
du Morale tk V Homme, has pushed into its mi-
nutest de\ shipments. The metaphysical philo-
sophy of this last inquirer is ceriainly no sha-
dowy or unsubstantial one. He fairly lays open
i>ur moral structure with his dissecting-knives
and real metal probes ; and exhibits it to the in-
spection of mankind, by Leuwenhoek micro-
scopes and inflation with the anatomical blow-
pipe. Thought, he is inclined to hold, is siill
secreted by the brain ; but then Poetry and

Religion (and it is really worth knowing) ar«
"a product of the smaller intestines!" W«
have the greatest admiration for this learned
doctor: with what scientific stoicism he walks
through the land of wonders, unwondering;
like a wise man through some huge, gaudy,
imposing Vauxhall, whose fire-works, cas-
cades, and symphonies, the vulgar may enjoy
and believe in, — but where he finds nothing
real but the saltpetre, pasteboard, and catgut.
His book may be regarded as the ultimatum
of mechanical metaphysics in our time; a re-
markable realization of what in Martinus
Scriblerus was still only an idea, that "as the
jack had a meat-roasting quality, so had the
body a thinking quality" — upon the strength
of which the Nurembergers were to build a
wood and leather man," who-should reason as
well as most country parsons." Vaucanson
did indeed make a wooden duck, that seemed
to eat and digest; but that bold scheme of the
Nurembergers remained for a more modern
virtuoso.

This condition of the two great departments
of knowledge — the outward, cultivated exclu-
sively on mechanical principles ; the inward
finally abandoned, because, cultivated on such
principles, it is found to yield no result — suf-
ficiently indicates the intellectual bias of our
time, its all-pervading disposition towards that
line of inquiry. In fact, an inward persua-
sion has long been diffusing itself, and now
and then even comes to utterance, that, except
the external, there are no true sciences ; that
to the inward world (if there be any) oar only
conceivable road is through the outward ; that,
in short, what cannot be investigated and un-
derstood mechanically, cannot be investigated
and understood at all. We advert the more
particularly to these intellectual propensities,
as to prominent symptoms of our age ; because
Opinion is at all times doubly related to Ac-
tion, first as cause, then as effect; and the
speculative tendency of any age will there-
fore give us, on the whole, the best indications
of its practical tendency.

Nowhere, for example, is the deep, almost
exclusive faith, we have in Mechanism, more
visible than in the Politics of this time. Civil
government does, by its nature, include much
that is mechanical, and must be treated ac-
cordingly. We term it, indeed, in ordinary
language, the Machine of Society, and talk of
it as the grand working wheel from which all
private machines must derive, or to which
they must adapt, their movements. Consider-
ed merely as a metaphor, all this is well
enough ; but here, as in so many other cases,
the " foam hardens itself into a shell," and the
shadow we have wantonly evoked stands ter-
riblv before us, and will not depart at our bid-
ding. Government includes much also that is
not mechanical, and cannot be treated me-
chanically; of which latter truth, as appears
to us, the political speculations and exertions
of our time are taking less and less cogni-
sance.

Nay, in the very outset, we might note the
mighty interest taken in mere poliliral arrange'
nients, as itself the sign of a mechanical age.
The whole discontent of Europe takes this di

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

19

rection. The deep, strong cry of all civilized
nations — a cry which every one now sees,
must and will be answered — is, Give us a re-
form of Government! A good structure of
legislation, — a proper check upon the execu-
tive, -a wise arrangement of the judiciary, is
all that is wanting for human happiness. The
Philosopher of this age is not a Socrates, a
Plato, a Hooker, or Taylor, who inculcates on
men the necessity and infinite worth of moral
goodness, the great truth that our happiness
depends on the mind which is within us, and
not on the circumstances which are without
us ; but a Smith, a De Lolme, a Bentham, who
chiefly inculcates the reverse of this, — that our
happiness depends entirely on external circum-
stances ; nay, that the strength and dignity of
the mind within us is itself the creature and
consequence of these. Were the laws, the
government, in good order, all were well with
us; the rest would care for itself! Dissen-
tients from this opinion, expressed or implied,
are now rarely to be met with; widely and
angrily as men differ in its application, the
principle is admitted by all.

Equally mechanical, and of equal simpli-
city, are the methods proposed by both parties
for completing or securing this all-sufficient
perfection of arrangement. It is no longer
the moral, religious, spiritual condition of the
peoplp that is our concern, but their physical,
practical, economical condition, as regulated
by public laws. Thus is the Body-politic
more than ever worshipped and tended: but
the Soul-politic less than ever. Love of coun-
tr3% in any high or generous sense, in any
other than an almost animal sense, or mere
habit, has little importance attached to it in
such reforms, or in the opposition shown
them. Men are to be guided only by their
self-interests. Good government is a good
balancing of these ; and, except a keen eye
and appetite for self-interest, requires no vir-
tue in any quarter. To both parties it is em-
phatically a machine : to the discontented, a
"taxing machine;" to the contented, a "ma-
chine for securing property." Its duties and
its faults are not those of a fdther, but of an
active parish constable.

Thus it is by the mere condition of the ma-
chine ; by preserving it untouched, or else by
re-constructing it, and oiling it anew, that
man's salvation as a social being is to be in-
sured and indefinitely promoted. Contrive the
fabric of law aright, and without farther effort
on your part, that divine spirit of freedom,
which all hearts venerate and long for, will of
herself come to inhabit it ; and under her
healing wings every noxious influence will
wither, every good and salutary one more
and more expand. Nay, so devoted are we to
this principle, and at the same time so curi-
ously mechanical, that a new trade, specially
grounded in it, has arisen among us, under the
name of " Codification," or code-making in
ihe abstract; whereby any people, for a rea-
sonable consideration, may be accommodated
with a patent code, — more easily than curious
individuals with patent breeches, for the peo-
ple does not need to be measured first.

To us who live in the midst of all this, and

see continually the faith, hope, and practice
of every one founded on Mechanism of one
kind or other, it is apt to seem quite natural,
and as if it could never have been otherwise.
Nevertheless, if we recollect or reflect a little,
we shall find both that it has been, and might
again be, otherwise. The domain of Mechan-
ism,— meaning thereby political, ecclesiastical,
or other outward establishments, — was once
considered as embracing, and we are per-
suaded can at any time embrace but a limited
portion of man's interests, and by no means
the highest portion.

To speak a little pedantically, there is a
science of Dynaniim in man's fortui^es and na-
ture, as well as of Merhamcs, There is a sci-
ence which treats of, and practically addresses,
the primary, unmodified forces and energies
of man, the mysterious springs of Love, and
Fear, and Wonder, of Enthusiasm, Poetry,
Religion, all which have a truly vital and uifi-
vile character ; as well as a science which
practically addresses the finite, modified deve-
lopments of these, when they take the shape
of immediate "motives," as hope of reward,
or as fear of punishment.

Now it is certain, that in former times the
wise men, the enlightened lovers of their kind,
who appeared generally as Moralists, Poets,
or Priests, did, without neglecting the l\Iecha-
nical province, deal chiefly with the Dynami-
cal ; applying themselves chiefly to regulate,
increase, and purify the inward primary pow-
ers of man ; and fancying that herein lay the
main difficulty, and the best service they could
undertake. But a wide difl^erence is manifest
in our age. For the wise men, who now ap-
pear as Political Philosophers, deal exclu-
sively with the Mechanical province ; and
occupying themselves in counting up and es-
timating men's motives, strive by curious
checking and balancing, and other adjust-
ments of Profit and Loss, to guide them to
their true advantage: while, unfortunately,
those same "motives" are so innumerable,
and so variable in every individual, that no
really useful conclusion can ever be drawn
from their enumeration. But though Meclia-
nism, wisely contrived, has done much for
man, in a social and moral point of view, we
cannot be persuaded that it has ever been the
chief source of his worth or happiness. Con-
sider the great elements of human enjoyment,
the attainments and possessions that exalt
man's life to its present height, and see what
part of these he owes to institutions, to Me-
chanism of any kind ; and what to the in-
stinctive, unbounded force, which Nature
herself lent him, and still continues to him.
Shall we say, for example, that Science and
Art are indebted principally to the found-
ers of Schools and universities ? Did not
Science originate rather, and gain advance-
ment, in the obscure closets of the Roger Ba-
cons. Kcplers, Newtons ; in the workshops of
the Fausts and the Watts; wherever, and in
what guise soever Nature, fiom the first times
downwards, had sent a gifted spirit upon the
earth ] Again, were Homer and Shakspeare
members of any beneficial guild, or made Poets
by means of itl Were Painting and Sculp-

19%

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ture created by forethous^ht, brought into the
world by institutions for that endl No; Sci-
ence and Art have, from first to last, been the
free gift of Nature ; an unsolicited, unexpected
gift: often even a fatal one. These things
rose up, as it were by spontaneous growth, in
the free soil and sunshine of Nature. They
were not planted or grafted, nor even greatly
multiplied or improved by the cultureormanur-
ing of institutions. Generally speaking, they
have derived only partial help from these :
often have suffered damage. They made con-
stitutions for themselves. They originated in
the Dynamical nature of man, and not in his
Mechanical nature.

Or, to lake an infinitely higher instance, that
of the Christian Religion, which, vinder every
theory of it, in the believing or the unbelieving
mind, must be ever regardied as the crowning
glory, or rather the life and soul, of our whole
modern culture : How did Christianity arise
and spread abroad among men ] Was it by
institutions, and establishments, and well-ar-
ranged systems of mechanism 1 Not so ; on
the contrary, in all past and existing institu-
tions for those ends, its divine spirit has inva-
riably been found to languish and decay. It
arose in the mystic deeps of man's soul; and
was spread abroad by the "preaching of the
word," by simple, altogether natural and indi-
vidual efforts; and flew, like hallowed fire,
from heart to heart, till all were purified and
illuminated by it; and its heavenly light shone,
as it still shines, and as sun or star will ever
shine, through jJie whole dark destinies of
man. Here again was no Mechanism; man's
highest attainment was accomplished, Dyna-
mically, not Mechanically. Nay, we Avill ven-
ture to say, that no high attainment, not even
any far-extending movement among men, was
ever accomplished otherwise. Strange as it
may seem, if we read History with anydegreeof
thoughtfulness, we shall find, that the checks
and balances of Profit and Loss have never
been the grand agents with man ; that they have
never been roused into deep, thorough, all-per-
vading efforts by any computable prospect of
Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object ;
but always for some invisible and infinite one.
The Crusades took their rise in Religion ;
their visible object was, commercially speak-
ing, worth nothing. It was the boundless, In-
visible world that was laid bare in the imagi-
nations of those men; and in its burning
light, the visible shrunk as a scroll. Not me-
chanical, nor produced by mechanical means,
was this vast movement. No dining at Free-
masons' Tavern, with the other long train of
modern machinery; no cunning reconcilia-
tion of "vested interests," was required here :
only the passionate voice of one man, the
rapt soul looking through the eyes of one
man ; and rugged, steel-clad Europe trembled
beneath his words, and followed him whither
he listed. In later ages, it was still the same.
The Reformation had an invisible, mystic, and
ideal aim ; the result was indeed to be embo-
died in external things ; but its spirit, its
worth, was internal, invisible, infinite. Our
English Revolution, too, originated in Reli-
gion. Men did battle, in those days, not for

Purse sake, but for Conscience sake. Nay,
in our own days, it is no way different. The
French Revolution itself had something higher
in it than cheap bread and a Habeas-corpus
act. Here, too, was an Idea ; a Dynamic, not
a Mechanic force. It was a struggle, though
ablind and at last an insane one, for the infinite,
divine nature of Right, of Freedom, of Country.

Thus does man, in every age, vindicate, con-
sciously or unconsciously, his celestial birth-
right. Thus does nature hold on her wondrous,
unquestionable course; and all our systems
and theories are but so many froth-eddies or
sand-banks, which from time to time she casts
up and washes away. When we can drain
the Ocean into our mill-ponds, and bottle up
the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in
our gas-jars; then may we hope to compre-
hend the infinitudes of man's soul under for-
mulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this
too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and
valves, and balances.

Nay, even with regard to Government itself,
can it be necessary to remind any one that
Freedom, without which indeed all spiritual
life is impossible, depends on infinitely more
complex influences than either the extension
or the curtailment of the " democratic interest!"
Who is there that, " taking the high priori
road," shall point out what these influences
are; what deep, subtle, inextricably entangled
influences they have been, and may be 1 For
man is not the creature and product of Me-
chanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator
and producer : it is the noble people that makes
the noble Government; rather than conversely.
On the whole. Institutions are much ; but they
are not all. The freest and highest spirits of
the world have often been found under strange
outward circumstances: Saint Paul and his
brother Apostles were politically slaves ; Epic-
tetus was personally one. Again, forget the
influences of Chivalry and Religion, and ask,
— what countries produced Columbus and Las
Casas 1 Or, descending from virtue and hero-
ism, to mere energv and spiritual talent: Cor-
tes, Pizarro, Alba, Ximenes 1 The Spaniards
of the sixteenth century were indisputably the
noblest nation of Europe; yet they had the In-
quisition, and Philip IL They have the same
government at this day; and are the lowest
nation. The Dutch, loo, have retained their
old constitution ; but no Siege of Leyden, no
William the Silent, not even an Egmont or
De Witt, any longer appears amons; them.
With ourselves, also, where much has changed,
eflect has nowise followed cause, as it should
have done: two centuries ago, the Commons'
Speaker addressed Queen Elizabeth on bended
knees, happy that the virago's foot did not even
smite hiin ; yet the people were then governed,
not by a Castlereagh, but by a Burghley; they
had their Shakspeare and Philip Sidney, where
we have our Sheridan Knowles and Beau
Brummel.

These and the like facts are so familiar, the
truths which they preach so obvious, and have
in all past times been so universallv believed
and acted on, that we should almost feel
ashamed for repeating them; were it not that,
on every hand, the memory of them seem-" to

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

193

have passed away, or at best died into a faint
tradition, ol" no value as a practical principle.
To judge by the loud clamour of our Constitu-
tion builders. Statists, Economists, directors,
creators, reformers of Public Societies; in a
word, all manner of Mechanists, from the Cart-
wright up to the Code-maker; and by the
nearly total silence of all Preachers and Teach-
ers who should give a voice to Poetr}', Reli-
gion, and Morality, we might fancy either that
man's Dynamical nature was, to all spiritual
intents, extinct, or else so perfected, that no-
thing more was to be made of it by the old
means ; and henceforth only in his Mechanical
contrivances did any hope exist for him.

To define the limits of these two departments
of ni.an's activity, which work into one another,
and by means of one another, so intricately
and inseparably, were by its nature an impos-
sible attempt. Their relative importance, even
to the wisest mind, will vary in different times,
according to the special wants and dispositions
of these times. Meanwhile, it seems clear
enough that only in the right co-ordination of
the two, and the vigorous forwarding of both,
does our true line of action lie. Undue culti-
vation of the inward or Dynamical province
leads to idle, visionary, impracticable courses,
and, especially in rude eras, to Superstition
and Fanaticism, with their long train of baleful
and well-known evils. Undue cultivation of
the outward, again, though less immediately
prejudicial, and even for the time productive
of many palpable benefits, must, in the long
run, by destroying Moral Force, which is the
parent of all other Force, prove not less cer-
tainly, and perhaps still more hopelessly, per-
nicious. This, we take it, is the grand charac-
teristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism,
it has come to pass that, in the management
of external things, we excel all other ages;
while in whatever respects the pure moral na-
ture, in true dignity of soul and character, we
are perhaps inferior to most civilized ages.

In fact, if we look deeper, we, shall find that
this faith in Mechanism has now struck its
roots deep into men's most intimate, piimary
sources of conviction ; and is thence sending
up, over his whole life and activity, innume-
rable stems, — fruit-bearing and poison-bearing.
The truth is, men have lost their belief in the
Invisible, and believe, and hope, and work only
in the Visible; or, to speak it in other words.
This is not a Religious age. Only the material,
the immediately practical, not the divine and
spiritual, is important to us. The infinite, ab-
solute character of Virtue has passed into a
finite, conditional one ; it is no longer a wor-
.ship of the Beautiful and Good ; but a calcula-
tion of the Profitable. Worship, indeed, in any
sense, is not recognised among us, or is me-
chanically explained into Fear of pain, or
He pe of pleasure. Our true Deity is Mecha-
nism. It has subdued external Nature for us,
and, we think, it will do all other things. We
are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than
a metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that
strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to
conquer Heaven also.

The sinuig mechanical character, so visible
in the spiritual pursuits and methods of this
25

age, may be traced much farther into the con-
dition and prevailingdisposition of our spiritual
nature itself. Consider, for example, the gene-
ral fashion of Intellect in this era. Intellect,
the power man has of knowing and believing,
is now nearly synonymous with Logic, or the
mere power of arranging and communicating.
Its implement is not Meditation, but Argument.
" Cause and efiect" is almost the only category
under which we look at, and work with, all
Nature. Our first question with regard to any
object is not, What is if? but, How is it? We
are no longer instinctively driven to appre-
hend,and lay to heart, what is Good and Love-
ly, but rather to inquire, as onlookers, how it
is produced, whence it comes, whither it goes.
Our favourite Philosophers have no love and
no hatred ; they stand among us not to do, nor
to create any thing, but as a sort of Logic-mills
to grind out the true causes and effects of all
that is done and created. To the eye of a
Smith, a Hume, or a Constant, all is well that
works quietly. An Order of Ignatius Loyola,
a Presbyterianism of John Knox, a WicklifJe,
or a Henry the Eighth, are simply so many
mechanical phenomena, caused or causing.

The Euphiiist of our day differs much from
his pleasant predecessors. An intellectual
dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his
irresistible perspicacity, his " dwelling in the
daylight of truth," and so forth ; which, on ex-
amination, turns out to be a dwelling in the
?-Ms/i-light of "closet-logic," and a deep uncon-
sciousness that there is any other light to
dwell in ; or any other objects to survey with
it. Wonder indeed, is, on all hands, dying
out : it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder.
Speak to any small man of a high, majestic
Reformation, of a high, majestic Luther to lead
it, and forthwith he sets about "accounting"
for it! how the "circumstances of the time"
called for such a character, and found him, we
suppose, standing girt and road-ready, to do
its errand; how the "circumstances of the
time" created, fashioned, floated him quietly
along into the result ; how, in short, this small
man, had he been there, could have performed
the lilce himself! For it is the "force of cir-
cumstances" that does every thing; the force
of one man can do nothing. Now all this is
grounded on little more than a metaphor. We
figure Society as a "Machine," and that mind
is opposed to mind, as body is to body ; where-
by two, or at most ten, little minds must be
stronger than one great mind. Notabk- ab-
surdity! ' For the plain truth, very plain, we
think, is, that minds are opposed to minds in
quite a different way ; and o,ic man that has a
higher Wisdom, a hitherto unknown spiritual
Truth in him, is sti-onger, not than ten men
that have it not, or than ten thousand, but than
(til men, that have it not; and stands among
them with a quite ethereal, angelic power, as
with a sword out of Heaven's own armory,
sk3^-tempered, which no buckler, and no tower
of brass, will finally withstand.

But to us, in these times, such considera-
tions rarely occur. We enjoy, we see nothing
by direct vision; but only by reflection, and
in anatomical dismemberment. Like Sir Hii-
dibras, for every Why, we must have a Where-
R

194

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

fore. We have our little theory on all human
and divine things. Poetry, the workings of
genius itself, which in all times, Avith one or
another meaning, has been cailed Inspiration,
and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is
no longer without its scientific exposition. The
building of the lofty rhyme is like any other
masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of
its rise, height, detline, and fall, — which latter,
it would seem, is now near, among all people.
Of our " Theories of Taste," as they are calj-
ed, wherein the deep, infinite, unspeakable
Love of Wisdom and Beauty, which dwells
in all men, is " explained," made mechanically
visible, from "Association," and the like, why
should we say any thing] Hume has written
us a "Natural History of Religion ;" in which
one Natural History, all the rest are included.
Strangely, too, does the general feeling coin-
cide with Hume's in this wonderful problem ;
for whether his "Natural History" be the right
one or not, that Religion must have a Natural
History, all of us, cleric and laic, seem to be
agreed. He indeed regards it as a Disease, we
again as Health ; so far there is a difference ;
but in our first principle we are at one.

To what extent theological Unbelief, we
mean intellectual dissent from the Church, in
its view of Holy Writ, prevails at this day,
would be a highly important, were it not, un-
der any circumstances, an almost impossible
inquiry. But the Unbelief, which is of a still
more fundamental character, every man may
see prevailing, with scarcely any but the faint-
est contradiction, all around him ; even in the
Pulpit itself. Religion in most countries, more
or less in every country, is no longer what it
was, and should be, — a thousand-voiced psalm
from the heart of Man to his invisible Father,
the fountain of all Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and
revealed in every revelation of these ; but for
the most part, a wise, prudential feeling
grounded on a mere calculation ; a matter, as
all others now are, of Expediency and Utility :
whereby some smaller quantum of earthly en-
joyment may be exchanged for a far larger
quantum of celestial enjoyment. Thus Reli-
gion, too, is Profit ; a working for wages ; not
Reverence, but vulgar Hope or Fear. Many,
we know, very many, we hope, are still reli-
gious in a far different sense; were it not so,
our case were too desperate : But to witness
that such is the temper of the times, we take
any calm observant man, who agrees or disa-
grees in our feeling on the matter, and ask him
whether our view of it is not in general well-
founded.

Literature, too, if we consider it, gives simi-
lar testimony. At no former era has Litera-
ture, the printed communication of Thought,
been pf such in portance as it is now. We
often hear that tne Church is in danger; and
truly so it is, — in a danger it seems not to
know of: For, with its tithes in the most per-
fect safety, its functions are becoming more
and more superseded. The true Church of
England, at this moment, lies in the Editors
of its Newspapers. These preach to the peo-
ple daily, weekly; admonishing kings them-
selves; advising peace or war, with an au-
ihoritv which only the first Reformers and a

long-past class of Popes were possessed of
inflicting moral censure; imparting moral en-
couragement, consolation, edification ; in all
ways, diligently " administering the Discipline
of the Church." It may be said, too, that in
private disposition, the new Preachers some-
what resemble the Mendicant Friars of old
times: outwardly full of holy zeal ; inwardly
not without stratagem, and hunger for terres-
trial things. But omitting this class, and the
boundless host of watery personages who pipe,
as they are able, on so many scrannel straws,
let us look at the higher regions of Literature,
where, if anywhere, the pure melodies of Poe-
sy and Wisdom should be heard. Of natural
talent there is no deficiency : one or two richly-
endowed individuals even give us a superiority
in this respect. But what is the song they
sing? Is it a tone of the Memnon Statue,
breathing music as the light first touches it?
a "liquid wisdom," disclosing to our sense the
deep, infinite harmonies of Nature and man's
soul ? Alas, no ! It is not a matin or vesper
hymn to the Spirit of all Beauty, but a fierce
clashing of cymbals, and shouting of multi-
tudes, as children pass through the fire to Mo-
lech ! Poetry itself has no eye for ihe Invisi-
ble. Beauty is no longer the god it worships,
but some brute image of Strength; which we
may well call an idol, for true Strength is one
and the same with Beauty, and its worship also
is a hymn. The meelc, silent Light can mould,
create, and purify all Nature; but the loud
Whirlwind, the sign and product of Disunion,
of Wealcness, passes on, and is forgotten.
How widely this veneration for the physically
Strongest has spread itself through Literature,
any one may judge, who reads eithercrilicisra
or poem. We praise a work, not as " true,"
but as " strong;" our highest praise is that it j
has " affected " us, has " terrified" us. All this, 1
it has been well observed, is the "maximum '
of the Barbarous," the symptom, not of vigor-
ous refinement, but of luxurious corruption.
It speaks much, too, for men's indestructible
love of truth, that nothing of this kind will
abide with them : that even the talent of a
Byron cannot permanently seduce us intb
idol-worship ; but that he, too, with all his wild
syren charming, already begins to be disre-
garded and forgotten.

Again, with respect to our Moral condition :
here also, he who runs may read ihat 'he same
physical, mechanical influences areevery where
busy. For the "superior morality," of which
we hear so much, we too, would desire to be
thankful : at the same time, it were but blind-
ness to deny that this "superior morality" is
properly rather an "inferior criminality," pro-
duced not by greater love of Virtue, but by
greater perfection of Police; and of that far
subtler and stronger Police, called Public
Opinion. This last watches over us with its
Argus eyes more keenly than ever; but the
"inward eye" seems heavy with sleep. Of any
belief in invisible, divine things, we find as few
traces in our Morality as elsewhere. It is by
tangible, material considerations ihnt we are
guided, not by inward and spiritual. Self-denial,
the parent of all virtue, in any true sense of
that word, has perhaps seldom been rarer: so

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

198

rare is it, that the most, even in. their abstract
speculations, regard its existence as a chimera.
Virtue is Pleasure, is Profit; no celestial, but
an earthly thing. Virtuous men, Philanthro-
pists, Martyrs, are happy accidents; their
" taste" lies the right way ! In all senses, we
worship and follow after Power; which may
be called a physical pursuit. No man now
Joves Truth, as Truth must be loved, with an
infinite love ; but only with a finite love, and as
it were par anwws. Nay, properly speaking,
he does riOt believe and know it, but only "thinks"
it, and that "there is every probability!" He
preaches it aloud, and rushes courageously
forth with it, — if there is a multitude huzzaing
at his back! yet ever keeps looking over his
shoulder, and the instant the huzzaing lan-
guishes, he too stops short. In fact, what mo-
rality we have takes the shape of Ambition, of
Honour; beyond money and money's worth, our
only rational blessedness is popularity. It were
but a fool's trick to die for conscience. Only for
"character," by duel, or in case of extremity,
by suicide, is the wise man bound to die. By
arguing on the "force of circumstances," we
have argued away all force from ourselves;
and stand leashed together, uniform in dress
and movement, like the rowers of some bound- '
less galley. This and that may be right and
true; /.ufi we must not do it. Wonderful "Force
of Public Opinion!" We must act and walk
in ail points as it prescribes; follow the traffic
it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree
of " influence" it expects of us, or we shall be
lightly esteemed; certain mouthfuls of articu-
late wind will be blown at us, and this, what
mortal courage can front? Thus, while civil
Liberty is more and more secured to us, our
moral Liberty is all but lost. Practically con-
sidered, our creed is Fatalism: and, free in
hand and foot, we are shackled in heart and
soul, with far straiter than Feudal chains.
Truly may we say with the Philosopher, " the
deep meaning of the laws of Mechanism lies
heavy on us ;" and in the closet, in the market-
place, in the temple, by the social hearth, en-
cumbers the whole movements of our mind,
and over our noblest faculties is spreading a
night-mare sleep.

These dark features, we are aware, belong
more or less to other ages, as well as to ours.
This faith in Mechanism, in the all-importance
of physical things, is in every age the common
refuge of Weakness and blind Discontent; of
all who believe, as many will ever do, that
man's true good lies without him, not within.
We are aware also, that, as applied to our-
selves in all their aggravation, they form but
half a picture; that in the whole picture there
are briglit lights as well as gloomy shadows.
If we here dwell chiefly on the latter, let us not
be blamed : it is in general more profitable to
reckon up our defects, than to boast of our at-
tainments.

Neither, with all these evils more or less
clearly before us, have we at any time despaired
of the fortunes of society. Despair, or even
despondency, in that respect, appears to us, in
all cases, a groundless feeling. We have a
faith in the imperishable dignity of man ; in

the high vocation to which, throughout this his
earthly history, he has been appointed. How-
ever it may be with individual nations, what-
ever melancholic speculators may assert, it
seems a well-ascertained fact that, in all times,
reckoning even from those of the Heracleids
and Pelasgi, the happiness and greatness of
mankind at large have been continually pro-
gressive. Doubtless this age also is advancing.
Its very unrest, its ceaseless activity, its dis-
content, contains matter of promise. Know-
ledge, education, are opening the eyes of the
humblest, — are increasing the number of think-
ing minds without limit. This is as it should
be; for, not in turning back, not in resisting,
but only in resolutely struggling forward, does
our life consist. Nay, after all, our spiritual
maladies are but of Opinion; we are but fet-
tered by chains of our own forging, and which
ourselves also can rend asunder. This deep,
paralyzed subjection to physical objects comes
not from Nature,butfrom ourown unwise mode
of viewing Nature. Neither can we understand
that man wants, at this hour, any faculty of
heart, soul, or body, that ever belonged to him.
" He, who has been born, has been a First
Man;" has had lying before his young eyes,
and as yetunhardened into scientific shapes, a
world as plastic, infinite, divine, as lay before
the eyes of Adam himself. If Mechanism, like
some glass bell, encircles and imprisons us, if
the soul looks forth on a fair heavenly country
which it cannot reach, and pines, and in its
scanty atmosphere is ready to perish, — yet the
bell is but of glass ; "one bold stroke to break
the bell in pieces, and thou art delivered!"
Not the invisible world is wanting, for it dwells
in man's soul, and this last is still here. Are
the solemn temples in which the Divinity was
once visibly revealed among us, crumbling
away ] We can repair them, we can rebuild
them. The wisdom, the heroic woith of our
forefathers, which we have lost, we can recover.
That admiration of old nobleness, which now
so often shows itself as a faint dilettantism, will
one day become a generous emulation, and
man may again be all that he has been, and
more than he has been. Nor are these the
mere daydreams of fancy; they are clear pos-
sibilities; nay, in this time, they are even as-
suming the character of hopes. Indications
we do see, in other countries and in our own,
signs infinitely cheering to us, that Mechanism
is not always to be our hard taskmaster, but
one day to be our pliant, all-ministering ser-
vant; that a new and brighter spiritual era is
slowly evolving itself for all men. Butoa
these things our present course forbids us ti>
enter.

Meanwhile, that great outward chances an
in progress can be doubtful to no one. The
time is sick and out of joint. Many things
have reached their height; and it is a wise
adage that tells us, " the darkest hour is nearest
the dawn." Whenever we can gather any in
dication of the public thought, whether from
printed books, as in France or Germany, or
from Carbonari rebellions and other political
tumults, as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and
Greece, the voice it utters is the same. The
thinking minds of all nations call for change.

tm

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

There is a deep-lying strugg;le in the whole
fabric of society; a boundless, grinding colli-
sion of the New with the Old. The French
Revolution, as is now visible enough, was not
the parent of this mighty movement, but its
ofispring. Those two hostile inliuences, which
always exist in human things, and on the con-
stant intercommunion of which depends their
health and safety, had lain in separate masses,
accumulating through generations, and France
was the scene of their fiercest explosion ; but
the final issue was not unfolded in that coun-
try : nay, it is not yet anywhere unfolded.
Political freedom is hitherto the object of these
efforts; but they will not and cannot stop there.
It is towards a higher freedom than mere free-
dom from oppression by his fellow-mortal that
man dimly aims. Of this higher, heavenly
freedom, which is "man's reasonable service,"

all his noble institutions, his faithful endea-
vours, and loftiest attainments, are but the
body, and more and more approximated em-
blem.

On the whole, as this wondrous planet, Earth,
is journeying with its fellows through infinite
space, so are the wondrous destinies embarked
on it journeying through infinite time, under a
higher guidance than ours. For the present,
as our astronomy informs us, its path lies to-
wards Jlirnilcs, the constellation of Physical
Power: But that is not our most pressing con-
cern. Go where it will, the deep Hkavejt will
be around it. Therein let us have hope and
sure faith. To reform a world, to reform a
nation, no wise man will undertake; and all
but foolish men know that the only solid,
though a far slower reformation, is what each
begins and perfects on himself.

JEAN PAUL PRIEDRICH EICHTER AGAIN.*

[Foreign Review, 1830.]

It is some six j'ears since the name "Jean
Paul Friedrich Kichter" was first printed with
English types; and some six-and-forty since it
has stood emblazoned and illuminated on all
true literary Indicators among the Germans;
a fact, which, if we consider the history of
many a Kotzebue and Cliateaubriand, within
that period, may confirm the old doctrine, that
the best celebrity does not always spread the
fastest ; but rather, quite contrariwise, that as
blown bladders are far more easily carried
than metallic masses, though gold ones, of
equal bulk, so the Playwright, Poetaster, Philo-
sophe, will often pass triumphantly beyond
seas, while the Poet and Philosopher abide
quietly at home. Such is the order of nature :
a Spurzheim flies from Vienna to Paris and
London, within the year; a Kant, slowly ad-
vancing, may, perhaps, reach us from Konigs-
berg within the century : Newton, merely to
cross the narrow Channel, required fifty years ;
Shakspeare, again, three times as many. It is
true there are examples of an opposite sort;
now and then, by some rare chance, a Goethe,
a Cervantes, will occur in literature, and
Kings may laugh over Bnn Quixote while it is
yet unfinished, and scenes from Wertcr be
painted on Chinese tea-cups, while the author
is still a stripling. These, however, are not
the rule, but the exceptions; nay, rightly in-
terpreted, the exceptions which confirm it. In
general, that sudden tumultuous popularity
comes more from partial delirium on both sides,
than from clear insight; and is of evil omen
to all concerned with it. How many loud
Bacchus-festivals of this sort have we seen
prove to be Pseudo-Bacchanalia, and end in
directly the inverse of Orgies ! Drawn by his
team of lions, the jolly god advances as a real

♦ Wahrhcit. aus Jean Paul's Leben. (Biography of Jean
Van ) \stes, 2tes, 3tes Biindchen. Breslau, 182C, '27, '28.

god, with all his thyrsi, cymbals, Phallophori,
and Masnadic women : the air, the earth is
giddy with their clangor, their Evohes ; but,
alas! in a little while, the lion-team shows
long ears, and becomes too clearly an ass-
team in lion-skins ; the Msenads wheel round
in amazement; and then the jolly god, dragged
from his chariot, is trodden into the kennels as
a drunk mortal.

That no such apotheosis was appointed for
Richter in his own country, or is now to be
anticipated in any other, we cannot but regard
as a natural, and nowise unfortunate circum-
stance. What divinity lies in him requires a
calmer worship, and from quite another class
of worshippers. Neither, in spite of that forty
years' abeyance, shall we accuse England of
any uncommon blindness towards him: nay,
taking all things into account, we should rather
consider his actual footing among us, as evinc-
ing not only an increased rapidity in literary
intercourse, but an intrinsic improvement in
the manner and objects of it. Our feeling of
foreign excellence, we hope, must be becoming
truer: our Insular taste must be opening more
and more into a European one. For Richter is
by no means a man whose merits, like his
singularities, force themselves on the general
eye; indeed, without great patience, and some
considerable Catholicism of dispositicm, no
reader is likely to prosper much with him.
He has a fine, high, altogether unusual talent;
and a manner of expressing it perhaps still
more unusual. He is a Humorist heartily and
throughout; not only in low provinces of
thought, where this is more common, but in
the loftiest provinces, where it is well nigh un-
exampled; and thus, in wild sport, " playing
bowls with the sun and moon," he fashions
the strangest ideal world, which at first glance
looks no better than a chaos. The Germans
themselves find much to bear with in him;

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

19t

and for readers of any other nation, he is in-
volved in almost boundless complexity; a
mighty maze, indeed, but in which the plan, or
traces of a plan, are nowhere visible. Far
from appreciating and appropriating the spirit
of his writings, foreigners find it in the highest
difficult to seize their grammatical meaning.
Probably there is not, in any modern language,
so intricate a writer; abounding, without
measure, in obscure allusions, in the most
twisted phraseology; perplexed into endless
entanglements and dislocations, parenthesis
within parenthesis; not forgetting elisions,
sudden whirls, quibs, conceits, and all manner
of inexplicable crotchets : the whole moving
on in the gayest manner, yet nowise in what
seem military lines, but rather in huge party-
coloured mob-masses. How foreigners must
find themselves l)ested in this case, our readers
may best judge from the fact, that a work with
the following title was undertaken some twenty
years ago, for the benefit of Richter's own
countrymen : •' A'. Rcuilwhrs Lexicon for Jean
PauVs iix)7-ks, or explanation of all the foreign words
and unusual modes of speech whuk occur in his
writings ; with short notices of the historical persoiis
and facts therein alluded to ,- and plain German
versions of the more difficult passages in the context :
—a necessary assistance for all who icould read
those works with profit .'" So much for the
dress or vehicle of Richter's thoughts ; now let
it only be remembered farther, that the thoughts
themselves are often of the most abstruse
description; so that not till after laborious
meditation, can much, either of truth or of
falsehood, be discerned in them; and we have
a man, from whom readers with weak nerves,
and a taste in any degree sickly, will not fail
to recoil, perhaps with a sentiment approach-
ing to horror. And yet, as we said, notwith-
standing all these drawbacks, Richter already
meets with a certain recognition in England;
he has his readers and admirers ; various
translations from his works have been pub-
lished among us ; criticisms, also, not without
clear discernment, and nowise wanting in ap-
plause; and to all this, so far as we can see,
even the un-German pact of the public has
listened with some curiosity and hopeful an-
ticipation. From which symptoms we should
infer two things, both very comfortable to us
in our present capacity: First, that the old
Ktrait-laced, microscopic sect of Felles-kttres-
fncii, whose divinity was "Elegance," a creed
of French growth, and more admirable for
men-miiliners than for critics and philosophers,
must be rapidly declining in these Islands;
and, secondl}% which is a much more personal
consideration, that, in still farther investigating
and exhibiting this wonderful Jean Paul, we
have attempted what will be, for many of our
readers, no unwelcome service.

Our inquiry naturally divides itself into two
departments, the Biographical and the Critical;
concerning both of which, in their order, we
have some observations to make; and what, in
regard to the latter department at least, we
reckon more profitable, some rather curious
documents to picsent.

It does not appear that Richter's life, exter-
nally considered, differed much in general

character from other literary lives, wh-.ch, for
most part, are so barren of incident : the earlier
portion of it was straitened enough, but not
otherwise distinguished ; the latter and busiest
portion of it was, in like manner, altogether
private ; spent chiefly in provincial towns, and
apart from high scenes or persons; its princi-
pal occurrences the new books he wrote, its
whole course a spiritual and silent one. He
became an author in his nineteenth year; and
with a conscientious assiduity, adhered to that
employment; not seeking, indeed carefully
avoiding, any interruption or disturbance
therein, were it only for a day or an hour.
Nevertheless, in looking over those sixty vo-
lumes of his, we feel as if Richter's history
must have another, much deeper interest and
worth, than outward incidents could impart to
it For the spirit which shines more or less
completely through his writings, is one of pe-
rennial excellence ; rare in all times and situa-
tions, and perhaps nowhere and in no time
more rare than in literary Europe, at this era.
We see in this man a high, self-subsistent,
original, and, in many respects, even great
character. He shows himself a man of won-
derful gifts, and with, perhaps, a still happier
combination and adjustment of these : in whom
Philosophy and Poetry are not only reconciled;
but blended together into a purer essence, inta
Religion; who, with the softest, most universal
sympathy for outward things, is inwardly calm,
impregnable; holds on his way through all
temptations and afflictions, so quietly, yet so
inflexibly ; the true literary man, among a thoa-
sand false ones, the Apollo among neatherds;
in one word, a man understanding the nine-
teenth century, and living in the midst of it;
yet whose life is, in some measure, an heroic
and devout one. No character of this kind,
we are aware, is to be formed without mani-
fold and victorious struggling with the world;
and the narrative of such struggling, what lit-
tle of it can be narrated and interpreted, will
belong to the highest species of history. The
acted life of such a man, it has been said, " is
itself a Bible;" it is a "Gospel of Freedom,"
preached abroad to all men; whereby, among
mean unbelieving souls, we may know that
nobleness has not yet become impossible; and,
languishing amid boundless triviality and des-
picability, still understand that man's nature
is indefeasibly divine, and so hold fast what is
the most important of all faith, the faith ia
ourselves.

But if the acted life of a pins Votes is so high
a matter, the written life, which, if properly
written, would be a translation and interpreta-
tion thereof, must also, have great value. It
has been said that no Poet is equal to his
Poem, which saying is partially true; but, in
a deeper sense, it may also be asserted, and
with still greater truth, that no Poem is equal
to its Poet. Now, it is Biography that first
gives us both Poet and Poem ; by the signifi-
cance of the one, elucidating and completing
that of the other. That ideal outline of him-
self which a man unconsciously shadows forth
in his writings, and which, rightly deciphered,
will be truer than any ^ther representation of
him, il is the task of the Biographer to fill up
u2

Ids

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

into an actual coherent figure, and bring home
to our experience, or at least clear, undoubting
admiration, thereby to instruct and edify us in
many ways. Conducted on such principles,
tlie Biography of great men, especially of great
Poets, that is, of men in the highest degree
noble minded and wise, might become one of
the most dignified and valuable species of
composition. As matters stand, indeed, there
are few Biographies that accomplish any thing
of this kind; the most are mere Indexes of a
Biography, which each reader is to write out
for himself, as he peruses them ; not the living
body, but the dry bones of a body, which should
have been alive. To expect any such Prome-
thean virtue in a common Life-writer were
unreasonable enough. How shall that unhap-
py Biographic brotherhood, instead of writing
like Index-makers and Government-clerks,
suddenly become enkindled with some sparks
of intellect, or even of genial fire ; and not only
collecting dates and facts, but making use of
them, look beyond the surface and economical
form of a man's life, into its substance and
spirit 7 The truth is. Biographies are in a
similar case with Sermons and Songs: they
have their scientific rules, their ideal of perfec-
tion and of imperfection, as all things have ;
but hitherto their rules are only, as it were,
unseen Laws of Nature, not critical Acts of
Parliament, and threaten us with no immedi-
ate penalty: besides, unlike Tragedies and
Epics, such works may be something without
being all : their simplicity of form, moreover,
is apt to seem easiness of execution; and thus,
for one artist in those departments, we have a
thousand bunglers.

With regard to Ricbter, in particular, to say
that his biographic treatment has been worse
than usual, were saying much ; yet worse than
we expected it has certainly been. Various
"Lives of Jean Paul," anxiously endeavouring
to profit by the public excitement, while it lasted,
and communicating, in a given space, almost a
minimum of information, have been read by
us, within the last four years, with no great
disappointment. We strove to take thankfully
■what little they had to give; and looked for-
ward, in hope, to that promised " Autobiogra-
phy," wherein all deficiencies were to be sup-
plied. Several years before his death, it would
seem, Richter had determined on writing some
account of his own life ; and with his cus-
tomary honesty, had set about a thorough pre-
paration for this task. After revolving many
plans, some of them singular enough, he at
last determined on the form of composition ;
and with a half-sportful allusion to Goethe's
Dichtung und Wahrhcit aus meinem Leben, had
prefixed to his work the title Wahrhcit aus
meinem Leben (Truth from my Life) ; having re-
linquished, as impracticable, the strange idea
of writing, parallel to it, a Dichtung (Fiction)
al30, under cover of " Nicolaus Margraf," — a
certain Apothecary, existing only as hero of
one of his last Novels ! In this work, which
weightier avocations had indeed retarded or
ruspended, considerable progress was said to
have been made ; and on Richter's decease,
Herr Otto, a man of talents, who had been his
mate friend for half a life-time, undertook

the editing and completing of it; not withoul
sufficient proclamation and assertion, which in
the meanwhile was credible enough, that to
him only could the post of Richter's biographer
belong

Three little Volumes of that Wahi-heit aiu
Jean Paul's Leben, published in the course of
as many years, are at length before us. The
First volume, which came out in 1826, oc
casioned some surprise, if not disappointment,
yet still left room for hope. It was the com.
mencement of a real Autobiography, and writ
ten with much heartiness and even dignity of
manner, though taken up under a quite unex
pected point of view, in that spirit of genia?
humour, of gay earnestness, which, with all its
strange fantastic accompaniments, often sat on
Jean Paul so gracefully, and to which, at any
rate, no reader of his works could be a stranger.
By virtue of an autocratic ukase, Paul had
appointed himself " Professor of his own His-
tory," and delivered to the Universe three
beautiful "Lectures" on that subject; boasting,
justly enough, that, in his special department,
he was better informed than any other man
whatever. He was not without his oratoricai
secrets and professorial habits: thus, as Mr.
Worlley, in writing his parliamentary speech
to be read within his hat, had marked, in va
rious passages, "Here cough," so Paul wilb
greater brevity, had an arbitrary hieroglyph
introduced here and there, among his papers,
and purporting, as he tells us, Meine Herren,
nicmand scharre, nicmand gulutc .' — "Gentlemen,
no scraping, no yawning!" — a hieroglyph, we
must say, which many public speakers might
stand more in need of than he.

Unfortunately, in the Second volume, no
other Lectures came to light, but only a string
of disconnected, indeed quite heterogeneous
Notes, intended to have been fashioned into
such; the full free stream of oratory dissipated
itself into unsatisfactory drops. With the
Third volume, which is by much the longest,
Herr Otto appears more decidedly in his owa
person, though still rather with the scissors
than with the pen ; and, behind a multitude of
circumvallations and outposts, endeavours to
advance his history a little ; the Lectures
having left it still almost at the very com-
mencement. His peculiar plan, and the too
manifest purpose to continue speaking in Jean
Paul's manner, greatly obstruct his progress •
which, indeed, is so inconsiderable, that at the
end of this third volume, that is, after some
seven hundred small octavo pages, we find
the hero, as yet, scarcely beyond his twentieth
year, and the history proper still only, as it
were, beginning. We cannot but regret that
Herr Otto, whose talent and good purpose, to
say nothing of his relation to Richter, demand
regard from us, had not adopted some straight-
forward method, and spoken out in plain prose,
which seems a more natural dialect for him,
what he had to say on this matter. Instead of
a multifarious combination, tending so slowly,
if at all, towards unity, he might, withoiit
omitting those "Lectures," or any "Note" that
had value, have given us a direct Narrative,
which, if it had wanted the line of Beauty,
might have had the still more indispensabia

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

109.

line of Regularity, and been, at all events, far
shorter. Till Herr Olio's work is completed,
we cannot speak positively; but, in the mean-
while, we must say that it wears an unpros-
perous aspect, and leaves room to fear that,
after all, Richter's Biography may still long
continue a problem. As for ourselves, in this
state of matters, what help, towards character-
izing Jean Paul's practical Life, we can affurd,
is but a few slight facts gleaned from Herr
Otto's and other meaner works; and which,
even in our own eyes, are extremely insuf-
fecient.

Richter was born at Wonsiedel in Baireuth,
in the year 1763; and as his birth-day fell on
the 21st of March, it was sometimes wittily
said that he and the Spring were born together.
He himself mentions this, and with a laudable
intention: "this epigrammatic fact," says he,
" that I the Professor and the Spring came into
the world together, I have indeed brought out
a hundred limes in conversation, before now;
but I fire it off here purposely, like a cannon-
salute, for ihe hundred and first time, that so
by printing I may ever henceforth be unable
to olTer it again as bo)uno!-boid>on, when, through
the Printer's Devil, it has already been pre-
sented to all the world." Destiny, he seems
to think, made another witticism tm him; the
word Rirlrrr being appellative as well as pro-
per, in the German tongue, where it signifies
Judge. His Chrislian name, Jean Paul, which
long passed for some freak of his own, and a
pseudonym, he seems to have derived honest-
ly enough, from his maternal grandfather,
Johann Paul Kuhn, a substantial cloth-maker,
in Hof; only translating the German Johann
into the French Jean. The Richters, lor at
least two generations, had been schoolmasters,
or very subaltern churchmen, distinguished
for their poverty and their piety ; the grand-
father, it appears, is still remembered in his
little circle, as a man of quite remarkable in-
nocence and holiness ; " in Neustadt," says
his descendant, " they will show you a bench
behind the organ, where he knelt on Sundays,
and a cave he had made for himself in what
is called the liiltle Culm, where he was wont
to pray." Holding, and laboriously discharg-
ing, three school or church offices, his yearly
income scarcely amounted to fifteen pounds :
" and at this Hunger-fountain, common enough
for Baireuth school-people, the man stood
thirty-five years long, and cheerfully drew."
Preferment had been slow in visiting him : but
at length, "it came to pass," says Paul, "just
in my birth-year, that, on the 6th of August,
probably through special connections with the
Higher Powers, he did obtain one of the most
important places; in comparison with which,
trul). Rectorate, and Town, and cave in the
Ciilmuerg, were well worth exchanging; a
place, namely, in the Neustadt Churchyard.* —
— His good wife had been promoted thither
twenty years before him. My parents had taken

* Gottcsaeker (Uod's-field,) not Kirchhof. the more
sommon term, and exactly corresponding to ours, is
the word Uichler uses here, — and almost always else-
where, which in biv writings he h.is often occasion
to do.

me, an infant, along with them to his death-
bed. He was in the act of departing, when a
clergyman (as my father has often told me)
said to them : Now, let the old Jacob lay his
hand on the child, and bless him. I was held
into the bed of death, and he laid his hand on
my head. — Thou good old grandfather ! Often
have I thought of thy hand, blessing as it grew
cold, — when Fate led me out of dark hours
into clearer, — and already I can believe in thy
blessing, in this material world, whose life,
foundation, and essence is Spirit !"

The father, who at this time occupied the
humble post of Tcrtius, (under schoolmaster)
and Organist at Wonsiedel, was shortly after-
wards appointed clergyman in the hamlet of
Jodiz; and thence, in the course of years,
transferred to Schwarzenbach on the Saale.
He too was of a truly devout disposition, though
combining with it more energy of character,
and, apparently, more general talent; being
noted in his neighbourhood as a bold, zealous
preacher; and still partially known to the
world, we believe, for some meritorious com-
positions in Church-music. In poverty he
cannot be said to have altogether equalled his
predecessor, who through life ate nothing but
bread and beer ; yet poor enough he was ;
no less cheerful than poor. The thriving
burgher's daughter, whom he took to wife, had,
as we guess, brought no money with her, but
only habits little advantageous for a school-
master, or parson ; at all events, the worthy
man, frugal as his household was, had con-
tinual difficulties, and even died in debt. Paul,
who in those days was called Fritz, narrates
gaily, how his mother used to despatch him to
Hof, her native town, with a provender bag
strapped over his shoulders, under pretext of
purchasing at a cheaper rate there ; but in
reality to get his groceries and dainties fur-
nished gratis by his grandmother. He was
wont to kiss his grandfather's hand behind the
loom, and speak with him ; while the good old
lady, parsimonious to all the world, but lavish
to her own, privily filled his bag with the
good things of this life, and even gave him
almonds for himself, which, however, he kept
for a friend. One other little trait, quite new
in ecclesiastical annals, we must here com-
municate. Paul, in summing up the joys of
existence at Jodiz, mentions this among the
number:

" In Autumn evenings (and though the
weather were bad) the Father used to go in his
night-gown, with Paul and Adam, into a pota
toe-field lying over the Saale. Theone younker
I carried a mattock, the other a hand-basket.
Arrived on the ground, the Father set to dig-
ging new potatoes, so many as were wanted
for supper; Paul gathered them from the bed
into the basket, whilst Adam, clambering la
the hazel thickets, looked out for the best nuts.
Ai'ter a time, Adam had to come down from
his boughs into the bed, and Paul in his turn as-
cended. And thus, with potatoes and nuts,
they returned contentedly home ; and the plea-
sure of having run abroad, some mile in space,
some hour in time, and then of celebrating thp
harvest-home, by candle light, when they cama

200

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

back, — let every one paint to himself as bril-
liantly as the receiver thereof."

To such persons as argue that the respecta-
bility of the cloth depends on its price at the
clothier's, it must appear surprising that a
Protestant clergyman, who not only was in no
case to keep fox-hounds, but even saw it con-
venient to dig his own potatoes, should not
have fallen under universal odium, and felt his
usefulness very considerably diminished. No-
thing of this kind, however, becomes visible
in the history of the Jodiz Parson: we find him
a man powerful in his vocation ; loved and
venerated by his ilock ; nay, associating at
will, and ever as an honoured guest, with the
gentry of Voigtland, noi indeed in the cha-
racter of gentleman, yet in that of priest,
which he reckoned far higher. Like an old
Lutheran, says his son, he believed in the
great, as he did in ghosts ; but without any
shade of fear. The truth is, the man had a
cheerful, pure, religious heart; was diligent
in business, and fervent in spirit: and, in all
the relations of his life, found this M'ell-nigh
sufficient for him.

To our Professor, as to Poets in general, the
recollections of chikihond had always some-
thing of an ideal, almost celestial character.
Often, in his fictions, he describes such scenes,
with a fond minuteness; nor is poverty any
deadly, or even unwelcome ingredient in them.
On the whole, it is' not by money, or money's
worth, that man lives and has his being. "Is
not God's Universe iviihin our head, whether
there be a torn scull-cap or a king's diadem
without?" Let no one imagine that Paul's
young years were unhappy ; still less that he
looks back on them in a lachrymose, sentimen-
tal manner, with the smallest symptom either
of boasting or whming. Poverty of a far
sterner sort than this would have been a light
matter to him ; fur a kind mother, Nature her-
self, had already provided against it; and, like
the mother of Achilles, rendered him invul-
nerable to outward things. There was a bold,
deep, joyful spirit looking through those young
eyes ; and to such a spirit the world has no-
thing poor, but all is rich, and full of loveli-
ness and wonder. That our readers may glance
with us into this foreign Parsonage, we shall,
translate some paragraphs from Paul's second
Lecture, and thereby furnish, at the same lime, a
specimen of his professorial style and temper.

" To represent the Jodiz life of our Hans
Paul, — for by this name we shall for a time
distinguish him, yet ever changing it with
others, — our best course, I believe, will be to
conduct him through a whole Idyl-year; divid-
ing the normal year into four seasons, as so
many quarterly Idyls ; four Idyls exhaust his
happiness.

" For the rest, let no one marvel at finding
an Idyl-kingdom and pastoral-world in a little
hamlet and parsonage. In the smallest bed
you can raise a tulip-tree, which shall extend
its flowery boughs over all the garden ; and the
life-breath of joy can be inhaled as well through
a window, as in the open wood and sky. Nay,
IS not Man's Spirit (with all its infinite celes-
tial-spaces) walled in within a six-feet Body,
with integuments, and Malpighian mucuses,

and capillary tubes ; and has only five str&il
world-windows, of Senses, to open for the
boundless, round-eyed, rouiul-suiined All; — >
and yet it discerns and reproduces an Ail !

"Scarcely do I know with which uf the four
quarterly Idyls to begin ; for each is a little
heavenly furecourt to the next: however, the
climax of joys, if we start with Winter and
January, will perhaps be most apparent. In the
cold, our Father had commonly, lilceau Alpine
herdsman, come down from the upper aliiiude
of his study; and, to the jo}' of the children,
was dwelling on the plain of the general fami-
ly-room. In the morning, he sat by a window,
committing his Sunday's sermon to memory;
and the three sons, Fritz, (who I myself am,)
and Adam, and Gottlieb, carried, by turns, the
full coffee-cup to him, and still more gladly
carried back the empty one, because the car-
rier was then entitled to pick the uii melted re-
mains of the sugar-candy (taken against
cough) from the bottom thereof. Out of doors,
truly, the sky covered all things with silence;
the brook with ice, the village with snow : but
in our room, there was life : under the stove a
pigeun-establishment ; on the windows, finch
cages; on the floor the invincible bull brach,
our Boinie, the night-guardian of the court-
yard ; and a poodle, and the pretty Srharmnntel,
(Poll,) a present from the Lady von Plotho ; —
and close by, the kitchen, with two maids ; and
farther off, against the other end of the house,
our stable, with all sorts of bovine, swinish,
and feathered cattle, and their noises: the
threshers, with their flails, also at work within
the court-yard, I might reckon as another item.
In this way, with nothing but society on all
hands, the whole male portion of the house
hold easily spent their fore-noon in tasks of
memory, not far from the female portion, as
busily employed in cooking.

" Holidays occur in every occupation ; thus
I too had my airing holidays, — analogous to wa
tering holidays, — so that I could travel out in the
snow of the court-yard, and to the barn with its
threshing. Nay, was there a delicate embassy to
be transacted in the village, — for example, to the
schoolmaster, to the tailor, — I was sure to be de-
spatched thither in the middle of my lessons ; and
thus I still got forth into the open airandthecold,
and measured myself with the new snow. At
noon, before our own dinner, we children might
also, in the kitchen, have the hungry satisfaction
to see the threshers fall to and consume their
victuals.

" The afternoon, again, was still more im-
portant, and richer in joys. Winter shortened
and sweetened our lessons. In the long dusk,
our Father walked to and fro ; and the chil-
dren, according to ability, trotted under his
night-gown, holding by his hands. At sound
of the Vesper bell, we placed ourselves in a
circle, and in concert devotionally chanted the
hymn. Die ftn^lre Nacht bnchi s!ar!x- hernn, (The
gloomy Night is gathering round.) Only in
villages, not in towns, where properly there is
more night than day labour, have the evening
chimes a meaning and beauty, and are the
swan-song of the day : the evening-bell is as
it were the muffle of the over loud heart, and
like a ranee dcs vaches of the plains, ca.ls men

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

201

from their running and toiling, into the land
of sil Jnce and dreams. After a pl-easant watch-
ing about the kitchen door, for the moonrise
of candle-light, we saw our wide room at once
illuminated and barricaded; to wit, the window
shuttervS were closed and bolted ; and behind
these window bastions and breast-works, the
cliild felt himself snugly nestled, and well se-
CJared against Knecht Ruprecht,* who on the
outside could not get in, but only in vain keep
growling and humming.

" About this period too it was that we chil-
dren might undress, and in long train-shirts
skip up and down. Idyllic joys of various
sorts alternated : our Father either had his
quarto Bible, interleaved Avith blank folio
sheets, before him, and was marking, at each
verse, the book wherein he had read any thing
concerning it; — or more commonly he had his
ruled music-paper; and, undisturbed by this
racketting of children, was composing whole
concerts of church-music, with all their divi-
sions; constructing his internal melody Avith-
out any help of external tones, (as Reichard
too advises,) or rather, in spite of all external
mistones. In both cases, in the last with the
more pleasure, I looked on as he wrote ; and
rejoiced specially, when, by pauses of various
instruments, whole pages were at once filled
up. The children all sat sporting on that long
writing and eating table, or even under it. ***

"Then, at length, how did the winter even-
ing, once a week, mount in worth, when the
old errand-woman, coated in snow, with her
fruit, flesh, and general ware basket, entered
the kitchen from Hof; and we all, in this case,
had the distant town in miniature before our
eyes, nay, before our noses, for there were
pastry cakes in it !"

Thus in dull winter imprisonment, among
all manner of bovine, swinish, and feathered
cattle, with their noises, may Idyllic joys be
found, if there is an eye to see them, and a
heart to taste them. Truly happiness is cheap,
did we apply to the right merchant for it. Paul
warns us elsewhere not to believe, for these
Idyls, that there were no sour days, no chidings,
and the like, at Jodiz: yet, on the Avhole, he
had good reason to rejoice in his parents. They
loved him well; his Father, he says, would
" shed tears" over any mark of quickness or
talent in little Fritz: they Avere virtuous also,
and devout, which, after all, is better than being
rich. " Ever and anon," says he, " I was
hearing some narrative from my Father, how
he and other clergymen had taken parts of
their dress and given them to the poor; he re-
lated these things Avith joy, not as an admoni-
tion, but merely as a necessary occurrence:
O God ! I thank Thee for my Father I"

Richter's education was not of a more sump-
tuous sort than his board and lodging. Some
disagreement Avith the Schoolmaster at Jodiz
had induced the Parson to take his sons from
school, and determine to teach them himself.
This determination he executed faithfully in-
deed, yet in the most limited style; his method
being no Pestalozzian one, but simply the old
^cheme of task-work and force-Avork, operating

* The Rawhcad (with bloody bones) of Germany.
26

on a Latin grammar and a Latin vocabulary:
and the two boys sat all day, and all year, at
home, Avithout other preceptorial nourishment
than getting by heart long lists of words. Fritz
learned honestly nevertheless, and in spite of
his brother Adam's bad example. For the
rest, he Avas totally destitute of books, except
such of his Father's theological ones as he
could come at by stealth : these, for want of
better, he eagerly devoured; understanding, as
he says, nothing whatever of their contents.
With no less impetuosity, and no less profit,
he perused the antiquated sets of Newspa]iers,
which a kind patroness, the Lady von Plotho,
already mentioned, was in the habit of furnish-
ing to his Father, not in separate sheets, but in
sheaves monthly. This was the extent of his
reading. Jodiz too Avas the most sequestered
of all hamlets ; had neither natural nor artifi-
cial beauty; no memorable thing could be seen
there, in a lifetime. Nevertheless, under an
immeasurable Sky, and in a quite wondrous
World it did stand; and glimpses into the in-
finite spaces of the Universe, and even into
the infinite spaces of Man's Soul, could be had
there as Avell as elsewhere. Fritz had his own
thoughts, in spite of schoolmasters : a little
heavenly seed of Knowledge, nay of Wisdom,
had been laid in him, and with no gardener,
but Nature herself, it was silently growing.
To some of our readers, the following circum-
stance may seem unparalleled, if not unintel-
ligible; to others nowise so:

"In the future Literary History of our hero,
itAvill become doubtful wiietherhe was not bora
more for Philosophy than for Poetry. In ear-
liest times, the Avord Weltireifheit, (Philosophy,
World-wisdom,) — yet also another word, it/orijfu-
land, (East, Morning-land,) — was to me an open
Heaven's-gate, through which I looked in, over
long, long gardens of joy. — Never shall I forget
that inward occurrence, till now narrated to no
mortal, Avherein I Avitnessed the birth of my
Self-consciousness, of which I can still give
the place and time. One forenoon, I was
standing, a very young child, in the outer door,
and looking leftAvard at the stack of fuel Avood,
— when, all at once the internal vision, — I am
a Me, {ivh bin cin Irh,) came like a flash from
heaven before me, and in gleaming light ever
afterAvards continued: then had my Me, for the
first time, seen itself, and for ever. Deceptions
of memory are scarcely conceivable here; for,
in regard to an event occurring altogether in
the veiled Holy-of-Holies of man, and Avhose
novelty alone has given permanence to such
everyday recollections accompanying it, no
posterior description from another party Avould
have mingled itself Avith accompanying cir-
cumstances at all."

It Avas in his thirteenth year that the family
removed to that better church-living at Schwar-
zenbach ; with which change, so far as school
education was concerned, prospects consider-
ably brightened for him. The public Teacher
there Avas no deep scholar or thinker, yet a
lively, genial man, and Avarmly interested in
his pupils; among whom he soon learned to
distinguish Fritz, as a boy of altogether supe-
rior gifts. What Avas of still more importance,
Fritz now got access to books ; entered into a

S02

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

course of highly miscellaneous, self-selected
readiiitr; and what with Romances, what with
Belles-Letties works, and Hiilciiesonian Phi-
losophy, anci controversial Divinity, saw an
astonisiiing scene opening round him on all
hands. His Latin and Greek were now better
taught; he even began learning Hebrew. Two
clergymen of the neighbourhood took pleasure
in his company, young as he was; and were
of great service now and afierwards: it was
under their auspices that he commenced com-
position, and also speculating on Theology,
wherein he "inclined strongly to the heterodox
side."

In the ''family room," however, things were
not nearly so nourishing. Tlie Professor's
three Lectures terminate before this date; but
we gather from his Notes that surly clouds
hung over Schwarzenbach, that "his evil days
began there." The Father was engaged in
more complex duties than formerly, went often
from home, was encumbered with debt, and
lost his former cheerfulness of humour. For
his st)ns he saw no outlet except the hereditary
craft of School-keeping ; and let the matter
rest there, taking little farther charge of them.
In some three years, the poor man, worn dt)vi'n
with manifold anxieties, departed this life;
leaving his pecuniary affairs, which he had
long calculated on rectifying by the better in-
come of Schwarzenbach, sadly deranged.

Meanwhile, Fried rich had been sent to the
Hof Gyinuasium, (Town-school,) where, not-
withstanding this event, he continued some
time, two years in all, apparently the most pro-
fitable period of his whole tuition ; indeed, the
only period when, properly speaking, he had
any tutor but himself. The good old cloth-
making grandfather and grandmother took
charge of him, under their roof; and he had a
body of teachers, all notable in their way.
Herr Otto represents him as a fine, trustful,
kindly, yet resolute youth, who went through
his persecutions, preferments, studies, friend-
ships, and other school-destinies in a highly
creditable manner; and demonstrates this, at
great length, by various details of facts, far too
minute for insertion here. As a trait of Paul's
intellectual habitudes, it may be mentioned
that, at this time, he scarcely made any pro-
gress in History or Geography, much as he
profited in all other branches; nor was the
dull teacher entirely to blame, but also the in-
disposed pupil : indeed, it was not till long
afterwards, that he overcame or suppressed
his contempt for those studies, and with an
effort of his own acquired some skill in them.*
The like we have heard of other Poets and
Philosophers, especially when their teachers
chanced to be prosaists and unphilosophical.
Richter boasts that he was never punished at
Bchool; yet between him and the Historico-

* " All History," thus he writes in his Ihirty-sficond
year, " in so far as it is an affair of memory, ran only he
reckoned a sapless, heartless, thistle for pedantic chaf-
finches ;— but, on the oilier hand, like Nature, it has hi;: li-
es", va.ue, in as far as we. by means of it, as by means
of Nature, can divine and read the Inlinite Sp rit, who,
with Nature and flistory, as with letters, legibly writes
to us. He who finds a God in the physical world, will
eIso find one in tlie moral, which is History. Nature
orceB on our heart a Creator ; History, a Providence."

geographical Co?(rec/or(Sccond Master) no good
understanding could subsist. On one tragi-
comical occasion, of anoiher sort, they came
into still more decided collision. The zealous
Oonrector, a most solid, painstaking man,
desirous to render his Gymnasium as like a
University as possible, had imagined that a
series of " Disputations," some foreshadow of
those held at College, might be a useful, as
certainly enough it would be an ornamental
thing. By ill luck, the worthy Presides, nad
selected some church-article for the theme of
such a Disputation: one boy was to defend,
and it fell to Paul's lot to impugn ihe dogma, a
task which, as hinted above, he was very spe-
cially qualified to undertake. Now, honest
Paul knew nothing of the limits of this game ;
never dreamt but he might argue wiih his
whole strength, to whatever results it might
lead. In a very few rounds, accordingly, his
antagonist was borne out of the ring, as good
as lifeless; and the Conrector himself, seeing
the danger, had, as it were, to descend from
his presiding chair, and clap the gauntlets on
his own more experienced hands. But Paul,
nothing daunted, gave him also a Rowland for
an Oliver; nay, as it became more and more
manifest to all eyes, was fast reducing him
also to the fiightfullest extremity. The (.'on-
rector's tongue threatened cleaving to the roof
of his mouth ; for his brain was at a stand, or
whirling in eddies, only his gall was in active
play. Nothing remained for him but to close
the debate abruptly by a " Silence, Sirrah !" —
and leave the room, with a face (like that of
the much more famous Subrector Hans von
Fiichslein)* "of a mingled colour, like red
bole, green chalk, tinsel-yellow, and voniisse'
nient (!c la reiin."

With his studies in the Leipzig University,
whither he proceeded in 1781, begins a far
more important era for Paul ; properly, the era
of his manhood, and first entire dependence on
himself. In regard to literary or scientific
culture, it is not clear that he derived much
furtherance from Leipzig; much more, at least,
than the mere neighbourhood of libraries and
fellow-learners might anywhere else have af-
forded him. Certain professorial courses he
did attend, and with diligence; but too much
in the character of critic, as well as of pupil:
he was in the habit of "measuring rnii-ds"
with men so much older and more honourable
than he ; and ere long, his respect for many of
them had not a littie abated. What his ori-
ginal plan of studies was, or whether he had
any fixed plan, we do not learn ; at Hof, without
election or rejection on his own part, he had
been trained with some view to Theology ; but
this and every other professional view soon
faded away in Leipzig, owing to a variety of
causes; and Richter, now still more decidedly
a self-teacher, broke loose from all corporate
guilds whatsoever, and in intellectual culture,
as in other respects, endeavoured to seek out
a basis of his own. He read multi'.udes of
books, and wrote down whole volumes of ex-
cerpts, and private speculations ; labouring in
all directions with insatiable eagerness ; but

* See Q,uintus Fixlein, c. 7.

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

203

from the University he derived little guidance,
and soon came to expect little. Ernesti, the
only truly eminent man of the place, had died
shortly after Paul's arrival there.

Nay, it was necessity as well as choice that
detached him from professions : he had not the
means to enter any. Quite another and far
more pressing set of cares lay around him:
not how he could live easily in future years,
but how he could live at all in the present, was
the grand question with him. Whatever it
might be in regard to intellectual matters, cer-
tainly in regard to moral matters, Leipzig Atas
his true seminary, where, with many stripes.
Experience taught him the wisest lessons. It
was here that he first saw Povcrt}', not in the
shape of Parsimony, but in the far sterner one
of actual Want; and, unseen and single-
handed, wrestling with Fortune for life and
death, first proved what a rugged, deep-rooted,
indomitable strength, under such genial soft-
ness, dwelt in him; and from a buoyant cloud-
capt Youth, perfected himself into a clear, free,
benignant and lofty-minded Man.

Meanwhile the steps toward such a consuin-
mation were painful enough. His old School-
master at Schwarzenbach, himself a Leipziger,
had been wont to assure him that he might live
for nothing in Leipzig, so easily were "free-
tables," "s/i;;fjif/i(/," private teaching, and the
like, to be procured there, by youths of merit.
That Richter was of this latter species, the
Rector of the Hof Gymnasium bore honour-
able witness ; inviting the Leipzig dignitaries,
in his 2\slwio Ilium, to try the candidate them-
selves; and even introducing him in person
(for the two had travelled together) to various
influential men : but all these things availed
him nothing. The Professors he found be-
leaguered by a crowd of needy sycophants,
diligent in season, and out of season, whose
whole tactics were too loathsome to him ; on
all hands, he heard the sad saying: Lipsia vult
cxjiecti:ri, Leipzig preferments must be waited
for. Now, waiting was of all things the most
inconvenient for poor Richter. In his pocket
he had little; friends, except one fellow-student,
he had none; and at home the finance depart-
ment had fallen into a stale of total perplexity,
fast verging towards final ruin. The worthy
old Cloth-Manufacturer was now dead; his
wife soon followed him : and the Widow Rich-
ter, her favourite daughter, who had removed
to Hof, though against the advice of all her
friends, that she might be near her, now stood
alone there, with a young family, and in the
most forlorn situation. She was appointed
chief heir, indeed ; but former bene.''actions had
left far less to inherit than had been expected;
nay, the other relatives contested the whole
arrangement, and she had to waste her remain-
ing substance in lawsuits, scarcely realizing
from it, in the shape of borrowed pittances and
by forced sales, enough to supply her with
daily bread. Nor was it po\'erty alone that
she had to suifer, but contumely no less ; the
Hcf public openly finding her guilty of Un-
thrift, and, instead of assistance, repeating to
her dispraise, over their coffee, the old proverb,
*• Hard got, soon gone ;" for which all evils she
had no remedy but loud complainings to Hea-

ven and Earth. The good woman, with the
most honest dispositions, seems, in fact, to have
had but a small share of wisdom : far too small
for her present trying situation. Herr Otto
says that Richter's portraiture of Lenette, in the
IJumeii-Friirlil mill Vcriieu-Siiicke, (Flower, Fruit,
and Thorn Pieces,) contains many features of
his mother: Lenette is of "an upright, but
common and limited nature ;" assiduous, even
to excess, in sweeping and scouring: true-
hearted, religious in her way, yet full of dis-
contents, suspicion, and headstrong whims : a
spouse for ever plagued and plaguing; as the
brave Sebastian Siebenkiis, that true Diogenes
of impoverished Poors'-Advocales, often felt,
to his cost, beside her. Widow Richter's
family, as well as her fortune, was under bad
government, and sinking into lower and lower
degradation : Adam, the brother, mentioned
above, as Paul's yokefellow in Latin and
potatoe-digging, had now fallen away even
from the humble pretension of being a School-
master, or, indeed, of being anything; for, after
various acts of vagrancy, he had enlisted in a
marching regiment; with which, or in other
devious courses, he marched on, and only the
grand billet-master. Death, found him fixed
quarters. The Richter establishment had part-
ed from its old moorings, and was now, with
wind and tide, fast drifting towards fatal whirl-
pools.

In this state of matters, the scarcity of Leip-
zig could nowise be supplied from the fulness
of Hof: but rather the two households stood
like concave mirrors reflecting one another's
keen hunger into a still keener for both. What
outlook was there for the poor Philosopher of
nineteen ] Even his meagre " bread and milk"
could not be had for nothing ; it became a se-
rious consideration for him that the shoe-
maker, who M'as to sole his boots, " did not
trust." Far from affording him any sufficient
moneys, his straitened mother would willingly
have made him borrow for her own wants;
and was incessantly persuading him to get
places for his brothers. Richter felt, too, that
except himself, desolate, helpless as he was,
those brothers, that old mother, had no stay on
earth. There are men with whom it is as
with Schiller's Friedland : " Night must it be
ere Friedland's star will beam." On this for-
saken youth Fortune seemed to have let loose
her bandogs, and hungry Ruin had him in the
wind; without M'as no help, no counsel: but
there lay a giant force within ; and so from
the depths of that sorrow and abasement, his
better soul rose purified and invincible, like
Hercules from his long Labours. A high,
cheerful Stoicism grew up in the man. Po-
verty, Pain, and all Evil, he learned to regard,
not as what they seemed, but as what they
were; he learned to despise them, nay, in kind
mockery to sport with them, as with bi^ight-
spotted wild beasts which he had tamed and
harnessed. " What is Poverty," said he, " who
is the man that whines under it? The pain
is but as that of piercing the ears of a maiden,
and you hang jewels in the wound." Dark
thoughts he had, but they settled into no abid-
ing gloom: "sometimes," says Otto, "he
would wave his finger acro:is his brow, as U

204

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

driving back some hostile series of ideas ;"
and farther complaint he did not utter.* Dur-
ing this sad period, he wrote ou,t for himself
a little manual of practical philosophy, nam-
ing It jliidarhtihtich, (Book of Devotion,) which
contains such maxims as these :

"Every unpleasant feeling is a sign that I
have become untrue to my resolutions. —
Epictetus was not unhappy. —

" Not chance, but I am to blame for my suf-
ferings.

" It were an impossible miracle if none be-
fel thee : look for their coming, therefore ;
each day make thyself sure of many.

" Say not, were my sorrows other than these,
I should bear them belter.

" Think of the host of Worlds, and of the
plagues on this World-mote. — Death puts an
end to the whole. —

" For virtue's sake I am here : but if a m.an,
for his task, forgets and sacrifices all, why
shouldst not thou T —

"Expect injuries, for men are weak, and
thou thyself doest such too often.

"Mollify thy heart by painting out the suf-
ferings of thy enemy ; think of him as of one
spiritually sick, who deserves sympathy. —

"Most men judge so badly; why wouldst
thou be praised by a child 1 — No one would
respect thee in a beggar's coat : what is a
respect that is paid to woollen cloth, not to
theel"

These are wise maxims for so young a man ;
but what was wiser still, he did not rest satis-
fied with mere maxims, which, how true so-
ever, are only a dead letter, till Action first
gives them life and worth. Besides devout
prayer to the gods, he set his own shoulder to
the wheel. "Evil," says he, "is like a night-
mare; the instant you begin to strive with it,
to bestir yourself, it has already ended." With-
out farther parleying, there as he stood, Rich-
ter grappled with his Fate, and resolutely
determined on self-help. His means, it is
true, were of the most unpromising sort, yet
the only means he had: the wrilingof Books !
He forthwith c6mmenced writing them. The
Oroiildndische Prozcsse, (Greenland Lawsuits,) a
collection of satirical sketches, full of wild,
gay wit, and keen insight, was composed in
that base environment of his, \v\Vn unpaid
milkscores and unsoled boots; and even still
survives, though the Author, besides all other
disadvantages, was then only in his nineteenth
year. But the heaviest part of the business
yet remained; that of finding a purchaser and
publisher. Richter tried all Leipzig with his
manuscript, in vain; to a man, with that total
contempt of Grammar which Jedediah Cleish-
botham also complains of, they "declined the
article" Paul had to stand by, as so many
have done, and see his sunbeams weighed on
hay-scales, and the hay-balance give no symp-
toms of moving. But Paul's heart moved as
little as the balance ; Leipzig being now ex-

• In bodily pain, he vas wont to show the lil^e endur-
ance and indiflerence. At one period of his life, lie had
violent headaches, whcli forced him, for the sake of a
Blifrht alleviation, to k(ep his head perfectly erect ;'you
might see him talkini; with a calm face, and all his old
painty, and only known by this pcslure that he was suf-
fering.

hausted, the World was all before him when
to try; he had nothing for it, but to search till
he found, or till he died searching. One Voss
of Berlin at length bestirred himself; accepted,
printed the Boole, and even gave him sixteen
Zo(/ts (/'o?- for it. What a Potosi was here ! Paul
determined to be an author henceforth, and
nothing but an author; now that his soul
might even be kept in his bcdy by that trade.
His mother, hearing that he had written a
book, thought that perhaps he could even
write a sermon, and was for his coming down
to preach in the High Church of Hof. "What
is a sermon," said Paul, " which every mise-
rable student can spout forth ? Or, think you,
there is a parson in Hof that, net to speak of
writing my Bonk, can, in the smallest degree,
understand it V

But unfortunately his Potosi was like other
mines; the metalliferous vein did not last;
what miners call a shift or trouble occurred in
it, and now there was nothing but hard rock
to hew on. The Groiilandischc Prozesst, though
printed, did not sell; the public was in quest
of pap and treacle, not of fierce curry like
this. The Reviewing world mostly passed it
by without notice ; one poor dog in Leipzig
even lifted up his leg over it. "For any thing
we know," saith he, "much, if not all of what
the Author here, in bitter tone, sets forth on
book-making, theologians, women, and so on,
may be true ; but throughout the whole work,
the determination to be witty acts on him so
strongly, that we cannot doubt but his book
will excite in all rational readers so much dis-
gust, that they will see themselves constrained
to close it again without delay." And here-
with the ill-starred quadruped passes on, as if
nothing special had happened. "Singular!"
adds Herr Otto, "this review, which, at the
time pretended to some ephemeral atten-
tion, and likely enough obtained it, would
have fallen into everlasting oblivion, had not
its connection with that vei-y work, which
every rational reader was to close again, or ra-
ther never to open, raised it up for a moment !"
One moment, say we, is enough : let it drop
again into that murky pool, and sink there to
endless depths ; for all flesh, and reviewer-
flesh too, is fallible and pardonable.

Richter's next Book was soon ready ; but, in
this position of affairs, no man would buy it.
The Selection from the Papers of the Devil, such
was its wonderful title, lay by him, on quite
another principle than the Horatian one, for
seven long years. It was in vain that he ex-
hibited, and corresponded, and left no stone
unturned; ransacking the world for a pub-
lisher; there was none anywhere to be met
with. The unwearied Richter tried other plans.
He presented Magazine Editors with essays,
some one in ten of which might be accepted ;
he made joint stock with certain provincial
literati of the Hof district, who had cash, and
published for themselves ; he sometimes bor-
rowed, but was in hot haste to repay it; he
lived as the young ravens; he was often in
danger of starving. "The prisoner's allow-
ance," says he, "is bread and water, but I had
only the latter."

"Nowhere," observes Richter on anolhel

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

205

occasion, "can you collect the stress-memorials
and siege-medals of Povei-ty more pleasantly
and philnsophically than at College: the Aca-
demic Burscheii exhibit to us how many Hu-
morists and Diogeneses Germany has in it.*
Travelling through this parched Sahara, with
nothing round him but stern sandy solitude,
and no landmark on Earth, but only loadstars
in the Heaven, Richter does not anywhere
appear to have faltered in his progress; for a
moment to have lost heart, or even to have lost
good humour. 'The man wlio fears not death,'
says the Greek Poet, ' will start at no shadows.'
Paul had looked Desperation full in the face,
and found that for him she was not desperate.
Sorely pressed on from without, his inward
energy, his strength both of thought and resolve
did but increase, and establish itself on a surer
and surer foundation; he stood like a rock
amid the beating of continual tempests ; nay, a
rock crowned with foliage; and in its clefts,
nourishing flowers of sweetest perfume. For
there was a passionate fire in him, as well as
a stoical calmness; tenderest Love was there,
and devout Reverence; and a deep genial
Humour lay, like warm sunshine, softening the
whole, blending the whole into light sportful
harmony. In these its hard trials, whatever
was noblest in his nature came out in still
surer clearness. It was here that he learned
to distinguish what is perennial and imperish-
able in man, from what is transient and
earthly; and to prize the latter, were it king's
crowns and conqueror's triumphal chariots,
but as the wrappage of the jewel; we might
say, but as the finer or coarser Paper on -which
the Heroic Poem of Life is to be written. A
lofty indestructible faith in the dignity of man
took possession of him, and a disbelief in all
other dignities; and the vulgar world, and
what it could give him, or withhold from him,
was, in his eyes, but a small matter. Nay,
had he not found a voice for these things ;
which, though no man would listen to it, he
felt to be a true one, and that if true no tone of
it could be altogether lost. Preaching forth the
Wisdom, which in the dark deep wells of
Adversity he had drawn np, he felt himself
strong, courageous, even gay. He had "an
internal M'orld wherewith to fence himself
against the frosts and heats of the external."
Studying, writing, in this mood, though grim
Scarcity looked in on him through the win-
dows, he ever looked out again on that fiend
with a quiet, half-satirical eye. Surely, we
should find it hard to wish any generous nature

• By certiiin speciiliitors on Gerinun affairs, much has
(lepii written and talked about wliat is, after all, a very
slender item in German affairs, the BnrscUerilehev, or
manners of the younz men at Universities. We must
reL'ret that in discussinir this matter, sinie it was Ihonirht
worth disinssins, the true simiificance and soul of it
Bhoiilil not h;ive been, liy some faint indication, pointed
oiu to US. Apart from its diielliiiK pundilios, and beer-
Boncs, and tobacco-smokinc, and other fopperies of the
system, which are to the German student merely what
coa( h-drivini; and horse-dealinL'. and other kindred fop-
peries, are to the iMurlish, IJursrhonisin is not willioiit
its meaning more than Oxfordism or (.lanibridseism.
The Itursch strives to say in the stronircst lananajre he
ran : •' See ! I am an nnmonied s<-liolar, and a free viai> ;"
(he Oxonian and Catitab ajrain endeavour to say : " See !
I am a rnonied schnlar, and a spirited n-rfi/ZTO.ow." We
rather think the Biirsch's assertion, were it rightly
worded, would be the more profitable of the two.

such fortune: yet is one such man, nursed
into manhood, amid these stern, truth-telling
influences, worth a thousand popular ballad-
mongers, and sleek literary gentlemen, kept
in perpetual boyhood by influences that al-
ways lie.

"In my Historical Lectures," says Paul,
"the business of Hungering will in truth more
and more make its appearance, — with the hero
it rises to a great height, — about as often as
Feasting in 21iummd''s TravcU, and Tea-drink-
ing in Richardson's Clarissa; nevertheless, I
cannot help saying to Poverty: Weicoine ! so
thou come not at quite too late a time ! Wealth
bears heavier on talent than Poverty; under
gold-mountains and thrones, who knows how
many a spiritual giant may lie crushed down
and buried! When among the flames of
youth, and above all of hotter powers as well,
the oil of Riches is also poured in, — little will
remain of the phoenix but his ashes; and only
a Goethe has force to keep, even, at the .<;un of
good fortune, his phcenix-wings unsinged. The
poor Historical Professor, in this place, would
not, for much money, have had much money
in his youth. Fate manages Poets, as men do
singing birds; you ov'aang the cage of the
singer and make it dan^, till at length he has
caught the tunes you play to him, and can sing
them rightly."

There have been many Johnsons, Heynes,
and other meaner natures, in every country,
that have passed through as hard a probation
as Richter's was, and borne permanent traces
of its good and its evil influences; some, with
their modesty and quiet endurance, combining
a sickly dispiritment, others a hardened dull-
ness or even deadness of heart: nay, there are
some whom Misery itself cannot teach, but
only exasperate; who, far from parting with
the mirror of their Vanity, when it is trodden
in pieces, rather collect the hundred fragments
of it, and with more fondness and more bitter-
ness than ever, behold not one but a hundred
images of Self therein ; to these men Pain is a
pure evil, and as school-dunces their hard
Pedagogue will only whip them to the end.
But, in modern days, and even among the
better instances, there is scarcely one that wv
remember who has drawn, from Poverty and
suffering, such unmixed advantage as Jeau
Paul; acquiring under it not only Herculeaa
strength, but the softest tenderness of soul ; a
view of man and man's life not less cheerful,
even sportful, than it is deep and calm. To
Fear he is a stranger; not only the rage of
men, "the ruins of nature would strike him
fearless;" yet he has a heart vibrating to all
the finest thrills of Mercy, a deep loving sym-
pathy with all created things. There is, we
must say, something 0!d-Grecian in this form
of mind ; yet Old-Grecian under the new con
ditions of our own time; not an Ethnic, but a
Christian greatness. Richter might have stood
i beside Socrates, as a faithful, though rather
tumultuous disciple: or bettor still, he might
have bandied repartees with Diogenes, who, if
he could nowhere find Men, must at least have
admitted that this too was a Spartan Boy.
Diogenes and he, much as they diflcr'id, mostly
to the disadvantage of the former, v ould have

206

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

found much in common: above all, that reso-
lute self-dependence, and quite settled indiffer-
ence to the "force of public opinion." Of this
latter quality, as well as of various other qual-
ities in Richter, we have a curious proof in
the Episode, which Herr Otto here for the first
time details with accuracy, and at lar^e. "con-
cerning the Costume controversies." There
is something great as well as ridiculous in this
whole story of the Costume, which we must
not pass unnoticed. It was in the second year
of his residence at Leipzig, and when, as we
have seen, his necessities were pressing
enough, that Richter, finding himself unpa-
tronised by the World, thought it might be
reasonable if he paid a little attention, as far
as convenient, to the wishes, rational orders,
and even whims of his only other Patron,
namely, of Himself. Now the long visits of
the hair-dresser, with his powders, puffs, and
pomatums, were decidedly irksome to him, and
even too expensive; besides, his love of Swift
and Sterne made him love the English and
their modes; which things being considered,
Paul made free to cut off" his cue altogether,
and with certain other alterations in his dress,
to walk abroad in what was called the English
fashion. We rather conjecture that, in some
points, it was after all but Pseudo-English ; at
least, we can find no tradition of any such
mode having then or ever been prevalent here
in its other details. For besides the docked
cue, he had shirts a In Havilet : wore his breast
open, without neckcloth: in such guise did he
appear openly. Astonishment took hold of
the minds of men. German students have
more license than most people in selecting
fantastic garbs; but the bare neck and want
of cue seemed graces beyond the reach of true
art. We can figure the massive, portly cynic,
with what humour twinkling in his eye he
came forth among the elegant gentlemen ;
feeling, like that juggler-divinity Ram-Dass,
well-known to Baptist Missionaries, that " he
had fire enough in his stomach to burn away
all the sins of the world." It was a species of
pride, even of foppery, we will admit; but a
tough, strong-limbed species, like that which
in ragged gown " trampled on the pride of
Plato."

Nowise in so respectable a light, however,
did a certain Mas.i^tcr, or pedagogue dignitary
of Richter's neighbourhood, regard the matter.
Poor Richler, poor in purse, rich otherwise,
had, at this time, hired himself a small mean
garden-house, that he might have a little fresh
air, through summer, in his studies: the Magis-
ter, who had hired a large sumptuous one in the
same garden, naturally met him in his walks,
Uare-necked, cue-less ; and perhaps not liking
the cast of his countenance, strangely twisted
into Sardonic wrinkles, with all its broad
honest benignity, — took it in deep dudgeon
that such an unauthorized character should
venture to enjoy nature beside him. But what
was to be donel Supercilious looks, even
frowning, would accomplish nothing; the Sar-
donic visage was not to be frowned into the
smallest terror. The Magislcr wrote to the
landlord, demanding that this nuisance should
be abated. Richter, with a praiseworthy love

of peace, wrote to the Magister, promising fc
do what he could : he would not approach his
(the Magister's) house so near as last night,
would walk only in the evenings and mornings,
and thereby for most part keep out of sight the
apparel "which convenience, health, and
poverty had prescribed for him." These were
fair conditions of a boundary-treaty; but the
Magister interpreted them in too literal a sense,
and soon found reason to complain that they
had been infringed. He again took pen and
ink, and in peremptory language represented
that Paul had actually come past a certain
Statue, which, withcmt doubt, stood within the
debatable land; threatening him, therefore,
with Herr Kiirner, the landlord's vengeance,
and withal openly testifying his own contempt
and just rage against him. Paul answered,
also in writing, that he had nowise infringed
his promise, this Statue or any other Statue
having nothing to do with it; but that now he
did altogether revoke said promise, and would
henceforth walk whensoever and wheresoever
seemed good to him, seeing he too paid for the
privilege. "To me," observed he, "Herr
Korner is not dreadful (furch!crlich .)" and for
the Magister himself he put down these re-
markable words: "You despise my mean
name ; nevertheless take note of it : for you will
not have done the latter long, till the forrner will not
be in your power to do: I speak ambiguously,
that I may not speak arrogantly." Be it noted,
at the same time, that with a noble spirit of
accommodation, Richter proposed yet new
terms of treaty; which being accepted, he,
pursuant thereto, with bag and baggage forth-
with evacuated the garden, and returned to his
" town-room at the Three Roses, in Peter-
strasse;" glorious in retreat, and "leaving his
Paradise," as Herr Otto with some conceit re-
marks, "no less guiltlessly than voluntarily,
for a certain bareness of breast and neck;
whereas our First Parents were only allowed
to retain theirs, so long as they felt themselves
innocent in total nudity." What the Magister
thought of the " mean name," some years
afterwards, we do not learn.

But if such tragical things went on in Leip-
zig, how much more when he went down tc
Hof in the holidays, where, at any rale, the
Richters stood in slight esteem ! It will sur-
prise our readers to learn that Paul, with the
mildest tempered pertinacity, resisted all ex-
postulations of friends, and persecutions of
foes, in this great cause; and went about a. la
Handet, ftu" the space of no less than seven
years ! He himself seemed partly sensible
that it was affectation; but the man would
have his humour out. "On the whole," says he,
" / hold the roiiftant regard we pay, in all our ac-
tions, to the JT-dgvicnt of others, as the poison of our
pence, nnr renso)!, and (lur virtue. At this slave-
chain I have long filed, and I scarcely ever
hope to break it entirely asunder. I wish to
accustom myself to the censure of others, and
appear a fool, that I may learn to endure fools."
So speaks the young Diogenes, embracing his
frozen pillar by way of " exercitation ;" as if
the world did not give us frozen pillars enough
in tiiis kind without our wilfull}' stepping
aside to seek them ! Better is that other

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

207

maxim: "He who differs from the world in
important matters should the more carefully
conform to it in indifferent ones." Nay, by
degrees Richter himself saw into this, and
having now proved satisfactorily enough that
he could take his own way when he so pleased,
•^leaving, as is fair, the " most sweet voices"
to take theirs also, — he addressed to his friends
(chiefly the Voigtiand Literati above alluded
to) the following circular :

" ArVERTISEMENT.

"The undersigned begs to give notice, that
whereas cropt hair has as many enemies as
red hair, and said enemies of the hair are ene-
mies likewise of the person it grows on;
whereas farther, such a fashion is in no respect
Christian, since otherwise Christian persons
would have it; and whereas, especially, the
Undersigned has suffered no less from his hair
than Absalom did from his, though on contrary
grounds; and whereas it has been notified that
the public purposed to send him into his grave,
smce the hair grew there without scissors : he
hereby gives notice that he will not push mat-
ters to such extremity. Be it known, there-
fore, to the nobility, gentry, and a discerning
public in general, that the Undersigned pro-
poses, on Sunday next, to appear in various
important streets (of Hof) with a short false
cue; and with this cue as with a magnet, and
cord-of-love, and magic-rod, to possess him-
self forcibly of the affections of all and sundry,
be they who they may."

And thus ended "gloriously," as Herr Otto
thinks, the long "clothes-martyrdom;" from
the course of which, besides its intrinsic
comicalit}^ we may learn two things : first,
that Paul nowise wanted a due indifference to
the popular wind, but, on fit or unfit occasion,
could stand on his own basis stoutly enough,
wrapping his cloak as himself listed; and
secondly, that he had such a buoyant, elastic
humour of spirit, that besides counter-pressure
against Poverty, and Famine itself, there was
still a clear overplus left to play fantastic
tricks withal, at which the angels could not
indeed weep, but might well shake their heads
and smile. We return to otir history.

Several years before the dale of this "Ad-
vertisement," namely, in 1784, Paul, who had
now determined on writing, with or without
readers, to the end of the chapter, finding no
furtherance in Leipzig, but only hunger and
hardship, bethought him that he might as well
write in Hof beside his mother, as there. His
publishers, when he had any, were in other
cities; and the two households, like two dying
embers, might perhaps show some feeble point
of red-heat between them, if cunningly laid
together. He quitted Leipzig, after a three
years' residence there; and fairly commenced
housekeeping on his own score. Probably
there is not in the whole history of Literature
any record of a literary establishment lilce this
at Hof; so ruggedly independent, so simple,
not to say altogether unfurnished. Lawsuits
had now done their work, and the Widow
Richter, with her family, was living in a
••house containing one apartment." Paul had
no books, except "twelve manuscript volumes

of excerpts," and the consideiable library
which he carried in his head; with which
small resources, the public, especially as ha
had still no cue, could not well see what was
to become of him. Two great furtherances,
however, he had, of which the public took' no
sufficient note : a real Head on his shoulders,
not as is more common, a mere hat-wearing,
empty effigies of a head ; and the strangest,
stoutest, indeed, a quite noble Heart within
him. Here, then, he could, as is the dut}- of
man, " prize his existence, more than his
manner of existence," which latter was, in-
deed, easily enough dis-esteemed. Come of it
what might, he determined, on his own
strength, to try issues to the uttermost with
Fortune; nay, while fighting like a very Ajax
against her, to keep laughing in her face till
she too burst into laughter, and ceased frown-
ing at him. He would nowise slacken in his
Authorship, therefore, but continued stubborn-
ly toiling, as at his right work, let the weather
be sunny or snowy. For the rest, Poverty was
written on the posts of his door, and within on
every equipment of his existence; he that ran
might read in large characters: "Good Chris-
tian people, you perceive that I have little
money; what inference do you draw from it?"
So hung the struggle, and as yet were no signs
of victory for Paul. It was not till 1788 that
he could find a publisher for his TciifchPapicrcn;
and even then few readers. But no dishearten-
ment availed with him: authorship was once
for all felt to be his true vocation ; and by it
he was minded to continue at all hazards.
For a short while, he had been tutor in some-
family, and had again a much more tempting
offer of the like sort, but he refused it, purpos-
ing henceforth to " bring up no children but
his own, — his books," let Famine say to it
what she pleased.

" With his mother," says Otto, " and at times
also with several of his brothers, but always
with one, he lived in a mean house, which had
only a single apartment; and this went on
even when, — after the appearance of the
Miimitn, — his star began to rise, ascending
higher and higher, and never again declin-
ing. * * *

"As Paul, in the characters of Walt and
Vult,* (it is his direct statement in these
Notes,) meant to depict himself; so it may be
remarked, that in the delineation of Lenette,
his mother stood before his mind, at the period
when this down-pressed and humiliated woman
began to gather heart, and r.nise herself up
again ;-}- seeing she could no longer doubt the
truth of his predictions, that Authorship must,
and would prosper with him. She mnv the
more busily, in one and the same room where

* Gottiralt and (liindileusviilt. two Rrolliers (see Pant's
Flcireljahrr) of ilie nidst opposite tenipfraniPiits : llie
roriiier a still, sofl-liearted tearful enthusiast, llie cllier i
madcap liiiiiioiiriit, lioiiest at lioltoiii, Imt Iiiirsliii"; out
on all liaiiils witli llie strangest explosions, speculative
and practical.

+ " Ciuite lip indeed, she could never more rise ; anil
in silent liiiinility, avoiding any iQiid expression of satis-
faction, slie lived to enjoy with timorous filadness, Iho
(lelijht of seeinf.' her son's worth publicly recopitised,
and his acriiiaintance soiiffht by tjie most influential
men. and herself, loo, honoured, on this account, as BhJ
had never before been."

208

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Paul was writing; and studying, managed the
household operations ; cooking, washing,
scouring, handling the broom, and these being
finished, spinning cotton. Of the painful in-
come earned by this latter employment, she
kept a written account. One such revenue-
book, under the title. Was ich ersponnen, (Earned
by spinning,) which extends from March,
1793, to September, 1794, is still in existence.
The produce of March, the first year, stands
entered there as 2 florins, 51 kreutzers, 3 pfen-
nings, [somewhere about four shillings !] ; that
of April, &c.; 'at last that of September, 1794,
as 2 il. 1 kr. ; and on the last page of the little
book, stands marked, that Samuel (the young-
est son) had, on the 9th of this same Septem-
ber, got new boots, which cost 3 thalers, —
almost a whole quarter's revenue!'"

Considering these things, how mournful
would it have seemed to Paul that Bishop Dog-
bolt could not get translated, because of Poli-
tics; and the too high-souled Viscount Plum-
cake, thwarted in courtship, was seized with a
perceptible dyspepsia!

We have dwelt the longer on this portion
of Paul's history, because we reckon it inte-
resting in itself; and that if the spectacle of a
great man struggling with adversity be a lit
one for the gods to look down on, much more
must it be so for mean fellow-mortals to look
up to. For us in Literary England, above all,
such conduct as Richter's has a peculiar in-
terest, in these times ; the interest of entire
novelty. Of all literary phenomena, that of a
literary man daring to believe that he is poor,
ma)' be regarded as the rarest. Can a man
without capital actually open his lips and
speak to mankind! Had he no landed pro-
perty, then : no connection with the higher
classes; did he not even keep a gigl By
these documents it would appear so. This
was not a nobleman, nor gentleman, nor gig-
man ;* but simply a man !

On the whole, what a wondrous spirit of
gentility does animate our British Literature
at this era! We have no Men of Letters now,
but only Literary Gentlemen. Samuel John-
son was the last that ventured to appear in
that former character, and support himself, on
his own legs, without any crutches, purchased
or stolen : rough old Samuel, the last of all the
Romans! Time was, when in English Litera-
ture, as in English Life, the comedy of "Every
Man in his Humour" was daily enacted among
us; but how the poor French word, French in
every sense, "Q/t'm dir/i-'-on?" spellbinds us
all, and we have nothing for it but to drill and
cane each other into one uniform, regimental
" nation of gentlemen." " Let him who would
write heroic poems," said Milton, "make his
life a heroic poem." Let him who would
write heroic poems, say we, put money in his
purse; or if he have no gold money, let him

* In Thnrlell's tri.il (siys the Qunrferly Revieir) oc-
curred the follnwiriff colloquy: " Q. What sort of per-
son was Mr. Weare'! Jl. He was always a respertahle
person. Q. Wh;it do you mean by respectable ? ./?. He
kept a s\''." — Since then we have seen a " De.fe.nsio
Ois-mniiirn., or Apolniry for the Oijnien of Great Britain,"
toinnosed not without elocinence, and which we hope
ene day to prevail on our friend, a man of some whims,
fo give to the public.

jitit in copper-money, or pebbles, and chink
with it as with true metal, in the ears of man-
kind, that they may listen to him. Herein
does the secret of good writing now consist, as
that of good living has always done. When
we first visited Grub-street, and with bared
head did reverence to the genius of the place,
with a "Salve, mag7ia parens!" we were asto-
nished to learn, on inquiry, that the Authors
did not dwell there now, but had all removed,
years ago, to a sort of " High Life below
Stairs," far in the West. For why, what re-
medy was there; did not the wants of the age
require it 1 How can men write without High
Life ; and how, except below Stairs, as
Shoulder-knot, or as talking Katerfelto, or by
secondhand communication with these two,
can the great body of men acquire any know-
ledge thereof] Nay, has not the Atlantis, or
true Blissful Island of Poesy, been, in all
times, understood to lie Westward, though
never rightly discovered till now 1 Our great
fault with writers used to be, not that they
were intrinsically mofe or less completed
Dolts, with no eye or ear for the "open secret,"
of the world, or for any thing, save the "open
display" of the world, — for its gilt ceilings,
marketable pleasures, war-chariots, and all
manner, to the highest manner, of Lord Mayor
shows, and Guildhall dinners, and their own
small part and lot therein ; but the head and
front of their offence lay in this, that they had
not " frequented the society of the upper
classes." And now, with our improved age,
and this so universal extension of "High Life
below Stairs," what a change has been intro-
duced, what benign consequences will follow!
One consequence has already been a degree
of Dapperism and Dilettantism and ricketty
Debility unexampled in the history of Litera-
ture, and enough of itself to "make us the
envy of surrounding nations ;" for hereby the
Literary man, once so dangerous to the quies-
cence of society, has now become perfectly
innoxious, so that a look will quail him, and
he can be tied hand and foot by a spinster's
thread. Hope there is, that henceforth neither
Church nor State will be put in jeopardy by
literature. The old Literary man, as we have
said, stood on his own legs; had a whole
heart within him, and might be provoked into
many things. But the new Literary man, on
the other hand, cannot stand at all, save in
stays; he must first gird up his weak sides
with the whalebone of a certain fashionable,
knowing, half-squirarchal air, — be it inherited,
bought, or, as is more likely, borrowed or
stolen, whalebone ; and herewith he stands a
little without collapsing. If the man now
twang his jew's-harp to please the children,
what is to be feared from hi;n ; what more is
to be required of him?

Seriously speaking, we must hold it a re-
markable thing that every Englishman should
be a "gentleman;" that in so demt)cratic a
country, our common title of honour, which all
men assert for themselves, should be one
which professedly depends on station, on acci-
dcnis rather than on qnalilies; or at best, as
Coleridge interprets it, "on a certain indilfer-
ence to money matters," which certain indiffer-

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

20tf

cnce again must be wise or 'mad, you would
.think, exactly as one possesses much money,
or possesses little ! We suppose it must be
the commercial genius of the nation, counter-
acting and suppressing its political genius; for
the Americans are said to be still more notable
in this respect than we. Now, what a hollow,
windy vacuity of internal character this indi-
cates ; how, in place of a rightly ordered heart,
we strive only to exhibit a full purse; and all
pushing, rushing, elbowing on towards a false
aim, the courtier's kibes are more and more
galled by the toe of the peasant; and on every
side, instead of Faith, Hope, and Charity, we
have Neediness, Greediness, and Vain-glory;
all this is palpable enough. Fools that we are!
Why should we wear our knees to horn and
sorrowfully beat our breasts, praying day and
night to Mammon, who, if he would even hear
us, has almost nothing to givel . For granting
that the deaf brute-god were to relent for our
sacrificings ; to change our gilt brass into solid
gold, and instead of hungry actors of rich
gentility, make us all in very deed Rothschild-
Howards to-morrow, what good were it] Are
we not already denizens of this wondrous Eng-
land, with its high Shakspeares and Hamp-
dens ; nay, of this wondrous Universe, with its
Galaxies and Eternities, and unspeakable
Splendours, that we should so worry and
scramble, and tear one another in pieces, for
some acres, (nay, still oftener, for the slww of
some acres,) more or less, of clay property,
the Ivrgest of which properties, the Sutherland
itseli is invisible even from the Moon ] Fools
that we are! To dig, and bore like ground-
worms in those acres of ours, even if we have
acres ; and far from beholding and enjoying
the heavenly Lights, not to know of them
except by unheeded and unbelieved report!
Shall certain pounds sterling that we have in
the Bank of England, or the ghosts of certain
pounds that wc would fain seem to have, hide
from us the treasures we are all born to in
this the "City of God?"

My inlieritance tiow wide and fair !
Time is my estate, to Time I'm lieir.

But leaving the money-changers, and honour-
hunters, and gigmen of every degree, to their
own wise ways, which they will not alter, we
must again remark as a singular circumstance,
that the same spirit should, to such an extent,
have taken possession of Literature also. This
is the eye of the world, enlightening all, and
instead of the shows of things unfolding to us
tliinss themselves : has the eye too gone blind ;
has the Poet and Thinker adopted the philoso-
phy of the Grocer and Valet in Livery] Nay,
let us hear Lord Byron himself on the subject.
Some years ago, there appeared in the Maga-
zines, and to the admiration of most editorial
gentlemen, certain extracts from Letters of
Lord Byron's, which carried this philosophy
to rather a high pitch. His Lordship, we
recollect, mentioned, that, " all rules for Poetry
were not worth a d — n," (saving and except-
ing, doubtless, the ancient Rule-of-Thumb,
which must still have place here ;) dfter which
aphorism his Lordship proceeded to state that
the great ruin of all British Poets sprang froni
27

a simple source; their exclusion from High
Life in London, excepting only some shape of
that High Life below Stairs, which, however,
was nowise adequate: "he himself and Tho-
mas Moore were perfectly familiar in such
upper life : he by birth, Moore by happy acci-
dent, and so they could both write Poetry ; the
others were not familiar, and so could not write
it." — Surely it is fast growing time that all this
should be drummed out of our Planet, and for-
bidden to return.

Richter, for his part, was quite excluded
from the West-end of Hof : for Hof too has its
West-end; "every mortal longs for his parade-
place; would still wish, at banquets, to be
master of some seat or other, wherein to over-
top this or that plucked goose of the neighbour-
hood." So poor Richter could only be admitted
to the West-end of the Universe, where truly
he had a very superior establishment. The
legal, clerical, and other conscript fathers of
Hof might, had they so inclined, have lent him
a few books, told or believed some fewer lies
of him, and thus positively and negatively
shown the young adventurer many a little ser-
vice ; but they inclined to none of these things,
and happily he was enabled to do without
them. Gay, gentle, frolicsome as a lamb, yet
strong, forbearant, and royally courageous as
a lion, he worked along, amid the scouring of
kettles, the hissing of frying-pans, the hum of
his mother's wheel; — and it is not without a
proud feeling that our reader (for he too is a
man) hears of victory being at last gained, and
of Works, which the most reflective nation in
Europe regards as classical, being written
under such accompaniments.

However, it is at this lowest point of the
Narrative that Herr Otto for the present stops
short; leaving us only the assurance that better
daj's are coming: so that concerning the whole
ascendant and dominant portion of Richler's
history, we are left to our own resources; and
frotn these we have only gathered some scanty
indications, which may be summed up with a
very disproportionate brevity. It appears that
the Unsichtbnre Logc, (Invisible Lodge,) sent
forth from the Hof spinning establishment in
1793, was the first of his works that obtained
any decisive favour. A long trial of faith; for
the man had now been besieging the literary
citadel upwards of ten years, and still no
breach visible! With the appearance of
Hcsjiems, another wondrous Novel, which pro-
ceeded from the same " single apartment," in
1796, the siege may be said to have terminated
by storm ; and Jean Paul, whom the most knew
not what in the world to think of, whom here
and there a man of weak judgment had not
even scrupled to declare half-mad, made it
universally indubitable, that though encircled
with dusky vapours, and shining out •Jily in
strange many-hued irregular bursts of flame,
he was and would be one of the celestial Lumi-
naries of his day and generation. The keen
intellectual energy displayed in Hesperus, stil:
more the nobleness of mind, the sympathy with
Nature, the warm, impetuous, yet pure and
lofty delineations of Friendship and Love; in
a less degree pet-haps, the wild boisterous
Humour that everywhere prevails in it, secured
s2

810

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Richter not only admirers, but personal well-
wishers in all quarters of his country. Gleim,
for example, though then eighty years of age,
and among the last survivors of a quite differ-
ent school, could not contain himself with rap-
ture. "What a divine genius (Gottgenius),"
thus wrote he some time afterwards, " is our
Friedrich Richter! I am reading his Blumcn-
stilrkc for the second time : here is more than
Shakspeare, said I, at fifty passages I have
marked. What a divine genius ! I wonder
over the human head, out of which these
streams, these books, these Rhinefalls, these
Blandusian fountains pour forth over human
nature to make human nature humane; and if
to-day I object to the plan, object to phrases, to
words, I am contented with all to-morrow."
The kind, lively old man, it appears, had sent
him a gay letter, signed "Septimus Fixlein,"
with a present of money in it; to which Rich-
ter, with great heartiness and some curiosity to
penetrate the secret, made answer in this very
Blumcmtii'ke : and so ere long a joyful acquaint-
ance and friendship was formed; Paul had
visited Halberstadt, with warmest welcomes,
and sat for his picture there, (an oil painting
,by Pfenninger,) which is still to be seen in
Gleim's Ehrentempd, (Temple of Honour.)
About this epoch too, the Reviewing world,
after a long conscientious silence, again opened
its thick lips, and in quite another dialect,
screeching out a rusty Nunc Douiine dimitlas,
with considerable force of pipe, instead of its
last monosyllabic and very unhandsome ifrwn?.
For the credit of our own guild, we could have
wished that the Reviewing world had struck up
its Dimittas a liitle sooner.

In 1797, the Widow Richter was taken away
from the strange variable climate of this world,
we shall hope, into a sunnier one; her kettles
hung unscoured on the wall; and the spool,
so often filled with her cotton-thread and wetted
with her tears, revolved no more. Poor old
weather-beaten, heavy-laden soul ! And yet a
"light-beam from on high" was in her also;
and the "twelve shillings for Samuel's new
boots" were more lounteous and more blessed
than many a King's ransom. Nay, she saw,
before departing, that she, even she, had " borne
a mighty man;" and her early sunshine, long
drowned in deluges, again looked out at even-
ing with farewell sweet.

'/^he Hof household being thus broken up,
Richter for some years led a wandering life.
In the course of this same 1797, we find him
ohce more in Leipzig; and truly under far
other circumstancis than of old. For instead
of silk-stockinged, shovel-hatted, but too impe-
rious Magisters, that would not let him occupy
his own hired dog-hutch in peace, "he here,"
says Heinrich Doering,* "became acquainted
with the three Princesses, adorned with every
charm of person and of mind, the daughters of
the Dutchess of Hildburghausen ! The Duke,
whc also did justice to his extraordinary merits,
ronferred on him, some years afterwards, the
' itie of Lcgationsrnih, (Councillor of Legatiem.")
To Princes and Princesses, indeed, Jean Paul
neeras, evef henceforth, to have had what we

*Lehci Jean Paul's. Gotha, 182R.

should reckon a surprising access. For ex
ample: — "the social circles where the Duchess
Amelia (of Weimar) was wont to assemble
the most talented men, first, in Ettersburg,
afterwards in Tiefuri ;" — then the " Duke of
Meinungen at Coburg, who had with pressing
kindness invited him;" — the Prince Primate
Dalberg, who did much more than invite him ;
— late in life, " the gifted Duchess Dorothea, in
Lobichau, of which visit he has himself com-
memorated the festive days," &c. &c. ; — all
which small matters, it appears to us, should
be taken into consideration by that class of
British philosophers, troublesome in many
an intellectual tea-circle, who deduce the
" German bad taste" from our own old ever-
lasting "want of intercourse;" whereby, if i\
so seemed good to them, their tea, till some
less self-evident proposition were started, might
be "consumed with a certain stately silence."

But next year (1798) there came on Paul a
far grander piece of good fortune than any of
these, namely, a good wife ; which, as Solomon
has long ago recorded, is a " good thing." He
had gone from Leipzig to Berlin, still busily
writing; "and during a longer residence in
this latter city," says Doering, "Caroline
Mayer, daughter of the Royal Prussian Privy
Councillor and Professor of Medicine, Dr. John
Andrew Mayer," (these are all his titles,) " gave
him her hand; nay even," continues the micro-
scopic Doering, "as is said in a public paper,
bestowed on him (aufrfru/kte) the bride-kiss of
her own accord." What is still more aston-
ishing, she is recorded to have, been a "chosen
one of her sex," one that "like a gentle guar-
dian, care-dispelling genius, went by his side
through all his pilgrimage."

Shortly after this great event, Paul removed
with his new wife to Weimar, where beseems
to have resided some years, in high favour
with whatever was most illustrious in that
city. His first impression on Schiller is cha-
racteristic enough. " Of Hesperus," thus
writes Schiller, "I have yet made no mention
to you. I found him pretty much what I ex-
pected; foreign like a man fallen from the
Moon ; full of good will, and heartily inclined |
to see things about him, but without the organ '
for seeing them. However, I have only spoken
to him once, and so can say little of him."*
In answer to which, Goethe also expresses his
love for Richter, but" doubts whether in literary
practice he will ever fall in with them two,
much as his theoretical creed inclined that
way." Hesperus proved to have more"or<ian"
than Schiller gave him credit for; nevertheless
Goethe's doubt had not been unfounded. It
was to Herder that Paul chiefly attached him-
self here; esteeming the others as high-gifted,
friendly men, but only Herder as a teacher
and spiritual father; of which latter relation, j
and the warm love and gratitude accompany- |
ing it on Paul's side, his writings give frequent
proof. "If Herder was not a Poet, says he
once, " he was something more, — a Poem !"
With Wieland too he stood on the friendliest
footing, often walking out to visit him at

* Brief weclisel zwischen Hchiller und Goefhe (Corre-
spondence t)el\veen SrtiiUer and Goethe.) B. ii. 77

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

211

Osmanstadt, whither the old man had now
retired. Perhaps these years spent at Weimar,
in close intercourse with so many distinguished
persons, were, in regard to outward matters,
among the most instructive of Richter's life :
in regard to inward matters, he had already
served, and with credit, a hard apprenticeship
elsewhere. We must not forget to mention
that Titan, one of his chief romances, (pub-
lished at Berlin in 1800,) was written during
his abode at Weimar; so likewise the i-Veitc/-
j'dhre, (Wild Oats ;) and the eulogy of Charlolte
Cnrday, which last, though originally but a
Magazine Essay, deserves notice for its bold
eloquence, and the antique republican spirit
manifested in it. With respect to Titan, which,
together with its Comic Jppendix, forms six
very extraordinary volumes, Richter was accus-
tomed, on all occasions, to declare it his mas-
ter-piece, and even the best he could ever hope
to do; though there are not wanting readers
who continue to regard Heapcrus with prefer-
ence. For ourselves, we have read Titan with
a certain disappointment, after hearing so
much of it; yet on the whole, must incline to
the Author's opinion. One day we hope to
afford the British public some sketch of both
these works, concerning which, it has been
said, "there is solid meta! enough in them to
fit out whole circulating libraries, were it beaten
into the usual filigree; and much which,
attenuate it as we might, no Quarterly Sub-
scriber could well carry with him.'' Richter's
other Novels published prior to this period are
the Iiivifibk Lof'se ; the Sieheukii!', (or Flower,
Fruit, and Thorn pieces;) the Life of Qviutvs
Fixlein ; the Juhchcnior, (Parson in Jubilee:)
Jean PaiiCs Lc'iers and ftUtcie Histonj : the De-
jcuncr in Kuhsrhiiuppel ; the rriographical Eerrca-
iions under the Cravivm of a Giantess, scarcely
belong to this species. The Novels published
afterwards, which we may as well catalogue
here, are the Leben Filich, (Life of Fibel ;) Kutz-
enliergcrs Badeyrise, (Katzenberger's Journey to
the Bath ;) Sclmielzle's Ucise narh Flatz, (Schmel-
zle's Journey to Flatz;) the Comet, named also
Nicola us Jliirgraf.

It seems to have been about the year 1802,
that Paul had a pension bestowed on him by
the Filrst Prirnas (Prince Primate) von Dal-
berg, a prelate famed for his munificence,
whom we have mentioned above. What the
amount was we do not find specified, but only
that it " secured him the means of a comfortable
life," and was "subsequently," we suppose after
the Prince Primate's decease, " paid him by
the King of Bavaria." On the strength of
which fixed revenue, Paul now established for
himself a fixed household : selecting for this
purpose, after various intermediate wander-
ings, the city of Baireuth, " with its kind pic-
turesque environment," where, with only brief
occasional excursions, he continued to live and
write. We have heard that he was a man uni-
versally Idved, as well as honoured there: a
friendly, true, and high-minded man ; copious
in speech, which was full of grave genuine
humour; contented with simple people and
simple pleasures ; and himself of the simplest
habits and wishes. He had three children;
and a guardian angel, doubtless not without her

flaws, yet a reasonable angel notwithstanding.
For a man with such obdured Stoicism, like
triple steel, round his breast; and of such
gentle, deep-lying, ever-living springs of Love
within it, — all this may well have made a
happy life. Besides Paul was of exemplary,
unwearied diligence in his vocation; and so
had, at all times, " perennial, fire-proof Joys,
namely. Employments." In addition to the
latter part of the novels named above, which,
with the others, as all of them are more or less
genuine poetical productions, we feel reluc-
tant to designate even transiently by so despi-
cable an English word, — his philosophical and
critical performances, especially the Vorschule
der Jesthetik, (Introduction to Esthetics,) and
the Levana, (Doctrine of Education,) belong
wholly to Baireuth, not to enumerate a muili-
tude of miscellaneous writings, (on moral,
literary, scientific subjects, but always in a hu-
mourous, fantastic, poetic dress,) which of them-
selves would have made the fortune of no mean
man. His heart and conscience, as well as his
head and hand, were in the work ; from which
no temptation could withdraw him. "I hold
my duly," says he in these Biographical Notes,
"not to lie in enjoying or acquiring, but in
writing, — whatever time it may cost, whatever
money may be forborne, — nay whatever plea-
sure ; for example that of seeing Switzerland,
which nothing but the sacrifice of time for-
bids."— "I deny myself my evening meal (Ves-
pcressen) in my eagerness to work, but the
interruptions by my children I cannot deny
myself." And again: "A Poet, who presumes
to give poetic delight, should contemn and will-
ingly forbear all enjoyments, the sacrifice of
which affects not his creative powers; that so
he may perhaps delight a century and a whole
people." In Richter's advanced years, it was
happy for him that he could say: "When I
look at what has been made out of me, I must
thank God that I paid no heed to external mat-
ters, neither to time or toil, nor profit, nor loss ;
the thing is there, and the instruments that did
it I have forgotten and none else knows them.
In this wise, has the unimportant series of mo-
ments been changed into something higher that
remains." — "I have described so much," says
he elsewhere, " and I die without ever having
seen Switzerland, and the Ocean, and so many
Cither sights. But the ocean of eternity I shall
in no case fail to see."

A heavy stroke fell on him in the year 1821,
when his only son, a young man of great pro-
mise, died at the University. Paul lost not his
composure; but was deeply,incurably wounded.
" Epistolary lamentations on my misfortune,"
says he, "I read unmoved, for the bitterest is to
be heard within myself, and I must shut the
ears of my soul to it; but a single new trait
of Max's fair nature opens the whole lacerated
henrt asunder again, and it can only drive its
blood into the eyes." New personal sufferings
awaited him: a decay of health, and what to
so indefatigable a reader and writer was still
worse, a decay of eye-sight, increasing at last
into almost total blindness. This too he bore
with his old steadfastness, cheerfully seeking
what help was to be had; and M'hen no more
of help remained, still cheerfully labouring at

812

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

bis vocation, though in sickness and in blind-
ness.* Dark without, he was inwardly full of
light; busied on his favourite theme, the Im-
mortnli y of lite Sotd ; when (on the 14th No-
vember, 1825) Death came, and Paul's work
was all accomplished, and that great question
settled for him on far higher and indisputable
evidence. The unfinished Volume (which
under the title of Sclina we now have) was
carried on his bier to the grave : for his funeral
was public, and in Baireuth,and elsewhere, all
possible honour was done to his memory.

In regard to Paul's character as a man, we
liave little to say beycmd what the facts of this
Narrative have already said more plainly than
in words. We learn from all quarters, in one
or the other dialect, that the pure high morality
which ad irns his writings, stamped itself also
on his life and actions. "He was a tender
husband and father," says Doering, "and good-
ness itself towards his friends and all that was
near him." The significance of such a spirit
as Richter's, practically manifested in such a
life, is deep and manifnld, and at this era will
meri' careful study. For the present, however,
we must leave it, in this degree, to the reader's
own consideration; another and still more im-
mediately needful department of our task still
rem^iins for us.

Richter's intellectual and Literary character
is, perhaps, in a singular degree the counter-
part and image of his practical and moral
character: his Works seem to us a more than
usually faithful transcript of his mind; written
with great warmth direct from the heart, and,
like himself, wild, strong, original, sincere.
Viewt'd under any aspect, whether as Thinker,
Moriilist, Satirist, Poet, he is a phenomenon ;
a vast, many-sided, tumultuous, yet noble na-
ture f'^or faults, as for merits, "Jean Paul the
Unique." In all departments, we find in him
a subduing force; but a lawless, untutored,
as it were, half savage force. Thus, for ex-
ample, few understandings known to us are
of a more irresistible character than Richter's ;
but it.-, strength is a natural, unarmed. Orson-
like strength : he does not cunningly under-
mine his subject, and lay it open, by syllogistic
impleinenis, or any rule of art; but he crushes
it to pit'ces in his arms, he treads it asunder,
not without gay triumph, under his feel; and
so in almost monstrous fashion, yet with
piercing clearness, lays bare the inmost
heart and core of it to all eyes. In passion
again, there is the same wild vehemence : it is
a voice of softest pity, of endless, boundless
wailing, a voice as of Rachel weeping for her
children; — or the fierce bellowing of lions
amid s-ivage forests. Thus, too, he not only
loves Nature, but he revels in her; plunges
into her infinite bosom, and fills his whole
heart to intoxication with her charms. He tells
>is that he was wont to study, to write, almost

» He he-rins a letter applyini for spectacles (Aiimist,
JH'J4) in these terms :-" Since last winter, my evea (lite
left hail, atrea'ly uithniit cataract, l)een lonir haif-hlinrt.
iiiiil like Reviewers and Utleniteurs. rf^MinnthU^u hut
litlc ,;i"Ks) have been seized by a daily increasiMS
iN'islit-tHtr I and Eiiemy-to-l.isht, who, did I not with-
kiiiiid lii:n, would shortly drive me into the Orcus of
Aniaurosia. Then, Addio, opera omnia'." — Doering, 32.

to live, in the open air; and no skyey aspect
was 30 dismal that it altogether wanted beauty
for him. We know of no Poet with so deep
and passionate and universal a feeling towards
Nature : " from the solemn phases of the starry
heaven to the simple floweret of the meadow,
his eye and his heart are open for her charms
and her mystic meanings." But what most
of all shadows forth the inborn, essential
teiTiper of Paul's mind, is the sportfulness, the
wild heartfelt Humour, which, in his highest
as in his lowest moods, ever exhibits itself as
a quite inseparable ingredient. His Humour,
with all its wildness, is of the gravest and
kindliest, a genuine Humour ; " consistent with
utmost earnestness, or rather, inconsistent
with the want of it." But on the whole, it i.s
impossible for him to write in other than a
humorous manner, be his subject what it may.
His Philosophical Treatises, nay, as we have
seen, his Autobiography itself, every thing that
comes from him, is encased in some quaint
fantastic framing; and roguish eyes (yet with
a strange sympathy in the matter, for his
Humour, as we said, is heartfelt and true) look
out on us through many a grave delineation.
In his Novels, above all, this is ever an indis-
pensable quality, and, indeed, announces itself
in the very entrance of the business, often even
on the title-page. Think, for instance, of that
Slice ion from I he Papers of the Devil : Hesperus,
on the Dos:-pos!-(laijs; Siebenkas's Wedded-life,
Death xyv Nuptials.'

" The fir.st aspect of these peculiarities," says
one of Richter's English critics, "cannot pre-
possess us in his favour; we are too forcih'y
reminded of theatrical clap-traps and literary
quackery: nor on opening one of the works
themselves is the case much mended. Piercing
gleams of thought do not escape us ; singular
truths, conveyed in a form as singular; gro-
tesque, and often truly ludicrous delineations;
pathetic, magnificent, far-sounding passages;
efl'"usi(>ns full of wit, knowledge, and imagina-
tion, but difficult to bring under any rubric
whatever; all the elements, in short, of a
glorious intellect, but dashed together in such
wild arrangement, that their order seems the
very ideal of confusion. The style and struc-
ture of the book appear alike incomprehen-
sible. The narrative is every now and then
suspended, to make way for some 'Extra-
leaf,' some wild digression upon any subject
but the one in hand; the language groans
with indescribable metaphors, and allusions
to all things human and divine; flowing onward,
not like a river, but like an inundation ; cir-
cling in complex eddies, chafing and gurgling,
now this way, now that, till the proper current
sinks out of view, amid the boundless uproar.
We close the work with a mingled feeling of
astonishment, oppression, and perplexity; and
Richter stands before us in brilliant cloudy
vagueness, a giant mass of intellect, but withou
form, beauty, or intelli-gible purf>ose.

"To readers who believe that intrinsic is in
separable from superficial excellence, and tha^
nothing can be go ;d or beautiful which is no'
to be seen through in a moment, Richter can
occasion little difficulty. They admit him to
be a man of vast natural endowments, but he

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

ZU

is Titterly uncultivated, and Vithout command
of them ; full of monstrous afTeclation, the
very high-priest of Bad Taste ; knows not the
art of writing, scarcely that there is such an art ;
an insane visionary, floating for ever among
baseless dreams that hide the firm earth from
his view : an intellectual Polyphemus, in short,
a mons'rum korrendum,mforme, ingcns, (carefully
adding) mi lunun cukmptum ; and they close
their verdict reflectively with his own praise-
worthy maxim: 'Providence has given to the
English the empire of the sea, to the French
that of the land, to the Germans that of — the
air.'

"In this way the matter is adjusted; briefly,
comfortably, and wrong. The casket was
diflicult to open : did we know, by its very
shape, that there was nothing in it, that so we
should cast it into the sea? Afiectation is
often singularity, but, singularity is not always
affectation. If the nature and condition of a
man be really and truly, not conceitedly and
untruly, singular, so also will his manner be,
so also ought it to be. AtTectation is the pro-
duct of Falsehood, a heavy sin, and the parent
of numerous heavy sins; let it be severely
punished, but not too lightly imputed. Scarcely
any mortal is absolutely free from it, neither
most probably is Richter; but it is in minds
of another substance than his that it grows to
Ije the ruling product. Moreover, he is actually
not a visionary; but, with all his visions, will
be found to see the firm Earth, in its whole
figures and relations, much more clearly than
thousands of such critics, who too probably
can see nothing else. Far from being un-
trained or uncultivated, it will surprise these
persons to discover that few men have studied
the art of writing, and many other arts besides,
more carefullj' than he; that his Vorsdmlc
der Jlcslhciik abounds with deep and sound
maxims of criticism ; in the course of which,
many complex works, his own among others,
are rigidly and justly tried, and even the
graces and minutest qualities of style are by
no means overlooked or unwisely handled.

" Withal, there is something in Richter that
incites us to a second, to a third perusal. His
works are hard to understand, but they always
have a meaning, often a true and deep one. In
our closer, more comprehensive glance, their
truth steps forth with new distinctness, their
error dissipates and recedes, passes into
veniality, often even into beauty; and at last
the thick haze which encircled the form of the
writer melts away, and he stands revealed to us
in his own steadfast features, a colossal spirit,
a lofty and original thinker, a genuine poet,
a high-minded, true, and most amiable man.

"I have called him a colossal spirit, for this
impression continues with us : to the last we
figure him as something gigantic: for all the
elements of his structure are vast, and com-
bined together in living and life-giving, rather
than in beautiful or symmetrical order. His
intellect is keen, impetuous, far-grasping, fit to
rend in peaces the stubbornest materials, and
extort from them their most hidden and refrac-
tory truth. In hfs Humour he sports with the
highest and the lowest, he can play at bowls
witl\ the Sun aad Moon- His Imagination

opens for us the Land of Dreams ; we sail with
him through the boundless Abyss; and the
secrets of Space, and Time, and Life, and An-
nihilation, hover round us in dim, cloudy
forms; and darkness, and immensity, and
dread encompass and overshadow us. Nay,
in handling the smallest matter, he works it
with the tools of a giant. A common truth is
wrenched from its old combinations, and pre-
sented us in new, impassable, abysmal con-
trast with its opposite error. A trifle, some
slender character, some jest, or quip, or
spiritual toy, is shaped into most quaint, yet
often truly living form ; but shaped somehow
as with the hammer of Vulcan, with three
strokes that might have helped to forge an
-■Ggis. The treasures of his mind are of a
similar description with the mind itself; his
knowledge is gathered from all the kingdoms
of Art, and Science, and Nature, and lies
round him in huge unwieldy heaps. His very
language is Titanian; deep, strong, tumul-
tuous ; shining wiih a thousand hues, fused
from a thousand elements, and winding in
labyrinthic mazes.

" Among Richter's gifts," continues this cri-
tic, "the first that strikes us as truly great is
his Imagination: for he loves to dwell in the
loftiest and most solemn provinces of thought;
his works abound with mysterious allegories,
visions, and typical adumbrations ; his Dreams,
in particular, have a gloomy vastness, broken
here and there by wild far-darting splendour;
and shadowy forms of meaning rise dimly
from the bosom of the void Infinite. Yet, if I
mistake not. Humour is his ruling quality, the
quality which lives most deeply in his inward
nature, and most strongly influences his man-
ner of being. In this rare gift, for none is
rarer than true Humour, he stands unrivalled
in his own country, and among late writers, in
every other. To describe Humour is difficult
at all times, and would perhaps be more than
usually ditficult in Richter's case. Like all his
other qualities, it is vast, rude, irregular; often
perhaps overstrained and extravagant; yet,
fundamentally, it is genuine Humour, the Hu-
mour of Cervantes and Sterne; the product
not of Contempt, but of Love, not of superfi-
cial distortion of natural forms, but of deep
though playful sympathy with all forms of
Nature. * * *

"So long as Humour will avail him, his
management even of higher and stronger cha-
racters may still be pronounced successful;
but wherever Humour ceases to be applicable,
his success is more or less imperfect. In the
treatment of heroes proper he is seldom com-
pletely happy. They shoot into rugged exag-
geration in his hands: their sensibility be-
comes too copious and tearful, their magnani-
mity too fierce, abrupt, and thorough-going.
In some few instances, they verge towards
absolute failure: compared with their less am-
bitious brethren, they are almost of a vulgar
cast ; with all their brilliancy and vigour, too
like that positive, determinate, volcanic class
of personages whom we meet with so fre-
quently in Novels ; they call themselves Men,
and do their utmost to prove the assertion, but
they cannot make us believe it ; for after al'

S14

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

their vapouring and storming, we see well
enough that they are but Engines, wiih no
more life than the Freethinkers' model in
MarLimts Scriblcrus, the Nuremberg Man, who
operated by a combination of pipes and levers,
and though he could breath and digest perfect-
ly, and even reason as well as most country
parsons, was made of wood and leather. In
the general conduct of such histories and de-
lineations, Richter seldom appears to advan-
tage : the incidents are often startling and
extravagant; the whole structure of the story
has a rugged, broken, huge, artificial aspect,
and will not assume the air of truth. Yet its
chasms are strangely filled up with the costliest
materials ; a world, a universe of wit, and
knowledge, and fancy, and imagination has
sent its fairest products to adorn the edifice ;
the rude and rent Cyclopean walls are resplen-
dent with jewels and beaten gold ; rich stately
foliage screens it, the balmiest odours encircle
it; we stand astonished if not captivated, de-
lighted if not charmed, by the artist and his
art."

With these views, so far as they go, we see
little reason to disagree. There is doubtless a
deeper meaning in the matter, but perhaps
this is not the season for evolving it. To de-
pict, with true scientific accuracy, the essential
purport and chaiacter of Richter's genius and
literary endeavour; how it originated, whither
it tends, how it stands related to the general
tendencies of the world in this age; above all,
what is its worth and want of worth to our-
selves,— may one day be a necessary problem ;
but, as matters actually stand, would be aditfi-
cult, and not very profitable one. The English
public has not yet seen Richter; and must
know him before it can judge him. For us, in
the present circumstances, we hold it a more
promising plan to exhibit some specimens of
his workmanship itself, than to attempt de-
scribing it anew or better. The general out-
line of his intellectual aspect, as sketched in
few words by the writer already quoted, may
stand here by way of preface to these Extracts :
as was the case above, whatever it may want,
it contains nothing that we dissent from.

"To characterize Jean Paul's works," says
he, "would be difficult after the fullest inspec-
tion : to describe them to English readers
would be next to impossible. "Whether poeti-
cal, philosophical, didactic, fantastic, they
.seem all to be emblems, more or less complete,
of the singular mind where they originated.
As a whole, the first perusal of them, more
particularly to a foreigner, is almost infallibly
ofTensive; and neither their meaning nor their
no-meaning is to be discerned without long
and sedulous study. They are a tropical wil-
derness, full of endless tortuosities ; but with
the fairest flowers and the coolest fountains ;
now overarching us with high umbrageous
gloom, now opening in long gorgeous vistas.
We wander through them, enjoying their wild
grandeur; and, by degrees, our half-contemp-
tuous wonder at the Author passes into reve-
rence and love. His face was long hid from
us ; buc we see him at length, in the firm shape
of spiritual manhood; a vast and most singu-
lar nature, but vind-cating his singular nature

by the force, the beauty, and benignity which
pervade it. In fine, we joyfully accept him
fur what he is and was meant to be. The
graces, the polish, the sprightly elegancies,
which belong to men of lighter make, we can-
not look for or demand from him. His move-
ment is essentially slow and cumbrous, for he
advances not with one faculty, but with a
whole mind; with intellect, and pathos, and
wit, and humour, and imagination, moving
onward like a mighty host, motley, ponderous,
irregular, irresistible. He is not airy, spark-
ling, and precise; but deep, billowy, and vast.
The melody of his nature is not expressed in
common note-marks, or written down by the
critical gamut : for it is wild and manifold ; its
voice is like the voice of cataracts, and the
sounding of primeval forests. To feeble ears
it is discord, but to ears that understand it,
deep majestic music."*

As our first specimen, which also may serve
for proof that Richter, in adopting his own ex-
traordinary style, did it with clear knowledge
of what excellence in style, and the various
kinds and degrees of excellence therein pro-
perly signified, we select, from his Vorschule
der JlcMhclik (above mentioned and recom-
mended) the following miniature sketches :
the reader, acquainted with the persons, will
find these sentences, as we believe, strikingly
descriptive and exact.

" Visit Herder's creations, where Greek life-
freshness, and Hii^doo life-weariness are won-
derfully blended: you walk, as it were, amid
moonshine, into which the red dawn is already
falling; but one hidden sun is the painter of
both."

" Similar, but more compacted into periods,
is Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's vigorous, Ger-
man-hearied prose ; musical in every sense,
for even his images are often derived from
tones. The rare union between cutting force
of intellectual utterance, and infinitude of sen-
timent, gives us the tense metallic chord with
its soft tones."

"In Goethe's prose, on the other hand, his
fixedness of form gives us the Memnon's-tone.
A plastic rounding, a pictorial determinate-
ness, which even betrays the manual artist,
make his works a fixed still gallery of figures
and bronze statues."

" Luther's prose is a half-battle ; few deeds
are equal to his words."

" Klopstock's prose frequently evinces a
sharpness of diction bordering on poverty of
matter; a quality peculiar to Grammarians,
who most of all know distinctly, but least of all
know much. From want of matter, one is apt
to think too much of language. New views
of the world, like these other poets, Klopstock
scarcely gave. Hence the naked winter-boughs,
in his prose; the multitude of circumscribed
propositions; the brevity; the return of the
same small sharp-cut figures, for instance,
of the Resurrection, as of a Harvest-field."

" The perfection of pomp-prose we find in
Schiller: what the utmost splendour of reflec-
tion in images, in fulness and antithesis can
give, he gives. Nay, often he plays on the po»

♦German Romance, iii. 6, 18.

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

216

et\c strings with so rich and jewel-loaded a
hand, that the sparkling mass disturbs, if not
the playing, yet our hearing of it." — Vor-
srliulf, s. 545.

That Richter's own playing and painting
differed widely from all of these, the reader has
already heard, and may now convince himself.
Take, for example, the following of a fair-
weather scene, selected from a thousand such
that may be found in his writings ; nowise as
the best, but simply as the briefest. It is in the
May season, the last evening of Spring :

"Such a May as the present, (of 1794,) Na-
ture has not in the memory of man — begun ;
for this is but the fifteenth of it. People of re-
flection have long been vexed once every year,
that our German singers should indite May-
songs, since several other monihs deserve
such a poetical Night-music better; and I
myself have often gone so far as to adopt the
idiom of our market-women, and instead of
May butter to say June butter, as also June,
March, April songs. But thou, kind May of
this year, Ihou deservest to thyself all the
songs which were ever made on thy rude
namesakes ! — By Heaven ! when I now issue
from the wavering chequered acacia-grove of
the Castle, in which I am writing this Chap-
ter, and come forth into the broad living light,
and look up to the warming Heaven, and over
its Earth budding. out beneath it, — the Spring
rises before me like a vast full cloud, with
a splendour of blue and green. I see the Sun
standing amid roses in the western sky, into
which he has thrown his raij-brvsh tvhcreirith hr
has In-day hce^i painting the Earth : — and when I
look round a little in our picture exhibition, —
hif> enamelling is still hot on the mountains;
on the moist chalk of the moist earth, the
flowers, full of sap-colours, are laid out to dry,
and the forget-me-not with miniature colours;
under the varnish of the streams the skyey
Painter has pencilled his own eye; and the
clouds like a decoration-painter, he has touched
off with wild outlines, and single tints ; and
so he stands at the border of the Earth, and
looks back on his stately Spring, whose robe-
folds are valleys, whose breast-bouquet is
gardens, and whose blush is a vernal evening,
and who, when she rises, will be — Summer!" —
Fixicin, z. 11.

Or the following, in which moreover are
two happy living figures, a bridegroom and a
a bride on their marriage-day :

" He led her from the crowded dancing-
room into the cool evening. Why does the
evening, does the night, put warmer love in
our hearts 1 Is it the nightly pressure of help-
lessness ; or is it the exalting separation from
the turmoils of life, that veiling of the world,
in which for the soul nothing then remains
but souls : — is it, therefore, that the letters in
which the loved name stands written in our
sjiirif, appear, like phosphorus writing, by
rusht, on fire, while by day in their cloudy traces
they but smoke 1

" He walked with his bride into the Castle-
garden : she hastened quickly through the
Castle, and past its servant's-hall, where the
fair flowers of her young life had been crushed
broad and dry, under a long dreary pressure ;

and her soul expanded, and breathed in the
free open garden, on whose flowery soil Des-
tiny had cast forth the first seeds of the blos-
soms which to-day were gladdening her exist-
ence. Still Eden ! Green, flower-chequered
chiaroscuro ! — The moon is sleeping under
ground, like a dead one, but beyond the garden,
the sun's red evening-clouds have falleti down
like roseleaves ; and the evening-star, the
brideman of the sun, hovers like a glancing
butterfly above the rosy red, and, modest as a
bride, deprives no single starlet of its light.

"The wandering pair arrived at the old
gardener's-hut ; now standing locked and
dumb, with dark windows in the light garden,
like a fragment of the Past surviving in the Pre-
sent. Bared twigs of trees were folding, with
clammy half-formed leaves, over the thick
intertwisted tangles of the bushes. The Spring
was standing, like a conqueror, with Winter
at his feet. In the blue pond now bloodless,
a dusky evening-sky lay hollowed out; and
the gushing waters were moistening the flower-
beds. The silver sparks of stars were rising
on the altar of the East, and falling down ex-
tinguished in the red-sea of the West."

"The wind whirred, like a night-bird, louder
through the trees ; r,nd gave tones to the aca-
cia-grove, and the tones called to the pair who
had first become happy within it: 'Enter, new
mortal pair, and think of what is past, and of
my withering and your own ; and be holy as
Eternity, and weep, not for joy only, but for
gratitude also !' * * *

"They reached the blazing, rustling marri-
age-house, but their softened hearts sought
stillness; and a foreign touch, as in the blos-
soming vine, would have disturbed the flower-
nuptials of their souls. They turned rather,
and winded up into the churchyard, to pre-
serve their mood. Majestic on the groves and
mountains stood the Night before man's heart,
and made it also great. Over the white stee-
ple-obelisk the sky rested bluer and darker;
and behind it wavered the withered summit
of the Maypole with faded flag. The son no
ticed his father's grave, on which the winil
was opening; and shutting, with harsh noise,
the small lid on the metal cross, to let the year
of his death be read on the brass plate within.
An overpowering grief seized his heart with
violent streams of tears, and drove him to the
sunk hilinck; and he led his bride to the
grave, and said : ' Here sleeps he, my good
father : in his thirty-second year he was car-
ried hither to his long rest. O thou good dear
father, couldst thou but see the happiness of
thy son, like my mother ! But thy eyes are
empty, and thy breast is full of ashes, and thou
seest us not.' — He was silent. The bride wept
aloud; she saw the mouldering coffins of her
parents open, and the two dead arise, and look
round for their daughter, who had stayed so
long behind them, forsaken on the earth. She
fellon his neck and faltered: '0 beloved, I
have neither father nor mother, do not forsake
me !'

" O thou who hast still a father and a mo-
ther, thank God for it on the day when thy
soul is full of glad tears, and needs a bo-som
wherein to shed them. . . .

216

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

"And with this embracing at a father's
grave, let this day of joy be hoiily concluded."
— Fixlcin, z. 9.

In such passages, slight as they are, we
fancy an experienced eye will trace some fea-
tures of originality, as well as of uncommon-
ness: an open sense for Nature, a soft heart,
a warm rich fancy, and here and there some
under-current of Humour are distinctly enough
discernible. Of this latter quality, which, as
has been often said, forms Richter's grand
characteristic, we would fain give our readers
seme correct notion; but see not well how it
is to be done. Being genuine poetic humour,
not drollery or vulgar caricature, it is like a
fine essence, like a soul ; we discover it only
in whole works and delineations ; as the soul
is only to be seen in the living body, not in
detached limbs and fragments. Richter's Hu-
mour takes a great variety of forms, some of
them sufficiently grotesque and piebald; rang-
ing from the light kindly-comic vein of Sterne
in his I'riin and Uaclc Toby, over all interme-
diate degrees, to the rugged grim farce-tragedy
often manifested in Hogarth's pictures; nay,
to still darker and wilder moods than this.
Of the former sort are his characters of Fix-
lein, Schmelzle, Fibel ; of the latter his Vult,
Giannozzo, Leibgebber, Schoppe, which last
two are indeed one and the same. Of these,
of the spirit that reigns in them, we should
despair of giving other than the most inade-
quate and even incorrect idea, by any extracts
or expositions that could possibly be furnished
here. Not without reluctance we have accord-
ingly renounced that enterprise ; and must
content ourselves with some " Extra-leaf" or
other separable passage, which, if it afford no
emblem of Richter's Humour, may be, in these
circumstances, our best approximation to such.
Of the "Extra-leaves," in Hesperus itself, a
considerable volume might be formed, and
truly one of the strangest. Most of them,
however, are national; could not be appre-
hended without a commentary; and even then,
much to their disadvantage, for Humour must
be seen, not through a glass, but face to face.
The following is nowise one of the best; but
it turns on what we believe is a quite Euro-
pean subject, at all events is certainly an Eng-
lish one.

" Extra-leaf on Daughter-full Houses.

"The Minister's house was an open book-
shop, the books in which (the daughters) you
might read there, but could not take home with
you. Though five other daughters were al-
ready standing in five private libraries, as
wives, and one under the ground at Maienthal
was sleeping off the child's-play of life, yet
still in this daughter-warehouse there remained
three gratis copies to be disposed of to good
friends. The Minister was always prepared,
in drawings from the office-lottery, to give his
daughters as premiums to winners, and hold-
ers of the lucky ticket. Whom God gives an
office, he also gives, if not sense for it, at least
a wife. In a daughter-full house, there must,
as in the Church of St. Peter's, be confessionals
for all nations, for all characters, for all faults;
that the daughters may sit as confessoresses

therein, and absolve from all, bachelorship
only excepted. As a Natural-Philosopher, I
have many times admired the wise methods
of Nature fur distributing daughters and
plants : is it not a fine arrangement, said I
to the Natural-Historian Goeze, that Nature
should have bestowed specially on young wo-
men, who for their growth require a rich mi-
neralogical soil, some sort of hooking appa-
ratus, whereby to stick themselves on miserable
marriage-cattle, that may carry them to fat
places ! Thus Linnreus,* as you know, ob-
serves that such seeds as can flourish only in
fat earth are furnished with barbs, and so
fasten themselves the better on grazing quad-
rupeds, which transport them to stalls and
dunghills. Strangely does Nature, by the
wind, — which father and motlier must raise, —
scatter daughters and fir-seeds into the arable
spots of the forest. Who does not remark the
final cause here, and how Nature has equip-
ped many a daughter with such and such
charms, simply that some Peer, some mitred
Abbot, Cardinal-deacon, appanaged Prince, or
mere country Baron, may lay hold of said
charmer, and in the character of Father or
Brideman, hand over her ready-made to some
gawk of the like sort, as a wife acquired by
purchase? And do we find in bilberries a
slighter attention on the part of Nature?
Does not the same Linnseus notice, in the
same treatise, that they, too, are cased in a
nutritive juice to incite the Fox to eat them ;
after which, the villain, — digest them he can-
not,— in such sort as he may, becomes theit
sower 1 —

" O, my heart is more in earnest than yoa
think; the parents anger me who are soul-
brokers ; the daughters sadden me, who are
made slave-Negresses. — Ah, is it wonderful
that these, who in their West-Indian market-
place, must dance, laugh, speak, sing, till some
lord of a plantation take them home with him,
— that these, I say, should be as slavishly treat-
ed, as they are sold and bought 1 Ye poor
lambs ! — And yet ye, too, are as bad as your
sale-mothers and sale-fathers : what is one to
do with his enthusiasm for your sex, when one
travels through German towns, where every
heaviest pursed, every longest-tilled individual,
were he second cousin to the Devil himself,
can point with his finger to thirty houses, and
say: 'I know not, shall it be from the pearl-
coloured, or the nut-brown, or the steel-green
house, that I wed ; open to customers are they
all!' — How, my girls, is your heart so little
worth that you cut it, like old clothes, after any
fashion, to fit any breast; and does it wax or
shrink, then, like a Chinese ball, to fit itself
into the ball-mould and marriage ring-case of
any male heart whatever? — ' Well, it must;
unless we would sit at home, and grow Old
Maids,' answer they; whom I will not answer,
but turn scornfully away from them to address
that same Old Maid in these words:

" ' Forsaken, but patient one ! misknovvn and
mistreated! Think not of the times when thon
hadst hope of a better than the present are, and

* His jSman. Jlcad. — The Treatise oit the Habitable
Globe.

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

2T7

repent the noble pride of thy heart never! It is
not always our duty to marry, but it is always
our duty to abide by right, not to purchase hap-
piness by loss of honour, not to avoid unwed-
dedness by untruthfulness. Lonely, unadmired
heroine ! in thy last hour, when all Life and
the bygone possessions and scaffoldings of Life
shall crumble in pieces, ready to fall down ; in
that hour thou wilt look back on thy untenant-
ed h'fe: no children, no husband, no wet eyes
will be there ; but in the empty dusk, one high,
purr, angelic, smiling, beaming Figure, godlike
and mounting to the Godlike, will hover, and
beckon thee to mount with her, — mount thou
v;ith her, the Figure is thy Virtue.' "

We have spoken above, and warmly, of
Jean Paul's Lnagination, of his high devout
feeling, which it were now a still more grate-
ful part of our task to exhibit. But in this
also our readers must content themselves with
some imperfect glimpses. What religious
opinions and aspirations he specially enter-
tained, how that noblest portion of man's in-
terests represented itself in such a mind, were
long to describe, did we even know it M'ith
certainty. He hints somewhere that "the soul,
which by nature looks Heavenward, is without
a Temple in this age;" in which the careful
reader will decipher much.

"But there will come another era," says
Paul, "when it shall be light, and man will
awaken from his lofty dreams, and find — his
dreams still there, and that nothing is gone save
his sleep.

" The stones and rocks, which two veiled
Figures, (Necessity and Vice,) like Deucalion
and Pyrrha, are casting behind them, at Good-
ness, will themselves become men.

" And on the Western Gate {Jbcndthor, eve-
ning-gate) of this century stands written : Here
is the way to Virtue and Wisdom ; as on the
Western-Gate at Cherson stands the proud In-
scription : Here is the way to Byzance.

" Infinite Providence, Thou wilt cause the
day to dawn.

" But as yet, struggles the twelfth-hour of the
Night : the nocturnal birds of prey are on the
wing, spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living
dream." — Hesperus. Preface.

Connected with this, there is one other piece,
which also for its singular poetic qualities, we
shall translate here. The reader has heard
much of Richter's Dreams, with what strange
prophetic power he rules over that chaos of
spiritual Nature, bodying forth a whole world
of Darkness, broken by pallid gleams, or wild
sparkles of light, and peopled with huge,
shadowy, bewildered shapes, full of grandeur
and meaning. No Poet known to us, not Milton
himself, shows such a vastness of Imagination ;
such a rapt, deep, old Hebrew spirit, as Richter
in these scenes. He mentions in his Biogra-
phical Notes the impression which these lines
of the Tempest had on him, as recited by one of
his companions :

" We are sucl) stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little Life
Is rounded with a sleep."

" The passage of Shakspeare," says he,
*^ rounded with a sleep, (niit Schlnf umgebcn,) in
28

Plattner's mouth, created whole books in me."
— The following dream is perhaps his grandest,
as, undoubtedly, itis amonghis most celebrated.
We shall give it entire, long as it is, and there-
with finish our quotations. What value he
himself put on it, may be gathered from the
following Note: "If ever my heart," says he,
"were to grow so wretched and so dead, that
all feelings in it which announce the being of
a God were extinct there, I would terrify my-
self with this sketch of mine; it would heal
me, and give me my feelings back." We
translate it from Siebcnkas, where it forms the
first chapter, or Elumetis'iick, (Flower-piece.)

"The purpose of this fiction is the excuse of
its boldness. Men deny the Divine Existence
with as little feeling as the most assert it.
Even in our true systems we go on collecting
mere words, playmarks, and medals, as the
misers do coins; and not till late do we trans-
form the words into leelings, the coins into
enjoyments. A man may, for twenty years,
believe the Immortality of the Soul ; — in the
one-and-twentielh, in some great moment, he
for the first time discovers with amazement
the rich meaning of this belief, and the warmth
of this Naptha-well.

" Of such sort, too, was my terror at the poi-
sonous stifling vapour which floats out round
the heart of him who for the first time enters
the school of Atheism. I could with less pain
deny Immortality, than Deity ; there I should
lose but a world covered with mists, here I
should lose the present world, namely, the Sun
thereof: the whole Spiritual Universe is dashed
asunder by the hand of Atheism, into number-
less quicksilver-points of J]Ie's, which glitter,
run, waver, fly together or asunder, without
unity or continuance. No one in Creation is so
alone, as the denier of God ; he mourns, Avith
an orphaned heart that has lost its great Father,
by the corpse of Nature, which no World-spirit
moves and holds together, and which grows in
its grave; and he mourns by that Corpse till
he himself crumble off from it. The whole
world lies before him, like the Egyptian Sphinx
of stone, half-buried in the sand ; and the All
is the cold iron mask of a formless Eternity.* * *

" I merely remark farther, that with the belief
of Atheism, the belief of Immortality is quite
coiTipatible ; for the same Necessity, which in
this Life threw my light dew-drop of a Me into
a flower-bell and under a Sun, can repeat
that process in a second life; — nay, more
easily imbody me — the second time than the
first.

"If we hear, in childhood, that the dead,
about midnight, when our sleep reaches near the
snul, and darkens even our dreams, awake out
of theii-s, and in the church mimic the worship
of the living, we shudder at Death by reason
of the dead, and in the night-solitude turn away
our eyes from the long silent windows of the
church, and fear to search in their gleaming,
whether it proceed from the moon.

" Childhood, and rather its terrors than its
raptures, take wings and radiance again in
dreams, and sport like fire-flies in the little
night of the soul. Crush not these flickering
sparks ! — Leave us even our dark painfui
T

818

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

dreams as hi^jher half-shadows of reality !
And wherewith will you replace to us thoxc
dreams, which bear us away from under the
tumult of ihe waterfall into the still heights of
childhood, where the stream of life yet ran
silent in its little plain, and flowed towards its
abysses, a mirror of the Heaven ? —

" I was lying once, on a summer-evening, in
the sunshine; and I fell asleep. Melhought I
awoke in the churchyard. The down-rolling
wheels of the steeple-clock, which was striking
eleven, had awoke me. In the emptied night-
heaven I looked for the Sun ; for I thought an
eclipse was veiling him with the Moon. All
the Graves were open, and the iron doors of
the charnel-house were swinging to and fro by
invisible hands. On the walls, flitted shadows,
which proceeded from no one, and other sha-
dows stretched upwards in the pale air. In the
open coflins none now lay sleeping, but the
children. Over the whole heaven hung, in
large folds, a gray sultry mist, which a giant
shadow like vapour was drawing down, nearer,
closer, and hotter. Above me I heard the dis-
tant fall of avalanches ; under me the first step
of a boundless earthquake. The Church
■wavered up and down with two interminable
Dissonances, which struggled with each other
in it ; endeavouring in vain to mingle in
unison. At times, a gray glimmer hovered
along the windows, and under it the lead and
iron fell down molten. The net of the mist,
and the tottering Earth brought me into that
hideous Temple; at the door of which, in two
poison-bushes, two glittering Basilisks lay
brooding. I passed through unknown Shadows,
on whom ancient centuries were impressed. —
All the Shadows were standing round the
empty Altar; and in all, not the heart, but the
breast quivered and pulsed. One dead man
only, who had just been buried there, still lay
on his coffin without quivering breast; and on
his smiling countenance, stood a happy dream.
But at the entrance of one Living, he awoke,
and smiled no longer; he lifted his heavy eye-
lids, but within was no eye ; and in his beating
breast there lay, instead of heart, a wound.
He held up his hands, and folded them to pray;
but the arms lengthened out, and dissolved;
and the hands, still folded together, fell away.
Above, on the Church-dome stood the dial-plate
of Ktcnn'.y whereon no number appeared, and
which was its own index: but a black finger
pointed thereon, and the Dead sought to see
the time by it.

"Now sank from aloft a noble, high Form,
with a look of uneff"aceable sorrow, down to
the Altar, and all the Dead cried out, 'Christ I
is there no God 1' He answered 'There is
none!' The whole Shadow of each then shud-
dered, not the breast alone ; and one after the
other, all, in this shuddering, shook into
pieces.

"Christ continued: 'I went through the
Worlds, I mounted into the Suns, and flew
■with the Galaxies through the wastes of Hea-
ven ; but there is no God ! I descended as far
as Being casts its shadow, and looked down
into the Abyss and cried, Father, where art
thou '; But I heard only the everlasting storm
■which no one guides, and the gleaming Rainbow

of Creation hung without a Sun that made it,
over the Abyss, and trickled down. And when
I looked up to the immeasurable world for the
Divine Eye, it glared on me with an empty,
black, bottomless Eye-sochcl : and Eternity lay
upon Chaos, eating it and ruminating it. Cry
on, ye Dissonances; cry away the Shadows,
for He is not !'

" The pale-grown Shadows flitted away, as
white vapour which frost has formed with the
warm breath disappears; and all was void.
O, then came, fearful for the heart, the dead
Children who had been awakened in the
Churchyard, into the temple, and cast them-
selves before the high Form on the Altar, and
said, 'Jesus, have we no Father?' And he
answered, with streaining tears, 'We are all
orphans, I and you; we are without Father!'

"Then shrieked the Dissonances still louder,
— the quivering walls of the Temple parted
asunder; and the Temple and the Children
sank down, and the whole Earth and the Sun
sank after it, and the whole Universe sank
with its immensity before tis; and above, on
the summit of immeasurable Nature, stood
Christ, and gazed down into the Universe
chequered with its thousand Suns, as into the
Mine bored out of the Eternal Night, in which
the Suns run like mine-lamps, and the Galaxies
like silver veins.

"And as he saw the grinding press of
Worlds, the torch-dance of celestial wildfires,
and the coral-banks of beating hearts; and
as he saw how world after world shook off its
glimmering souls upon the Sea of Death, as a
water-bubble scatters swimming lights on the
waves, then majestic as the Highest of the
Finite, he raised his eyes towards the Nothing-
ness, and towards the void Immensity, and
said : ' Dead, dumb Nothingness ! Cold, ever-
lasting Necessity I Frantic Chance! Know
ye what this is that lies beneath youl When
will ye crush the Universe in pieces, and me?
Chance, knowest thou what thou doest, when
with thy hurricanes thou walkest through that
snow-powder of Stars, and extinguishest Sun
after Sun, and that sparkling dew of heavenly
light goes out, as thou passest over it? How
is each so solitary in this wide grave of the
All! lam alone with myself! O Father, O
Father! where is thy infinite bosom that I
might rest on it? Ah, if each soul is its own
father and creator, why can it not be its own
destroyer too ?

" ' Is this beside me yet a Man ? Unhappy
one ! Your little life is the sigh of Nature, or
only its echo; a convex-mirror throws its rays
into that dust-cloud of dead men's ashes, down
on the Earth, and thus you, cloud-formed
wavering phantoms, arise. — Look down into
the Abyss, over which clouds of ashes are
moving; misis full of Worlds reek up from
the Sea of Death ; the Fvhtre is a mounting
mist, and the Proeni is a falling one. — Knowest
thou thy Earth again?'

" Here Christ looked down, and his eye filled
with tears, and he said : 'Ah, I was once there;
I was still happy then ; I had still my Infinite
Father, and looked up cheerfully from the
mountains, into the immeasurable Heaven,
and pressed my mangled breast on his healing

ON HISTORY.

19

form, and said even in the bitterness of death :
Father, take thy son from this bleeding hull,
and lift him to thy heart! — Ah, ye too happy
inhabitants of Earth, ye still believe in Him.
Perhaps even now your Sun is going down,
and ye kneel amid blossoms, and brightness,
and tears, and lift trustful hands, and cry with
joy-streaming eyes, to the opened Heaven :
" AT e too thou knovv'est, Omnipotent, and all my
wounds ; and at death thou receivest me, and
closest them all !" Unhappy creatures, at
death they will not be closed ! Ah, wlien the
sorrow-laden lays himself, with galled back,
into the Earth, to sleep till a fairer Morning
full of Truth, full of Virtue and Joy, he awakens
in a stormy Chaos, in the everlasting Midnight,
— and tliere comes no Morning, and no soft
healing hand, and no Infinite Father ! — Mortal,
beside me! if thou still livest, pray to Him;
else hast thou lost him for ever !'

"And as I fell down, and looked into the
sparkling Universe, I saw the upborne Rings
of the Giant-Serpent, the Serpent of Eternity,
which had coiled itself round the All of Worlds,
— and the Rings sank down, and encircled the
All doubly; — and then it wound itself, innu-
merable ways, round Nature, and swept the
Worlds from their places, and crashing,
squeezed the Temple of Immensity together,
into the Church of a Burying-ground, — and all
grew strait, dark, fearful, — and an immeasur-
ably extended Hammer was to strike the last
hour of Time, and shiver the Universe asunder,

. , . WHEN I AWOKE.

" My soul wept for joy that I could still pray
to Go(l ; and the joy, and the weeping, and the
faith on him were my prayer. And as I arose,
the Sun was glowing deep behind the full pur-
pled corn-ears, and casting meekly the gleam
of its twilight-red on the little Moon, which
was rising in the East without an Aurora ;
and between Ihe sky and the earth, a gay
transient air-people was stretching out its
short wings and living, as I did, before the In-
finite Father; and from all Nature around me
flowed peaceful tones as from distant evening-
bells."

Without commenting on this singular piece,

we must here for the present close our lucu-
brations on Jean Paul. To delineate, with
any correctness, the specific features of such
a genius, and of its operations and results in
the great variety of provinces where it dwelt
and worked, were a long task; for which, per-
haps, some groundwork may have been laid
here, and which, as occasion serves, it will be
pleasant for us to resume.

Probably enough, our readers, in consider-
ing these strange matters, will too often be-
think them of that " Episode concerning Paul's
Costume ;" and conclude that, as in living, so
in writing, he was a Mannerist, and man of
continual Affectations. We will not quarrel
with them on this point; we must not venture •
among the intricacies it would lead us into.
At the same time, we hope, many will agree
with us in honouring Richter, such as he was;
and " in spite of his hundred real, and his ten
thousand seeming faults," discern under this
wondrous guise the spirit of a true Poet and
Philosopher. A Poet, and among the highest
of his time, we must reckon him, though he
wrote no verses ; a Philosopher, though he
promulgated no systems : for on the whole,
that " Divine Idea of the World " stood in clear
ethereal light before his mind; he recognised
the Invisible, even under the mean forms of
these days, and with a high, strong, not unin-
spired heart, strove to represent it in the Visi-
ble, and published tidings of it to his fellow
men. This one virtue, the foundation of all
other virtues, and which a long study more
and more clearly reveals to us in Jean Paul,
will cover far greater sins than his were. It
raises him into quite another sphere than that
of the thousand elegant sweet-singers, and
cause-and-etfect philosophers, in his own coun-
try, or in this; the million Novel-manufactu-
rers, Sketchers, practical Discoursers, and so
forth, not once reckoned in. Such a man we
can safely recommend to universal study ; and
for those who, in the actual state of matters,
may the most blame him, repeat the old max-
im : "What is extraordinary try to look at
with your own eyes."

ON HISTORY.

[Fraser's Magazine, 1830.]

Clio was figured by the ancients as the eld-
est daughter of Memory, and chief of the
Muses; which dignity, whether we regard the
essential qualities of her art, or its practice
and acceptance among men, we shall still find
to have been fitly bestowed. History, as if lies
at the root of all science, is also the first dis-
tinct product of man's spiritual nature ; his
earliest expression of what can be called
Thought. It is a looking both before and afier;
as, indeed, the coming Time already waits,
unseen, yet definitely shaped, predetermined,

and inevitable, in the Time come : and only
by the combination of both is the meaning of
either completed. The Sibylline Books, though
old, are not the oldest. Some nations have
prophecy, some have not: but, of all man-
kind, there is no tribe so rude that it has not
attempted History, though several have not
arithmetic enough to count Five. History has
been written with quipo-threads, with feather
pictures, with wampum-belts; still oftener
with earth-mounds and monumental stone-
heaps, whether as pyramid or cairn ; for the

220

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Celt and the Copt, the Red man as well as the
White, lives between two eternities, and, war-
ring against Oblivion, he would fain uniie
himself in clear, conscious relation, as in dim
unconscious relation he is already united, with
the whole Fuiure and the whole Past.

A lalent for History may be said to be born
with us, as our chief inheritance. In a certain
sense all men are historians. Is not every me-
mory written quite full with Annals, wherein
joy and mourning, conquest and loss, mani-
foldly alternate; and, with or without philoso-
phy, the whole fortunes of one little inward
kingdom, and all its politics, foreign and do-
mestic, stand ineflaceably recorded 1 Our
very speech is curiously historical. Most men,
you may observe, speak only to narrate; not
in imparting what they have thought, which
indeed were often a very small matter, but in
exhibiting what they have undergone or seen,
which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers
dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would
the stream of conversation, even among the
wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and
among the foolish utterly evaporate ! Thus,
as we do nothing but enact History, we say
little but recite it; nay, rather, in that widest
sense, our whole spiritual life is built thereon.
For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge
too but recorded Experience, and a product of
History; of which, therefore. Reasoning and
Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are
essential materials 1

Under a limited, and the only practicable
shape, History proper, that part of History
which treats of remarkable action, has, in all
modern as well as ancient times, ranked among
the highest arts, and perhaps never stood
higher than in these times of ours. For where-
as, of old, the charm of History lay chiefly in
gratifying our common appetite for the won-
derful, for the unknown ; and her office was
but as that of a Minstrel and Story-teller, she
has now farther become a Schoolmistress, and
professes to instruct in gratifying. Whether,
with the stateliness of that venerable cha-
racter, she may not have taken up something
of its austerity and frigidity; whether, in the
logical terseness of a Hume or Robertson, the
graceful ease and gay pictorial heartiness of a
Herodotus or Froissart may not be wanting, is
not the question for us here. Enough that all
learners, all inquiring minds of every order,
are gathered round her footstool, and reve-
rently pondering her lessons, as the true basis
of Wisdom. Poetry, Divinity, Politics, Physics,
have each their adherents and adversaries;
each little guild supporting a defensive and
offensive war for its own special domain ;
while the domain of History is as a Free Em-
porium, where all these belligerents peaceably
meet and furnish themselves; and Sentiment-
alist and Utilitarian, Skeptic and Theologian,
with one voice advise us: Examine History,
for it is " Philosophy teaching by Experience."

Far be it from us to disparage such teaching,
the very attempt at which must be precious.
Neither shall we too rigidly inquire, how much
it has hitherto profited ] Whether most of
what little practical wisdom men have, has
come from study of professed History, or from

other less boasted sources, whereby, as mat«
ters now stand, a Marlborough may become
great in the world's business, with no History
save what he derives from Shakspeare's
Plays'! Nay, whether in that same teaching
by Experience, historical Philosophy has yet
properly deciphered the first element of all
science in this kind? What is the aim and
significance of that wondrous changeful life
it investigates and paints 1 Whence the course
of man's destinies in thij Earth originated,
and whither they are tending? Or, indeed, if
they have any course and tendency, are really
guided forward by an unseen mysterious Wis-
dom, or only circle in blind mazes without
recognisable guidance? Which questions,
altogether fundamental, one might think, in
any Philosophy of History, have, since the era
when Monkish Annalists were wont to answer
them by the long-ago extinguished light of their
Missal and Breviary, been by most philosophi-
cal Historians only glanced at dubiously, and
from afar; by many, not so much as glanced
at. The truth is, two difficulties, never wholly
surmountable, lie in the way. Before philoso-
phy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy
has to be in readmess, the Experience must be
gathered and intelligibly recorded. Now, over-
looking the former consideration, and with re-
gard only to the latter, let any one who has
examined the current of human affairs — and
how intricate, perplexed, unfathomable, even
when seen into with our own eyes, are their
thousand-fold, blending movements — say whe-
ther the true representing of it is easy or im-
possible. Social Life is the aggregate of all
the individual men's Lives who constitute so-
ciety; History is the essence of innumerable
Biographies. But if one Biography, nay, our
own Biography, study and recapitulate it as
we may, remains in so many points unintelli-
gible to us, how much more must these million,
the very facts of which, to say nothing of the
purport of them, we know not, and cannot
know !

Neither will it adequately avail us to assert
that the general inward condition of Life is
the same in all ages ; and that only the re-
markable deviations from the common endow-
ment, and common lot, and the more import-
ant variations which the outward figure of
Life has from time to time undergone, deserve
memory and record. The inward condition
of life, it may rather be affirmed, the conscious
or half-conscious aim of mankind, so far as
men are not mere digesting machines, is the
same in no two ages; neither are the more
important outward variations easy to fix on,
or always well capable of representation.
Which was the greater innovator, which was
the more important personage in man's his-
tory, he who first led armies over the .\lps,
and gained the victories of Cannce and Thra-
symene ; or the nameless boor who first ham-
mered out for himself an iron spade? When the
oak tree is felled, the whole forest echoes wit!
it; but a hundred acorns are planted silently
by some unnoticed breeze. Battles and war-
tumults, which for the time din every ear, and
with joy or terror intoxicate every heart, pass
away like tavern-brawls ; and, except sons*

ON HISTORY.

2S1

few Marathons and Morgartens, are remem-
bered by accident, not by desert. Laws them-
selves, political Constitutions, are not our Life,
but only tiie house wherein our life is led :
nay, they are but the hare walls of the house;
all whose essential furniture, the inventions
and traditions, and daily habits that rejjulate
and support our existence, are the work not
of Dracos and Ilampdens, but of Phoenician
mariners, of Italian masons and Saxon metal-
lurgists, of philosophers, alchemists, prophets,
and all the long forgotten train of artists and
artisans ; who from the first have been jointly
teaching us how to think and how to act, how
to rule over spiritual and over physical Na-
ture. Well may we say that of our History
tlie more important part is lost without reco-
very, and, — as thanksgivings were once wont
to be offered for unrecognised mercies, — look
with reverence into the dark untenanted
places of the past, where, in formless obli-
vion, our chief benefactors, with all their se-
didous endeavours, but not with the fruit of
th',se, lie entombed.

So imperfect is that same Experience, by
which Philosophy is to teach. Nay, even
with regard to those occurrences that do stand
recorded, that, at their origin, have seemed
vvcrthy of record, and the summary of which
constitutes what we now call History, is not
our understanding of them altogether incom-
plete ; it is even possible to represent them as
they were? The old story of Sir Walter Ra-
leigh's looking from his prison window, on
some street tumult, which afterwards three
witnesses reported in three different ways,
himself differing from them all, is still a true
lesson for us. Consider how it is that histo-
rical docuinents and records originate ; even
honest records, where the reporters were un-
biass -d by personal regard; a case which,
where nothing more were wanted, must ever
be among the rarest. The real leading fea-
tures of an historical transaction, those move-
ments that essentially characterize it, and
alone deserve to be recorded, are nowise the
foremost to be noted. At first, among the
various witnesses, who are also parties inte-
rested, there is only vague wonder, and fear or
hope, and the noise of Rumour's thousand
tongues; till, after a season, the conflict of
testimonies has subsided into some general
issue; and then it is settled, by a majority of
votes, that such and such a " Crossing of the
Rubicon," an "Impeachment of Stafford," a
"Convocation of the Notables," are epochs
in the world's history, cardinal points on
which grand world-revolutions have hinged.
Suppose, however, that the majority of votes
was all wrong; that the real cardinal points
lay far deeper, and had been passed over un-
noticed, because no Seer, but only mere On-
lookers, chanced to be there! Our clock
strikes when there is a change from hour to
hour; but no hammer in the Horologe of
Time peals through the universe, when there
is a change from Era to Era. Men under-
stand not what is amcmg th^ir hands : as
calmness is the characteristic of strength, so
the weightiest causes may be the most silent.
It is, in no case, the real historical Transac-

tion, but only some more or less plausible
scheme and theory of the Transactitm, or the
harmonized result of many such schemes,
each varying from the other, and all varying
from Truth, that we can ever hope to behold.

Nay, were our faculty of insight into passing
things never so complete, there is still a fatal
discrepancy between our manner of observing
these, and their manner of occurring. The
most gifted man can observe, still more can
record, only the Fcries of his own impressions:
his observation, therefore, to say nothing of
its other imperfections, must be successive,
while the things done were often simnllaiieovs ;
the things done were not a series, but a group.
It is not in acted, as it is in written History : ac-
tual events are nowise so simply related to
each other as parent and offspring are; every
single event is the offspring not of one, but of
all other events prior or contemporaneou:5,
and will in its turn combine with all others to
give birth to new: it is an ever-living, ever-
working Chaos of Being, wherein shape after
shape bodies itself forth from innumerable
elements. And this Chaos, boundless as the
habitation and duration of man, unfathomable
as the soul and destiny of man, is what the
historian will depict, and scientifically gauge,
we may say, by threading it with single lines
of a few elis in length! For as all Action is,
by its nature, to be figured as extended in
breadth, and in depth, as well as in length;
that is to say, is based on Passion and Mys-
tery, if we investigate its origin ; and spreads
abroad on all hands, modifying and modified ;
as well as advances towards completion, so, —
all Narrative is, by its nature,of only one dimen-
sion ; only travels forward towards one, or to-
wards successive points : Narrative is linear,
Action is soHfh Alas, for our "chains," or
chainlets, of "causes and effects," which we
so assiduously track through certain hand-
breadths of years and square miles, when the
whole is a broad, deep. Immensity, and each
atom is "chained" and complected with all!
Truly, if History is Philosophy teaching by
Experience, the writer fitted to compose his-
tory is hitherto an unknown man. The Expe-
rience itself would require All-knowledge to
record it, were the All-wisdom needful for
such Philosophy as would interpret it, to be
had for asking. Better were it that mere
earthly Historians should lower such preten
sions, more suitable for Omniscience than for
human science; and aiming only at some pic-
ture of the things acted, which picture itself
will at best be a poor approximation, leave
the inscrutable purport of them an acknow-
ledged secret; or, at most, in reverent Faith,
far different from that teaching of Philosophy,
pause over the mysterious vestiges of Him,
whose path is in the great deep of Time, whom
History indeed reveals, but only all History,
and in Eternity will clearly reveal.

Such considerations truly were of small pro
fit, did they, instead of teaching us vigilance
and reverent humility in our inquiries inio
History, abate our esteem for them, or dis
courage us from unweariedly prosecuting them.
Let us search more and more into the Past ; let
all men explore it as the true, '"ountain e^
t2

S22

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

knowledge; by whose light alone, consciously
or unconsciously employed, can the Present
and the Future be interpreted or guessed at.
For though the whole meaning lies far beyond
our ken ; yet in that complex Manuscript,
covered over with formless, inextricably en-
tangled, unknown characters, — nay, which is
a Pdlywpsest, and had once prophetic writing,
still dimly legible there, — some letters, some
words, may be deciphered ; and if no com-
plete Philosophy, here and there an intelligible
precept, available in practice, be gathered;
well understanding, in the mean while, that it
is only a little portion we have deciphered,
that much still remains to be interpreted; that
history is a real prophetic Manuscript, and can
be fully interpreted by no man.

But the Artist in History may be distin-
guished from the Artisan in History; for here,
as in all other provinces, there are Artists and
Artisans; men who labour mechanically in a
department, without eye for the Whole, not
feeling that there is a Whole; and men who
inform and ennoble the humblest department
with an Idea of the Whole, and habitually
know that only in the Whole is the Partial to
be truly discerned. The proceedings, and the
duties of these two, in regard to History, must
be altogether different. Not, indeed, that each
has not a real worth, in his several degree.
The simple Husbandman can till his field, and
by knowledge he has gained of its soil, sow it
with the fit grain, though the deep rocks and
central fires are unknown to him: his little
crop hangs under and over the firmament of
stars, and sails through whole untracked celes-
tial spaces, between Aries and Libra; never-
theless, it ripens for him in due season, and
he gathers it safe into his barn. As a husband-
man he is blameless in disregarding those
higher wonders ; but as a Thinker, and faithful
inquirer into nature, he were wrong. So, like-
wise, is it with the Historian, who examines
some special aspect of history, and from this
or that combination of circumstances, political,
moral, economical, and the issues it has led to,
infers that such and such properties belong to
human society, and that the like circumstance
will produce the like issues; which inference,
if other trials confirm it, must be held true and
practically valuable. He is wrong only, and
an artisan, when he fancies that these proper-
ties, discovered or discoverable, exhaust the
matter, and sees not at every step that it is in-
exhaustible.

However, that class of cause-and-effecl
speculators, with v.'hom no wonder would re-
main wonderful, but all things in Heaven and
Earth must lie " computed and accounted for;"
and even the Unknown, the Infinite, in man's
life, had, under the words Enthusiasm, Super-
stitioir, Spirit of the Ag^, and so forth, obtained,
as it were, an algebraical symbol, and given
value, — have now well-nish played their pai-t
in European culture; and may he considered,
as in most countries, even in England itself,
'vhere they linger the latest, ver-ging towards
extinction. He u'h<ire;ids the inscrutable Book
»f Nature, as if it were a Merchant's Ledger, is
justly suspected of having never seen that
Pook, but only some school Synopsis thereof;

from which, if taken for the real Book, more
error than insight is to be derived.

Doubtless, also, it is with a growing feeling
of the infinite nature of history, that in these
times, the old principle, Division of Labour,
has been so widely applied tc u. The political
Historian, once almost the sole cultivator of
History, has now fuund various associates,
who strive to elucidate other phases of human
Life ; of which, as hinted above, the political
conditions it is passed under, are but one ; and
though the primary, perhaps not the most im-
portant, of the many outward arrangements.
Of this historian himself, moreover, in his owii
special department, new and higher things are
now beginning to be expected. From of old,
it was too often to be reproachfully observed
of him, that he dwelt with disproportionate
fondness in Senate-houses, in Battle-fields, nay,
even in King's Antechambers; forgetting, that
far away from such scenes, the mighty tide of
Thought, and Action, was still rolling on its
wondrous course, in gloom and brightness:
and in its thousand remote valleys, a whole
world of Existence, with or without an earthly
sun of Happiness to warm it, with or without
a heavenly sun of Holiness to purify and sanc-
tify it, was blossoming and fading, whether
the "famous victory" were won or lost. The
time seems coming when much of this must
be amended ; and he who sees no world bul
that of courts and camps; and writes only hoW
soldiers were drilled and shot, and how this
ministerial conjurer out-conjured that other,
and then guided, or at least held, something
which he called the rudder of government,
but which was rather the spigot of Taxa-
tion, wherewith, in place of steering, he could
tap, and the more cunningly the nearer the
lees, — will pass for a more or less instructive
Gazetteer, but will no longer be called an His-
torian.

However, the Political Historian, were his
work performed with all conceivable perfec-
tion, can accomplish but a part, and still leaves
I'oom for numenms fellow-labourers. Fore-
most among these comes the Ecclesiastical
Historian; endeavouring with catholic or sec-
tarian view, to trace the progress of the Church,
of that portion of the social establishment,
which respects our rtdigious condition, as the
other portion does our civil, or rather, in the
long run, our economical condition. Rightly
conducted, this department were undoubtedly
the more important of the two; inasmuch as
it concerns us more to understand how man's
moral well-being had been and might be pro-
moted, than to understand in the like sort his
physical well-being; which latter is ultimately
the aim of all political arrangements. For the
physically happiest is simply the safest, the
strongest ; and in all condiiions of Government,
Power (whether of wealth as in these days, or
of arms and adherents as in old days) is the
only outward emblem and purchase-money of
Good. True Good, however, unless we reckon
Pleasure synonymous with it, is said to be
rarely, or rather never, ofl^ered for sale in the
market where that even passes current. So
that, for man's true advantage, not the outward
condition of his life, but the inward and

ON HISTORY.

S23

spiritual, is of prime influence ; not the form of
government he lives under, and the power he
can accumulate there, but the Church he is
a member of, and the degree of moral Eleva-
tion he can acquire by means of its instruc-
tion. Church History, then, did it speak
wisely, would have momentous secrets to
teach us: nay, in its highest degree, it Mere a
sort of continued Holy Writ; our sacred
books being, indeed, only a History of the
primeval Church, as it first arose in man's
noul, and symbolically imbodied itself in his
external life. How far our actual Church His-
torians fall below such unattainable standards,
nay, below quite attainable approximations
thereto, we need not point out. Of the Eccle-
siastical Historian we have to complain, as we
didofhis Political fellow-craftsman, (hat his in-
quiries turn rather on the outward mechanism,
the mere hulls and superficial accidents of the
object, than on the object itself; as if the
church lay in Bishop's Chapter-houses, and
Ecumenic Council Halls, and Cardinals' Con-
claves, and not far more in the hearts of Be-
lieving Men, in whose walk and conversation,
as influenced thereby, its chief manifestations
were to be looked for, and its progress or de-
cline ascertained. The history of the Church
is a History of the Invisible as well as of ihe
Visible Church ; -which latter, if disjoined from
the former, is but a vacant edifice; gilded, it
may be, and overhung with old votive gifts,
yet useless, nay, pestilentially unclean ; to
Avrite whose history is less important than to
forward its downfall.

Of a less ambitious character are the His-
tories that relate to special separate provinces
of human Action; to Sciences, Practical Arts,
Institutions, and the like ; matters which do not
imply an epitome of man's whole interest and
form of life; but wherein, though each is still
connected with all, the spirit of each, at least
its material results, may be in some degree
evolved without so strict reference to that of the
others. Highest in dignity and difliculty, under
this head, would be our histories of Philosophy,
of man's opinions and theories respecting the
nature of his Being, and relations to the Uni-
verse, Visible and Invisible ; which History, in-
deed, were it fitly treated, or fit for right treat-
ment, would be a province of Church History ;
the logical or dogmatical province of it; for
Philosophy, in its true sense, is or should be
the soul, of which Religion, Worship, is the
body; in the healthy state of things the Philn-
sopher and Priest were one and the same. But
Philosophy itself is far enough from wearing
this character; neither have its Historians been
men, generally speaking, that could in the
smallest degree approximate it thereto. Scarce-
ly since the rude era of the Magi and Druids
has that same healthy identification of Priest
and Philosopher had place in any country : but
rather the worship of divine things, and the
i-cicntific investigation of divine things, have
been in quite difl^erent hands, their relations
not fiiendly but hostile. Neither have the
Briickers and Biihles, to say nothing of the

many unhappy Enfields who have treated of
that latter department, been more than barrer
reporters, often unintelligent andunintellieibie
reporters, of the doctrine uttered, without force
to discover how the doctrine originated, or what
reference it bore to its time and country, to the
spii-itual position of mankind there and then.
Nay, such a task did not perhaps lie before
them, as a thing to be attempted.

Art, also, and Literature are intimately blend-
ed with Religion; as it were, outworks and
abutments, by which that highest pinnacle in
our inward wt)rld gradually connects itself
with the general level, and becomes accessible
therefrom. He who should write a proj>er
History of Poetry, would depict I'or us the suc-
cessive Revelations which man had obtained
of the Spirit of Nature ; under what aspects he
had caught and endeavoured to budy forth some
glimpse of that unspeakable Beauty, which in
its highest clearness is Religion, is the inspira'
tion of a Prophet, yet in one or the other de-
gree must inspire every true Singer, were his
theme never so humble. We should see by
what steps men had ascended to the Temple;
how near they had approached ; by what ill
hap they had, for long periods, turned away
from it, and grovelled on the plain with no
music in the air, or blindly struggled to-
wards other heights. That among all our
Eichhorns and Wartons theie is no such His-
torian, must be too clear to every one. N'^ver-
theless let us not despair of Car nearer ap-
proaches to that excellence. Above all, let us
keep the Ideal of it ever in our eye; for there-
by alone have we even a chance to reach it.

Our histories of Laws and Constitutions,
wherein many a Montesquieu and Hallam has
laboured with acceptance, are of a much sim-
pler nature, yet deep enough, if thoroughly in-
vestigated ; and useful, wiien authentic, even
with little depth. Then we have Histories of
Medicine, of Mathematics, of Astronomy, Ciun-
merce, Chivalr}', Monkery; and Goguets and
Beckmanns have come forward with what
might be the most bountiful contribution of all,
a History of Inventions. Of all which sorts,
and many more not here enumerated, not yet
devised and put in practice, the inerit and the
proper scheme may require no exposition.

In this manner, though, as above remaiked,
all Actic>n is extended three ways, and the ge-
neral sum of human Action is a whole Universe,
with all limitsof it unknown, does History strive
by running path after patli, through the Impas-
sable, in manifold directions and inter.>ections,
to secure for us some oversight of the Whole;
in which endeavour, if rfach Historian look uell
around him from his path, tracking it out with
the cyi; not, as is more comf on, with the v.oxe,
he may at last prove not altogether unsuccess-
ful. Praying only that increased division of
labour do not here, as elsewhere, aggravate our
already strong Mechanical tendencies, so that
in tlie manual dexterity for parts we lose all
command over the whole; and the hope of any
Philosof)!)}' of History be farther off than ever;
let us all wish her great, .md greater success.

24

S24

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

LUTHER'S PSALM.

[Fkaser's Magazine, 1831.]

Amoxg Luther's Spiritual Songs, of which
various collections have appeared of late
years,* the one entitled June fate Burg istunscr
Gatt is universally regarded as the best; and
indeed still retains its place and devotional use
in the Psalmodies of Protestant Germany. Of
the Tune, which also is by Luther, we have no
copy, and only a second-hand knowledge: to
the original Words, probably never before
printed in England, we subjoin the following
translation ; which, if it possesses the only
merit it can pretend to, that of literal adherence
to the sense, will not prove unacceptable to
our readers. Luther's music is heard daily in
our churches, several of our finest Psalm-tunes
being of his composition. Luther's sentiments,
also, are, or should be, present in many an
English heart; the more interesting to us is
any the smallest articulate expression of these.

The great Reformer's love ofmusic, of poetry,
it has often been remarked, is one of the most
significant features in his character. But, in-
deed, if every great man. Napoleon himself, is
intrinsically a poet, an idealist, with more or
less completeness of utterance, which of all our
great men, in these modern ages, had such an
endowment in that kind as Luther 1 He it was,
emphatically, who stood based on the Spiritual
World of man, and only by the footing and nii-
raculons power he had obtained there, could
work such changes in the Material World. As
a participant and dispenser of divine influences,
he shows himself among human affairs a true
connecting medium and visible Messenger be-
tween Heaven and Earth ; a man, therefore, not
only permitted to enter the sphere of Poetry,
but to dwell in the purest centre thereof: per-
haps the most inspired of all Teachers since
the first apostles of his faith; and thus not
a poet only but a Prophet and God-ordained
Priest, which is the highest form of that
dignity, and of all dignity.

Unhappily, or happily, Luther's poetic feeling
did not so much learn to express itself in fit
Words that take captive every ear, as in fit
Actions, wherein truly, under still more impres-
sive manifestation, the spirit of spheral Melody
resides, and still audibly addresses us. In his
vritlen Poems we find little, save that Strength
of one "whose words," it has been said," were
half-battles;" little of that still Harmony and
blending softness of union which is the last
perfection of Strength ; less of it than even his
conduct often manifested. With words he had
not learned to make pure music; it was by
deeds of Love, or heroic Valour, that he spoke
freely ; in tones, only through his Flute, amid
tears, could the sigh of that strong soul find
utterance.

* For example: Lulher's n-n^'s^/icAe Lierlernehst dessrn
Oedunheni-bcr ilie vivs<'-u, (lierliii, 1S17) : Die LirderLn-
lljer'6 •resaiiiinelt von KoscgarUr. und Raiiibach, .J-c.

Nevertheless, though in imperfect articula*
tion.the same voice, if we will listen well, is to
be heard also in his writings, in his Poems.
The following, for example, jars upon our ears ;
yet is there something in it like the sound of
Alpine avalanches, or the first murmur of
Earthquakes; in the very vastness of which
dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us.
Luther wrote this Song in a time of blackest
threatenings, which, however, could in no wise
become a time of Despair. In those tones,
rugged, broken as they are, do we not recognise
the accent of that summoned man, (summoned
not by Charles the Fifth, but by God Almighty
also,) who answered his friend's warning not to
enter "Worms in this wise: "Were there as
many devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles,
I would on ;" — of him who, alone in that as-
semblage, before all emperors, and principali-
ties, and powers, spoke forth these final and
for ever memorable words : " It is neither safe
nor prudent to do aught against conscience.
Here stand I, I cannot otherwise. God assist
me. Amen!"* It is evident enough that to
this man all Popes' conclaves, and imperial
Diets, and hosts and nations were but weak;
weak as the forest, with all its strong Trees,
may be to the smallest spark of electric Fire>

EINE FESTE BURG 1ST UlfSER GOTT.

Ein' feste Burn- ist unser Gott,

Ein' pule ll'ehr und IVafen ;

Er hi/ft unsfrey ans alter JVoth,

Die uvs jetzt hat bctroffen.

J)er alle hose Fiend,

Mit Ernst ers jetzt meint ;

Gross J\Iac/it und viel List

Sein grausam' Riisfieuch ist,

Auf Erd'n ist niclit seins Glcichen.

Mit unsrer Marht ist nichts gelhan,

Wir sind gar bald verloren :

Es streit't fiir mis der rechte Jilann,

Den Gott selbst lint erkoren.

fVagst du wer cr ist ?

Er heisst Jesus Christ,

Der Herre Zebaoth,

Und ist kein andir Gott,

Das Feld muss er behalten.

Und wenn die Welt voll Tciifel uiir,
Und wollt'n uns gar verschlingcn,
So fWrcliten irir uns nicht su selir,
Es soil uns dock gelingen.
Der F'drstc dicser irelt,
IVie sauer er sich stellt,
Thnt er uns dock nichts ;
Das macht er ist gerirhit,
Ein Worlleia Icann ihn fiillen.

♦ "Till such time, as either by proofs from Holy
Scripture, or hy fiir reiison and arL'iiinent, 1 have been
coiifuteil ami fonvirttd, I cannot and will not recant,

veil ireiler sirhcr iinch gerathcii ist, elwns wider Geicissen
zii thun. Hier sfehe ich, ich kann nicht andcrs Gott
hdfe mir. Annnr'

SCHILLER.

SSi

Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn

Und Keimen Dank dazu haben

Kr ist hey urts wohl avf dem Plan

J\Iit seinen Oeist und Gaben.

JVe/imen sie uns den Lcib,

Gut', Khr', Kind und fVeib,

Lass fahren daltin.

Sie haben's kein Gewinn,

Das Reich Gotles muss uns blcihen.

A safe stronghold our God is still,
A trusty shield and weapon ;
He'll help us clear from all the ill
That hath us now o'ertaken.
The ancient Prince of Hell,
Hath risen with purpose fell ;
Strong mail of Craft and Power
He weareth in this hour,
On Earth is not his fellow.

With force of arms we nothing can,
Full soon were we down-ridden ;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God hitnself hath bidden.

Ask ye. Who is this game?
Christ Jesus is his name,
The Lord Zebaoth's Son,
He and no other one
Shall conquer in the battle.

And were this world all Devils o'er
And watching to devour us,
We lay it not to heart so sore,
Not they can overpower us.
And let the Prince of 111
Look grim as e'er he will.
He harms us not a whit.
For why 1 His doom is writ,
A word shall quickly slay him.

God's Word, for all their craft and force,

One moment will not linger.

But spite of Hell, shall have its course,

' T is written by his finger.

And though they take our life,

Goods, honour, children, wife,

Yet is their profit small ;

These things shall vanish all,

The City of God remaineth.

SCHILLER/

[Fraser's Magazine, 1831.]

To the student of German Literature, or
«f Literature in general, these volumes, pur-
porting to lay open the private intercourse of
two men eminent beyond all others of their
time in that department, will doubtless be a
welcome appearance. Neither Schiller nor
Goethe has ever, that we have hitherto seen,
written worthlessly on any subject, and the
writings here offered us are confidential Let-
ters, relating moreover to a highly important
period in the spiritual history, not of the par-
ties themselves, but of their country likewise;
full of topics, high and low, on which far meaner
talents than theirs might prove interesting.
We have heard and known so much of both
these venerated persons ; of their friendship,
and true co-operation in so many noble endea-
vours, the fruit of which has long been plain
to every one : and now are we to look into
the secret constitution and conditions of all
this; to trace the public result, which is Ideal,
down to its roots in the Common ; how Poets
may live and work poetically among the Prose
things of this world, and Faiists and Tells be
written on rag-paper, and with goose-quills,
like mere Minerva Novels, and songs by a
Person of Quality ! Virtuosos have glass
bee-hives, which they curiously peep into ;
but here truly were a far stranger sort of
honey-making. Nay, apart from virtuosoship,
cr any technical object, what a hold have such
things on our universal curiosity as men ! If
the sympathy we feel with one another is infi-
nite, or nearly so, — in proof of which, do but

• Briefteechsel zitisrhen Schiller und Goethe, in den jnh-
ren 1794 bis 1805. (Correspondence between Schiller
and Goethe in the years 1794—1805.) 1st— 3d Volumes
(1794—1797.) Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1828, 1829.
29

consider the boundless ocean of Gossip (im-
perfect, undistilled Biography) which is emit-
ted and imbibed by the human species daily ;—
if every secret-history, every closed-door's
conversation, how trivial soever, has an inte-
rest for us, then might the conversation of a
Schiller with a Goethe, so rarely do Schillers
meet with Goethes among us, tempt Honesty
itself into eaves-dropping.

Unhappily the conversation flits away for
ever with the hour that witnessed it; and the
Letter and Answer, frank, lively, genial as they
may be, are only a poor emblem and epitome
of it. The living dramatic movement is gone ;
nothing but the cold historical net-product re-
mains for us. It is true, in every confidential
Letter, the writer will, in some measure, more
or less directly depict himself: but nowhere
is Painting, by pen or pencil, so inadequate
as in delineating spiritual Nature. The Py
ramid can be measured in geometric feet, and
the draughtsman represents it, with all its en-
vironment, on canvas, accurately to the eye,
nay Mont-Blanc is embossed in coloured
stucco ; and we have his very type, and minia-
ture fac-simile, in our museums. But for
great Men, let him who would know such,
pray that he may see them daily face to face:
for, in the dim distance, and by the eye of the
imagination, our vision, do what we may, will
be too imperfect. How pale, thin, ineffectual
do the great figures we would fain summon
from History rise before us ! Scarcely as pal-
pable men does our utmost effort body them
forth; oftenest only like Ossian's ghosts, ii»
hazy twilight, with " stars dim twinkling
through their forms." Our Socrates, our Ltt-
ther, after all that we have talked and argued

226

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of ihem, are to most of us quite invisible; the
Sage of Athens, the Monk of Eisleben: not
Persons but Titles. Yet such men, far more
than any Alps or Coliseums, are the true
world-wonders, which it concerns us to behold
clearly, and imprint for ever on our remem-
brance. Great men are the Fire-pillars in this
dark pilgrimage of mankind; they stand as
heavenly Signs, ever-living witnesses of what
has been, prophetic tokens of what may still
be, the revealed, imbodied Possibilities of hu-
man nature ; which greatness he who has
never seen, or rationally conceived of, and
with his whole heart passionately loved and
reverenced, is himself for ever doomed to be
little. How many weighty reasons, how many
'nnocent allurements attract our curiosity to
such men! We would know them, see ihem
visibly, even as we know and see our like:
no hint, no notice that concerns them is super-
fluous or too small for us. Were Gulliver's
conjurer but here, to recall and sensibly bring
back the brave Past, that we might look into
it, and scrutinize it at will ! But, alas, in Na-
ture there is no such conjuring: the great
spirits that have gone before us can survive
only as disembodied Voices ; their form and
distinctive aspect, outward and even in many
respects inward, all whereby they were known
as living, breathing men, has passed into an-
other sphere; from which only History, in
scanty memorials, can evoke some faint resem-
blance of it. The more precious, in spite of
all imperfections, is such History, are such
memorials, that still in some degree preserve
what had otherwise been lost without reco-
very.

For the rest, as to the maxim, often enough in-
culcated on us, that close inspection will abate
our admiration, that only the obscure can be sub-
lime, let us put small faith in it. Here, as in other
provinces, it is not knowledge, but a little know-
ledge, that pufleth up, and for wonder at the
thing known substitutes mere wonder at the
knower thereof: to a sciolist, the starry hea-
vens revolving in dead mechanism, may be
less than a Jacob's vision; but to the Newton
they are more ; for the same God still dwells
enthroned there, and holy Influences, like An-
gels, still ascend and descend; and this clearer
vision of a little but renders the remaining
mystery the deeper and more divine. So lilce-
wise is it with true spiritual greatness. On
the whole, that theory of "no man being a
hero to his valet," carries us but a little way
into the real nature of the case. With a su-
perficial meaning which is plain enough, it
esientially holds good only of such heroes as
are false, or else of such valets as are too ge-
nuine, as are shoulder-knotted and brass-lack-
ered in soul as well as in body: of other sorts
it does not hold. Milton was still a hero to
the good El wood. But we dwell not on that
mean doctrine, which, true or false, may be
left to itself the more safely, as in practice it
i> of little or no immediate import. For were
it never so true, yet, unless we preferred huge
bug-bears to small realities, our practical
course were still the same: to inquire, to in-
vestigate by all methods, till we saw clearly.

What worth in this biographical point of

view, the " Correspondence of Schiller and
Goethe" may have, we shall not attempt de-
termining here ; the rather as only a portion
of the work, and to judge by the space of time
included in it, only a small portion, is yet be-
fore us. Nay, perhaps its full worth will not
become apparent till a future age, when the
persons and concerns it treats of shall have
assumed their proper relative magnitude and
stand disencumbered, and for ever separated
from contemporary trivialities, which, for the
present, with their hollow, transient bulk, so
mar our estimate. Two centuries ago, Lei-
cester and Essex might be the wonders of
England; their Kenilworth festivities and Ca-
diz Expeditions seemed the great occurrences
of that day; but what should we now give,
were these all forgotten and some " Corre-
spondence between Shakspeare and Ben Jon-
son" suddenly brought to light !

One valuable quality these letters of Schil-
ler and Goethe everywhere exhibit, that of
truth : whatever we do learn from them, whe-
ther in the shape of fact or of opinion, may
be relied on as genuine. There is a tone of
entire sincerity in that style : a constant natu-
ral courtesy nowhere obstructs the right free-
dom of word or thought; indeed, no ends but
honourable ones, and generally of a mutual
interest, are before either party; thus neither
needs to veil, still less to mask himself from
the other; the two self-portraits, so far as they
are filled up, may be looked upon as real like-
nesses. Perhaps, to mostreaders, some laiger
intermixture of what we should call domestic
interest, of ordinary human concerns, and the
hopes, fears, and other feelings these excite,
would have improved the work; which as it is,
not indeed without pleasant exceptions, turns
mostly on compositions, and publications, and
philosophies, and other such high matters.
This, we believe, is a rare fault in modern
Correspondences; where generally the oppo-
site fault is complained of, and except mere
temporalities, good and evil hap of the corre-
sponding parties, their state of purse, heart,
and nervous system, and the moods and hu-
mours these give rise to, — little stands record-
ed for us. It may be too tliat nntive readers
will feel such a want less than foreigners do,
whose curiosity in this instance is equally mi-
nute, and to M'hom so many details, familiar
enough in the country itself, mnst be unknown.
Ai. all events, it is to be remembered that Schil-
ler and Goethe are, in strict speech, Literary
Men ; for whom their social life is only as the
dwelling-place and outward tabernacle of their
spiritual life; which latter is the one thing
needful ; the other, except in subserviency to
this, meriting no attention, or the least possi-
ble. Besides, a? cultivated men, perhaps even
by natural temper, they are not in the habit of
yielding to violent emotions of any kind, still
less of unfolding and depicting such, by letter,
even to closest intimates; a turn of mind
which, if it diminished the warmth of their
epistolary intercourse, must have increased
their private happiness, and so, by their friends,
can hardly be regretted. He who wears his
heart on his sleeve, will often have to lament
aloud that daws peck at it: he who does

SCHILLER.

2S7

not, will spare himself such lamenting. Of
Rousseau's Confessions, whatever value we
assign thai sort of ware, there is no vestige in
this Correspondence.

Meanwhile, many cheerful, honest little do-
mestic touches are given here and there;
which we can accept gladly, with no worse
censure than wishing that there had been more.
But this Correspondence has another and more
proper aspect, under which, if rightly consi-
dered, it possesses a far higher interest than
most domestic delineations could have impart-
ed. It shows us two high, creative, truly poetic
minds, unweariedly cultivating themselves, un-
weariedly advancing from one measure of
strength and clearness to another; whereby to
such as travel, we say not on the same road,
for this few can do, but in the same direction,
'as all should do, the richest psychological and
practical lesson is laid out; from which men
of every intellectual degree may learn some-
thing, and he that is of ihe iiighest degree will
probably learn the most. What value lies in
this lesson, moreover, ma}' be expected to in-
crease in an increasing ratio as the Correspond-
ence proceeds, and a larger space, with broad-
er differences of advancement, comes into
view ; especially as respects Schiller, the
younger and more susceptive of the two; for
whom, in particular, these eleven years may
be said to comprise the most important era of
his culture; indeed, the whole history of his
progress therein, from the time when he first
found the right path, and properly became
progressive.

But to enter farther on the merits and special
qualities of these Letters, which, on all hands,
will be regarded as a publication of real value,
both intrinsic and extrinsic, is not our task
now. Of the frank, kind, mutually-res))ectful
relation that manifests itself between the two
Correspondents; of their several epistolary
styles, and the worth of each, and whatever
else characterizes this work as a series of bio-
graphical documents, or of philosophical views,
we may at some future period have occasion
to speak; certain detached speculations and
indications will of themselves come before us
in the course of our present undertaking.
Meanwhile to British Wfiders, the chief object
is not the Letters, but the writers of them. Of
Goethe the public already know something:
of Schiller, less is known, and our wish is to
bring him into closer approximation with our
readers.

Indeed, had we considered only his impor-
tance in German, or vve may now say, in Eu-
ropean Literature, Schiller might well have de-
manded an earlier notice in our Journal. As
a man of true poetical and philosophical ge-
nius, who proved this high endowment both in
his conduct, and by a long series of Writings
which manifest it to all; nay, even as a man
so eminently admired by his nation, while
he lived, and whose fame, there and abroad,
during the twenty-five years since his decease,
has been constantly expanding and confirm-
ing itself, he appears with such claims as can
belong only to a small numberof men. If we
have seemed negligent of Schiller, want of
affection was nowise the cause. Our admira-

tion for him is of old standing, and has not
abated, as it ripened into calm, loving estima
tion. But to English expositors of Foreigit
Literature, at this epoch, there will be many
more pressing duties than that of expounding
Schiller. To a considerable extent, Schiller
may be said to expound himself. His great-
ness is of a simple kind; his manner of dis-
playing it is, for most part, apprehensible to
every one. — Besides, of all German Writers,
ranking in any such class as his, Klopstock
scarcely excepted, he has the least nationality :
his character indeed is German, if German
mean true, earnest, nobly-humane; but his
mode of thought, and mode of utterance, all
but the mere vocables of it, are European.
Accordingly, it is to be observed, no German
Writer has had such acceptance with foreign-
ers ; has been so instantaneously admitted
into favour, at least any favour which proved
permanent. Among the French, for example,
Schiller is almost naturalized ; translated, com-
mented upon, by men of whom Constant is
one; even brought upon the stage, and by a
large class of critics vehemently extolled there.
Indeed, to the Romanticist class, in all coun-
tries, Schiller is naturally the pattern man and
great master; as it were a sort of ambassador
and mediator, were mediation possible, be-
tween the Old School and the New ; pointing to
his own Works, as to a glittering bridge, that
will lead pleasantly from the Versailles gar-
dening and artificial hydraulics of the one,
into the true Ginnistan and wonderland of the
other. With ourselves too, who are troubled
with no controversies on Romanticism and
Classicism, — the Bowles controversy on Pope
having long since evaporated without result,
and all critical guild-brethren now working
diligently with one accord, in the calmer sphere
of Vapidism, or even Nullism, — Schiller is no
less universally esteemed by persons ofany feel-
ing for poetry. To readersof German, and these
are increasing everywhere a hundred fold, he is
one of the earliest studies; and the dullest,
cannot study him without some perception of
his beauties. For the un-German, again, we
have Translations in abundance and supera-
bundance; through which, under whatever
distortion, however shorn of his beams, some
image of this poetical sun must force itself i
and in susceptive hearts, awaken love, and a
desire for more immediate insight. So thai
now, we suppose, anywhere in England, a man
who denied that Schiller was a Poet woulr^
himself be, from every side, declared a Prosa-
ist, and thereby summarily enough put t(
silence.

All which being so, the weightiest part of oui
duty, that of preliUiinary pleading for Schiller-
of asserting rank and excellence for him while
a stranger, and to judges suspicious of coun-
terfeits, is taken ofl'our hands. The knowledge
of his works is silently and rapidly proceeding ;
in the only way by which true knowiedge can
be attained, by loving study of them, in many
an inquiring, candid mind. Moreover, a?
remarked above, Schiller's works, generally
speaking, require little commentary: for a
man of such excellence, for a true Poet Wf
should say that his-worth lies singularly opea

228

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

nay, in great part of his writings, beyond such
open universally recognisable worth, there is no
other to be sought.

Yet doubtless if he is a Poet, a genuine in-
terpreter of the Invisible, Criticism will have a
deeper duty to discharge for him. Every Poet,
be his outward lot what it may, finds himself
born in the midst of Prose ; he has to struggle
from the littleness and obstruction of an Actual
world, into the freedom and infinitude of an
Ideal; and the history of such struggle, which
is the history of his life, cannot be other than
instructive. His is a high, laborious, unre-
quited, or only self-requited endeavour, which,
however, by the law of his being, he is com-
pelled to undertake, and must prevail in, or be
permanently wretched; nay the more wretched,
the nobler his gifts are. For it is the deep, in-
born claim of his whole spiritual nature, and
will not and must not go unanswered. His
youthful unrest, that "unrest of genius," often
so wayward in its character, is the dim antici-
pation of this; the mysterious, all-powerful
mandate, as from Heaven, to prepare himself,
to purify himself, for the vocation wherewith
he is called. And yet how few can fulfil this
mandate, how few ever earnestly give heed to
it! Of the thousand jinglin? dilettanti, whose
jingle dies with the hour which it harmlessly
or hurtfully amused, we say nothing here: to
these, as to the mass of men, such calls for
spiritual perfection speak only in whispers,
drowned without difficulty in the din and dis-
sipation of the world. But even for the Byron,
for the Burns, whose ear is quick for celestial
messages, in whom "speaks the prophesying
spirit," in awful prophetic voice, how hard is
it to "take no counsel with flesh and blood,"
and instead of living and writing for the Day
that passes over them, live and write for the
Eternity that rests and abides over Ihem ; in-
stead of living commodiously in the Half, the
Reputable, the Plausible, "to live resolutely in
the Whole, the Good, the True !"* Such Half-
ness, such halting between two opinions, such
painful, altogether fruitless negotiating between
Truth and Falsehood, has been the besetting
sin, and chief misery, of mankind in all ages.
Nay, in our age, it has christened itself Moder-
ation, a prudent taking of the middle course;
and passes current among us as a virtue. How
virtuous it is, the withered condition of many
a once ingenious nature that has lived by this
method — the broken or breaking heart of many
a noble nature that could not live by it — speak
aloud, did we but listen.

And now, when from among so many ship-
wrecks and misventures one goodly vessel
comes to land, we joyfully survey its rich
cargo, and hasten to question the crew on the
fortunes of their voyage. Among the crowd
of unciiliivated and miscultivated writers, the
high, pure Schiller stands before us with a like
distinction. We ask, how was this man suc-
ce'^sful? — From what peculiar point of view
did he attempt penetrating the secret of spiritual
Nature?— From what region of Prose rise into
Poetry? — Under what outward accidents —
with what inward faculties — by what methods
-with what result?

* Ji'i Oanzen, Quten, Wahren resolut zu /eien.— Goethe.

For any thorough or final answer to snch
questions, it is evident enough, neither our own
means, northe present situation of our readers,
in regard to this matter, are in any measure
adequate. Nevertheless, the imperfect begin-
ning must be made, before the perfect result
can appear. Some slight far-off glance over
the character of the man, as he looked and
lived, in Action and m Poetry, will not, perhaps,
be unacceptable from us: for such as know
little of Schiller, it may be an opening of the
way to belter knowledge; for such as are
already familiar with him, it may be a stating
in words of what they themselves have often
thought; and welcome, therefore, as the con-
firming testimony of a second witness.

Of Schiller's personal history there are
accounts in various accessible publications;
so that, we suppose, no formal Narrative of
his Life, which may now be considered gene-
rally known, is necessary here. Such as are
curious on the subject, and still uninformed,
may f?nd some satisfaction in the Life of Srhil'
ler, (London, 1824;) in the J'ie de Schiller, (pre-
fixed to the French Translation of his Dramatic
Work's;) in the Jrrnimt of Srhilkr, (prefixed to
the English Translation of his Thirty-Years'
War, Edinburgh, 1828;) and, doubtless, in
many other Essays, known to us only by title.
Nay, in the survey we propose to make of his
character, practical as well as speculative, the
main facts of his outward history will of them-
selves come to light.

Schiller's Life is emphatically a literary one;
that of a man existing only for Contemplation;
guided forward by the pursuit of ideal things,
and seeking and findins: his true welfare there-
in. A singular simplicity characterizes it, — a
remoteness from whatever is called business;
an aversion to the tumults of business, an in-
difference to its prizes, grows with him from
year to year. He holds no office; scarcely for
a little while a University Professorship; he
covets no promotion ; has no stock of money ;
and shows no discontent with these arrange-
ments. Nay, M'hen permanent sickness, con-
tinual pain of body, is added to them, he still
seems happy: these last fifteen years of his
life are, spiritually considered, the clearest and
most productive of all. We might say, there
is something priest-like in that Life of his:
under quite another colour and environment,
yet with aims differing in form rather than in
essence, it has a priest-like stillness, a priest-
like purity; nay, if for the Catholic Faith, we
substitute the Ideal of Art, and for Convent
Rules, Moral, .Esthetic Laws, it has even
something of a monastic character. By the
three monastic vows he was not bound; yet
vows of as high and difl^cult a kind, both to do
and to forbear, he had taken on him; and his
happiness and whole business lay in observing
them. Thus immured, not in cloisters of
stone and mortar, yet in cloisters of the mind,
which separate him as impassably from the
vulgar, he works and meditates only on -what
we may call Divine things; his familiar talk,
his very recreations, the whole actings and
fancyings of his daily existence, tend thither.

As in the life of a Holy Man, too, so in that
of Schiller, there is but one great epoch: that

SCHILLER.

tfi talcing on him crtese Literary Vows ; of finally
extricating himself from the distractions of the
world, and consecrating his whole future days
to Wisdom. What lies before this epoch, and
■what lies after it, have two altogether different
characters. The former is worldly, and occu-
pied with worldly vicissitudes; the latter is
spiritual, of calm tenor, marked to himself
only by his growth in inward clearness, to the
world only by the peaceable fruits of this. It
is to the first of these periods that we shall
here chieily direct ourselves.

In his parentage, and the circumstances of
his earlier years, we may reckon him fortu-
nate. His parents, indeed, are not rich, nor
even otherwise independent: yet neither are
they meanly poor; and warm atfection, a true
honest character, ripened in both into religion,
not without an openness for knowledge, and
even considerable intellectual culture, makes
amends for every defect- The Boy, too, is
himself of a character in which, to the ob-
servant, lies the richest promise. A modest,
still nature, apt for all instruction in heart or
head ; flashes of liveliness, of impetuosity,
from time to time breaking through. That
little anecdote of the Thunder-storm is so
graceful in its littleness, that one cannot but
hope it may be authentic.

" Once, it is said, during a tremendous thun-
der-storm, his father missed him in the young
group within doors ; none of the sisters could
tell what was become of Fritz, and the old man
grew at length so anxious that he was forced to
go out in quest of him. Fritz was scarcely
passed the age of infancy, and knew not the
dangers of a scene so awful. His father found
him at last, in a solitary place of the neigh-
bourhood, perched on the branch of a tree,
gazing at the tempestuous face of the sky, and
watching the flashes as in succession they
spread their lurid gloom over it. To the re-
primands of his parent, the whimpering truant
pleaded in extenuation, ' that the Lightning was
so beautiful, and he wished to see where it
was coming from !' "

In his village-school he reads the Classics
with diligence, without relish; at home, with
far deeper feelings, the Bible; and already his
young heart is caught with that mystic grandeur
of the Hebrew Prophets. His devout nature,
moulded by the pious habits of his parents, in-
clines him to be a clergyman : a clergyman,
indeed, he proved; only the Church he minis-
tered in was the Catholic, a far more Catholic
than that false Romish one. But already in
his ninth year, not without rapturous amaze-
ment, and a lasting remembrance, he had seen
the " splendours of the Ludwigsburg Theatre ;"
and so, unconsciously, cast a glimpse into that
world, where, by accident or natural preference,
his own genius was one day to work out its
noblest triumphs.

Before the end of his boyhood, however,
begins a far harsher era for Schiller ; wherein,
under quite other nurture, other faculties were
to be developed in him. He must enter on a
scene of oppression, distortion, isolation ; under
which, for the present, the fairest years of his
existence are painfully crushed down. But
this too has its wholesome influences on him ;

for there is in genius that alchymy which con«
verts all metals into gold ; which from suffer
ing educes strength, from error clearer wisdom,
from all things good.

" The Duke of Wurtemberg had lately
founded a free seminary for certain branches
of professional education: it was first set up
at Solitude, one of his country residences;
and had now been transferred to Stuttgard,
where, under an improved form, and with the
name of Karls-sriinle, we believe it still exists.
The Duke proposed to give the sons of his
military officers a preferable claim to the
benefits of this institution; and having formed
a good opinion both of Schiller and his father,
he invited the former to profit by this oppor-
tunity. The offer occasioned great embarrass-
ment: the young man and his parents were
alike determined in favour of the Church, a
project with which this new one was incon-
sistent. Their embarrassment was but in-
creased, when the Duke, on learning the
nature of their scruples, desired them to think
well before they decided. It was out of fear, and
with reluctance that his proposal was accepted.
Schiller enrolled himself in 1773; and turned,
with a heavy heart, from freednm and cherished
hopes, to Greek, and seclusion, and Law.

" His anticipations proved to be but too
just: the six years which he spent in this Es-
tablishment were the most harassing and
comfortless of his life. The Stuttgard system
of education seems to have been formed on the
principle, not of cherishing and correcting
nature, but of rooting it out, and supplying its
place by something better. The process of
teaching and living was conducted with the
stiff" formality of military drilling; every thing
went on by statute and ordinance; there was
no scope for the exercise of free-will, no allow-
ance for the varieties of original structure. A
scholar might possess what instincts or capa-
cities he pleased ; the ' regulations of the
school' took no account of this; he must fit
himself into the common mould, which, like
the old Giant's bed, stood there, appointed by
superior authority, to be filled alike by the
great and the little. The same strict and nar-
row course of reading and composition was
marked out for each beforehand, and it was by
stealth if he read or wrote any thing beside.
Their domestic economy was regulated in the
same spirit as their preceptorial: it consisted
of the same sedulous exclusion of all that
could border on pleasure, or give any exercise
to choice. The pupils were kept apart from
the conversation or sight of any person but
their teachers ; none ever got beyond the pre-
cincts of despotism to snatch even a fearful
joy ; their very amusements proceeded by the
word of command.

"How grievous all this must have been it is
easy to conceive. To Schiller it was more
grievous than to any other. Of an ardent and
impetuous, yet delicate nature, whilst his dis
contentment devoured him internally, he wab
too modest to give it the relief of utterance by
deeds or words. Locked up within himself,
he suffered deeply, but without complaining
Some of his Letters written during this period
have been preserved : they exhibit the inef
U

230

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

fertual struggles of a fervid and busy mind,
veiling its many chagrins under a certain
dreamy patience, which cnly shows them more
painfully. He porsd over his lexicons, and
grammars and insipid tasks, with an artificial
composure; but his spirit pined within him
like a captive's, when he looked forth into the
cheerful world, or recollected the aflection of
parents, the hopes and frolicsome enjoyments
of past years."

Youth is to all the glad season of life; but
often only by what it hopes, not by what it
attains, or what it escapes. In these sufferings
of Schiller's, many a one may say, there is
nothing unexampled: could not the history of
every Eton Scholar, of every poor Midship-
man, with his rudely-broken domestic ties, his
privations, persecutions, and cheerless solitude
of heart, equal or outdo them 1 In respect of
these, its palpable hardships, perhaps it might ;
and be still very miserable. But the hardship
which presses heaviest on Schiller lies deeper
than all these; out of which the natural fire of
almost any young heart will sooner or later
rise victorious. His worst oppression is an
oppression of the moral sense; a fettering not
of the Desires only, but of the pure reasonable
Will : for besides all outward sufferings, his
mind is driven from its true aim, dimly yet
invincibly felt to be the true one; and turned,
by sheer violence, into one which it feels to be
false. Not in Law, with its profits and digni-
ties ; not in Medicine, which he willingly, yet
still hopelessly exchanged for Law; not in the
routine of any marketable occupation, how
gainful or honoured soever, can his soul find
content and a home: only in some far purer
and higher region of Activity; for which he
has yet no name; which he once fancied to be
the Church, which at length he discovers to be
Poetry. Nor is this any transient, boyish
wilfulness, but a deep-seated, earnest, ineradi-
cable longing, the dim purpose of his whole
inner man. Nevertheless as a transient, boyish
wilfulness his teachers must regard it, and deal
with it; and not till after the fiercest contest,
and a clear victory, will its true nature be
recognised. Herein lay the sharpest sting of
Schiller's ill fortune ; his whole mind is
wrenched asunder; he has no rallying point
in his misery; he is suffering and toiling for a
wrong object. " A singular miscalculation of
Nature," he says long afterwards, " had com-
bined my poetical tendencies with the place
of my birth. Any disposition to Poetry did
violence to the laws of the Institution where I
was educated, and contradicted the plan of its
founder. For eight years, my enthusiasm
struggled with military discipline ; but the
passion for Poetry is vehement and fiery as a
first love. What discipline was meant to ex-
tinguish, it blew into a flame. To escape from
arrangements that tortured me, my heart
sought refuge in the world of ideas, when as
yet I was unacquainted with the world of
realities, from which iron bars excluded me."

Doubtless Schiller's own prudence had
already taught him that in order to live poeti-
cally, it was first requisite to live; that he
should and must, as himself expresses it, "for-
*ake the balmy climate of Pindus for the

Greenland of a barren and dreary science of
terms." But the dull work of this Greenland
once accomplished, he might rationally hope
that his task was done; that the "leisure
gained by superior diligence" would be his
own, for Poetry, or whatever eiSe he pleased.
Truly, it was " intolerable and degrading to b€
hemmed in still farther by the caprices of
severe and formal pedagogues." No wonder
that Schiller "brooded gloomily" over bis
situation. But what was to be done 1 "Many
plans he formed for deliverance; sometimes
he would escape in secret to catch a glimpse
of the free and busy world, to him forbidden:
sometimes he laid schemes for utterly aban-
doning a place which he abhorred, and trusting
to fortune for the rest." But he is young, iia-
experienced, unprovided; without help, or
counsel : there is nothing to be done, but endure.

"Under such corroding and continual vexa-
tions," says his Biographer, "an ordinary
spirit would have sunk at length; vrould have
gradually given up its loftier aspirations, and
sought refuge in vicious indulgence, or at best
have sullenly harnessed itself into the yoke,
and plodded through existence ; weary, dis-
contented, and broken, ever casting back a
hankering look on the dreams of his youth,
and ever without power to realize tliem. But
Schiller was no ordinary character, and did
not act like one. Beneath a cold and simple |
exterior, dignified with no artificial attractions, 1
and marred in its native amiableness by the
incessant obstruction, the isolation and pain-
ful destitutions under which he lived, there
was concealed a burning energy of soul, which
no o'bstruction could extinguish. The hard j
circumstances of his fortune had prevented |
the natural development of his m^ind; his 1
faculties had been cramped and misdirected;
but they had gathered strength by opposition
and the habit of self-dependence which it en-
couraged. His thoxights, unguided by a teacher,
had sounded into the depths of his own nature
and the mysteries of his own fate; his feelings
and passions, unshared, by any other heart, had
been driven back upon his own ; where, like
the volcanic fire that smoulders and fuses in
secret, they accumulated till their force grew
irresistible.

" Hitherto Schiller had passed for an unpro-
fitable, discontented, and a disobedient Boy:
but the time was now come when the gyves
of school-discipline could no longer cripple
and distort the giant might of his nature: be
stood forth as a Man, and wrenched asunder
his fetters with a force that was felt at the ex-
tremities of Europe. The publication of the
Bobbers forms an era not only in Schiller's his-
tory, but in the literature of the World ; and
there seems no doubt that, but for so mean a
cause as the perverted discipline of the Stutt-
gard school, we had never seen this tragedy.
Schiller commenced it in bis nineteenth year;
and the circumstances under which it was
composed are to be traced in all its parts.

"Translations of the work soon appeared
in almost all the languages of Europe,* and

♦ Our English translation, one of ttie washiest, was
executed (we have heen told) in Edinburgh by a "Lord
of Session," otherwise not unknown in Literature : who

SCHILLER.

881

were read in almost all of "them with a deep
interest, compounded of admiration and aver-
sion, according to the relative proportions of
sensibility and judgment in the various minds
which contemplated the subject. In Germany,
the enthusiasm which the Robbers excited was
extreme. The young author had burst upon
the world like a meteor; and surprise, for a
time, suspended the power of cool and rational
criticism. In the ferment produced by the
universal discussion of this single topic, the
poet was magnified above his natural dimen-
sions, great as they were : and though the
general sentence was loudly in his favour, yet
he found detractors as well as praisers, and
both equally beyond the limits of moderation.

" But the tragedy of the Robbers produced
for its Author some consequences of a kind
much more sensible than these. We have
called it the signal of Schiller's deliverance
from school tyranny and military constraint ;
but its operation in this respect was not imme-
diate. At first it seemed to involve him more
deeply than before. He had finished the
original sketch of it in 1778; but for fear of
ofi'encc, he kept it secret till his medical studies
were completed. These, in the mean time, he
had pursued with sufficient assiduity to merit
the usual honours. In 1780, he had, in con-
sequence, obtained the post of Surgeon to the
regiment ./luge, in the Wurtemberg army. This
advancement enabled him to complete his pro-
ject,— to print the Bobbers at his own expense;
not being able to find any bookseller that
would undertake it. The nature of the work,
and the universal interest it awakened, drew
attention to the private circumstances of the
Author, whom the Robbers, as well as other
pieces of his writing that had found their way
into the periodical publications of the time,
sufficiently showed to be no common man.
Many grave persons were ofl^ended at the vehe-
ment sentiments expressed in the Robbers: and
the unquestioned ability with which these ex-
travagances were expressed but made the mat-
ter worse. To Schiller's superiors, above all,
such things were inconceivable ; he might per-
haps be a very great genius, but was certainly
a dangerous servant for His Highness, the
Grand Duke of Wurteniberg. Officious people
mingled themselves in the afiair: nay, the
graziers of the Alps were brought to bear upon
it. The Grisons' magistrates, it appeared, had
seen the book, and were mortally huffed at their
people's being there spoken of, according to a
Swabian adage, as common higlnciiytnen.* They
complained in the Hamburg Correspondent ; and

went to worl{ under deepest conce.ilment, lest evil mipht
befal him. The confidential Devil, now an Angel, who
mysteriously carried him tlie proof-slieets, is our in-
formant.

* Tlie ol)noxious passage has been carefully expunged
from suhspqiienl editions It was in the third Scene of
tlie second Act. .Spiegellirr!,', discoursing wilh Raz-
niann, observes, "An hcmest man you may form of
windle-straws ; but to make a rascal you must have
grist: besides there is a national genius in it — a certain
rascal-climate, so to speak." In the first Edition there
was added, " (?o to the Orisons, for instmirc ; that is
what J call the Thief's Jithens." The patriot who stood
forth, on this occasion, for the honour of the Grisons, to
deny this weighty charge, and denounce the crime of
making it, was (not Dogberry or Verges, but) "one of
the noble family of Salts."

a sort of jackall, at Ludwigsburg, one Walter,
whose name deserves to be thus kept in mind,
volunteered to plead their cause before the
Grand Duke.

"Informed of all these circuinstances, the
Grand Duke expressed disapprobation of
Schiller's poetical labours in the most une-
quivocal terms. Schiller was at length sum-
moned before him ; and it then turned out, that
his Highness was not only dissatisfied with the
moral or political errors of the work, but
scandalized moreover at its want of literary
merit. In this latter respect, he was kind
enough to profiler his own services. But Schil-
ler seems to have received the proposal with
no sufficient gratitude; and the interview
passed without advantage to either party. It
terminated in the Duke's commanding Schiller
to abide by medical subjects: or at least, to
beware of writing any more poetry, without
submitting it to his inspection.

******

"Various new mortifications awaited Schil-
ler. It was in vain that he discharged the
humble duties of his station with the most
strict fidelity, and even, it is said, with superior
skill: he was a suspected person, and his
most innocent actions were misconstrued, his
slightest faults were visited with the full mea-
sure of official severity. * * * His free spirit
shrunk at the prospect of wasting its strength
in strife against the pitiful constraints, the
minute and endless persecutions of men, who
knew him not, yet had his fortune in their
hands: the idea of dungeons and jailers
haunted and tortured his mind; and the means
of escaping ihem, the renunciation of poetry,
the source of all his joy, if likewise of many
woes, the radiant guiding-star of his turbid
and obscure existence, seemed a sentence of
death to all that was dignified, and delightful,
and worth retaining, in his character. * * *
With the natural feeling of a young author, he
had ventured to go in secret, and witness the
first representation of his Tragedy, at Man-
heim. His incognito did not conceal him;
he was put under arrest, during a week, for
this offence: and as the punishment did not
deter him from again transgressing in a similar
manner, he learned that it was in contempla-
tion to try more rigorous measures with him.
Dark hints were given to him of some exem-
plary as well as imminent severity: and Dai-
berg's aid, the sole hope of averting it by quiet
means, was distant and dubious. Schiller saw
himself reduced to extremities. Beleaguered
with present distresses, and the most horrible,
forebodings, on every side; roused to the
highest pitch of indignation, yet forced to keep
silence, and wear the face of patience, he could
endure this maddening constraint no longer.
He resolved to be free, at whatever risk; to
abandon advantages which he could not buy at
such a price ; to quit his step-dame home, and
go forth, though friendless and alone, to seek
his fort line in the great market of life. Some
foreign Duke or Prince was arriving at Stutt-
gard ; and all the people were in movement,
witnessing Ihespectable of his entrance : Schil-
ler seized this opportunity of retiring from th««
city, careless whither he went, so he got be

S3S

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

yond the reach of turnkeys, and Grand Dukes,
and commanding officers. It was in the month
of October, 1782, his twenty-third year." — Life
of Schiller, Part I.

Such were the circumstances under which
Schiller rose to manhood. We see them per-
manently influence his character; but there is
also a strength in himself which on the whole
triumphs over them. The kindly and the un-
kindly alike lead him towards the goal. In
childhood, the most unheeded, but by far the
most important era of existence, — as it were,
the still Creation-days of the whole future man,
— he had breathed the only wholesome atmo-
sphere, a soft atmosphere of affection and joy:
the invisible seeds which are one day to ripen
into clear Devoutness, and all humane Virtue,
are happily sown in him. Not till he has
gathered force for resistance, does the time of
contradiction, of being "purified by suflering,"
arrive. For this contradiction, too, we have
to thank those Stuttgard Schoolmasters and
their purblind Duke. Had the system they fol-
lowed been a milder, more reasonable one, we
should not indeed have altogether lost our
Poet, for the Poetry lay in his inmost soul, and
could not remain unuttered ; but we might
well have found him under a far inferior cha-
racter ; not dependent on himself and truth, but
dependent on the world and its gifts ; not
standing on a native, everlasting basis, but on
an accidental, transient one.

tu Schiller himself, as manifested in these
emergencies, we already trace the chief fea-
tures which distinguish him through life. A
tenderness, a sensitive delicacy, aggravated
under that harsh treatment, issues in a certain
shyness and reserve: which, as conjoined
moreover with habits of internal and not of ex-
ternal activity, might in time have worked
itself, had his natural temper been less warm
and affectionate, into timorous self-seclusion,
dissociality, and even positive misanthropy.
Nay, generally viewed, there is much in Schil-
ler at this epoch that to a careless observer
might have passed for weakness ; as indeed,
for such observers, weakness, and fi.neness of
nature are easily confounded. One element
of strength, however, and the root of all
strength, he throughout evinces: he wills one
thing, and knows what he wills. His mind
has a purpose, and still better, a right purpose.
He already loves true spiritual Beauty, with
his whole heart and his whole soul; and for
the attainment, for the pursuit of this, is pre-
pared to make all sacrifices. As a dim instinct,
under vague forms, this aim first appears ;
gains force with his force, clearness in the op-
position it must conquer; and at length declares
itself, with a peremptory emphasis which will
admit of no contradiction.

As a mere piece of literary history, these
passages of Schiller's life are not without
interest; this is a "persecution for conscience-
\ sake," such as has oftener befallen heiTsy in
Religion, than heresy in Literature; a blind
struggle to extinguish, by physical violence,
the inward, celestial light of a human soul;
and here in regard to Literature, as in regard
to Religion, it always is an ineffectual struggle.
Doubtless, us religious Inquisitors have often

done, these secular Inquis/tors meant honestly
in persecuting; and since the matter went
well in spite of them, their interference with
it may be forgiven and furgotten. We have
dwelt the longer on these proceedings of theirs,
because they bring us to the grand crisis of
Schiller's history, and for the first time show
us his will decisively asserting itself, deci-
sively pronouncing the law whereby his whole
future life is to be governed. He himself says,
he "went empty away; empty in purse and
hope." Yet the mind that dwelt in him was
still there with its gifts; and the task of his
existence now lay undivided before liim. He
is henceforth a Literary Man ; and need appear
in no other character. "All my connections,"
he could ere long say, "are now dissolved.
The public is now all to me ; my study, my
sovereign, my confidant. To the public alone
I from this time belong; before this and
no other tribunal will I place myself; this
alone do I reverence and fear. Something
majestic hovers before me, as I determine now
to wear no other fetters but the sentence of the
world, to appeal to no other throne but the soul
of man."*

In his subsequent life, with all varieties of
outward fortune, we find a noble inward unity.
That love of Literature, and that resolution to
abide by it at all hazards, do not forsake him.
He wanders through the world, looks at it
under many phases ; mingles in the joys of
social life; is a husband, father; experiences
all the common destinies of man ; but the same
" radiant guiding-slar" which, often obscured,
had led him safe through the perplexities of
his youth, now shines on him with unwavering
light. In all relations and conditions, Schiller
is blameless, amiable ; he is even little tempted
to err. That high purpose alter spiritual pei*-
fection, which with him was a love of Poetry,
and an unwearied, active love, is itself, when
pure and supreme, the necessary parent of
good conduct, as of noble feeling. With all
men it should be pure and supreme; for in on?
or the other shape it is the true end of man'.s
life. Neither in any man is it ever wholly
obliterated ; with the most, however, it remains
a passive sentiment, an idle wish. And everi
with the small residue of men in whom it
attains some measure of activity, who would
be Poets in act or word, how seldom is it the
sincere and highest purpose, how seldom un-
mixed with vulgar ambition, and low, mere
earthly aims, which distort or utterly pervert
its manifestations! With Schiller, again, it,
was the one thing needful; the first duty, for
which all other duties worked together, under
which all other duties quietly prospered, as
under their rightful sovereign. Worldly pre-
ferment, fame itself, he did not covet: yet of
fame he reaps the most plenteous harvest; and
of worldly goods what little he wanted is in
the end made sure to him. His mild, honest
character everywhere gains him friends: that
upright, peaceful, simple life is honourable in
the eyes of all ; and they who know him the
best love him the most.

Perhaps, among all the circumstances of

» Preface to the i'halia.

SCHILLER.

233

Schiller's literary life there 'was none so im-
portant for him as his connection with Goethe.
To use our old figure, we might say, that if
Schiller was a Priest, then was Goethe the
Bishop from whom he first acquired clear spi-
ritual light, by whose hands he was ordained to
the priesthood. Their friendship has been
much celebrated, and deserved to he so ; it is a
pure relation ; unhappily too rare in Literature ;
where if a Swift and Pope can even found an
imperious Duumvirate, on little more than
mutually-tolerated pride, and part the spoils,
for some time, without quarrelling, it is thought
a credit. Seldom do men combine so steadily
and warmly for such purposes, — which when
weighed in the economical balance are but
gossamer. It appears also that preliminary
difficulties stood in the way ; prepossessions
of some strength had to be conquered on both
sides. For a number of years, the two, by
accident or choice, never met, and their first
interview scarcely promised any permanent
approximation. " On the whole," says Schiller,
"this personal meeting has not at all dimin-
ished the idea, great as it was, which I had
previously formed of Goethe ; but I doubt
whether we shall ever come into close com-
munication with each other. Much that still
interests me has already had its epoch with
him. His whole nature is, from its very origin,
otherwise constructed than mine: his world is
not my world; our modes of conceiving things
appear to be essentially different. From such
a combination no secure substantial intimacy
can result."

Nevertheless, in spite of far graver preju-
dices on the part of Goethe, — to say nothing of
the poor jealousies which in another man so
circumstanced would openly or secretly have
been at work, — a secure substantial intimacy
did result — manifesting itself b}' continual good
offices, and interrupted only by death. If we
regard the relative situation of the parlies, and
their conduct in this matter, we must recognise
in both of them no little social virtue; at all
events, a deep disinterested love of worth. In
the case of Goethe, more especially, who, as
the elder and every way greater of the two, has
little to expect in comparison with what he
gives, this friendly union, had we space to ex-
plain its nature and progress, would give new
proof that, as poor Jung Stilling also experi-
enced, "the man's heart, which few know, is
as true and noble as his genius, which all
know." By Goethe, and this even before the
date of their friendship, Schiller's outward in-
terests had been essentially promoted: he was
introduced under that sanction, into the ser-
vice of Weimar, to an academic office, to a
pension : his whole way was made smooth for
him. In spiritual matters, this help, or rather
let us say co-operation, for it came not in the
shape of help, but of reciprocal service, was
of siill more lasting consequence. By the side
of his friend, Schiller rises into the highest
regions of Art he ever reached; and in all
worthy things is sure of sympathy, of one wise
judgment amid a crowd of unwise ones, of one
helpful hand amid many hostile. Thus out-
wardly and inwardly assisted and confirmed,
he henceforth goes on his way with new stead-
30

fastness, turning neither to the right hand, nor
to the left; and while days are given him, de-
votes them wholly to his best duty. It is rare
that one man can do so much for another, can
permanently benefit another; so mournfully,
in giving and receiving, as in most charitable
affections and finer movements of our nature,
are we all held in by that paltry vanity, which,
under reputable names, usurps, on both sides,
a sovereignty it has no claim to. Nay, many
times, when our friend would honestly help us,
and strives to do it, yet will he never bring him-
self to understand what we really need, and so
to forward us on our own path ; but insists
more simply on us taking his path, and leaves
us as incorrigible because we will not and can-
not. Thus "men are solitary among each
other;" no one will help his neighbour; each
has even to assume a defensive altitude lest his
neighbour hinder him !

Of Schiller's zealous, entire devotedness to
Literature we have already spoken as of his
crowning virtue, and the great source of his
welfare. With what ardour he pursued this
object his whole life, from the earliest stage of
it, had given proof: but the clearest proof,
clearer even than that youthful self-exile, was
reserved for his later years, when a lingering,
incurable disease had laid on him its new and
ever-galling burden. At no period of Schiller's
history does the native nobleness of his cha-
racter appear so decidedly, as now in this sea-
son of silent, unwitnessed heroism, when the
dark enemy dwelt within himself, unconquer-
able, yet ever, in all other struggles, to be kept
at bay. We have medical evidence that during
the last fifteen years of his life, not a moment
could have been free of pain. Yet he utters
no complaint. In this " (Correspondence with
Goethe" we see him cheerful, laborious ;
scarcely speaking of his maladies, and then
only historically, in the style of a third parly,
as it were, calculating what force and length
of days might still remain at his disposal. Nay,
his highest poetical performances, we may say
all that are truly poetical, belong to this era.
If we recollect how many poor valetudinarians,
Rousseaus, Covvpers, and the like, men other-
wise of fine endowment, dwindle under the in-
fluence of nervous disease, into pining wretch-
edness, some into madness itself; and then that
Schiller, under the like influence, wrote some
of his deepest speculations, and all his genuine
dramas, from Wullenstein to Wilhclm Tell, we
shall the better estimate his merit.

It has been sakl that only in Religion, or
something equivalent to Religion, can h-uman
nature support itself under such Inals. But
Schiller too had his Religion ! was a Worship-
per, nay, as we have often said, a Priest; and
so in his earthly suflierings wanted not a hea-
venly stay. Without some such stay his life
might well have been intolerable; slriptof the
Ideal, what remained for him in the Real was
but a poor matter. Do we talk of his " happi-
ness ?" Alas, what is the loftiest flight of genius,
the finest frenzy that ever for moments united
Heaven with Earth, to the perennial never-fail-
ing joys of a digestive-apparatus thoroughly
eupeptic 1 Has not the turtle-eating man an
eternal sunshine of the breai,' 1 Does not his
V 2

S34

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Soul, — which, as in some Sclavonic dialects,
means his Stomach, — sit lor ever at his ease,
enwrapped in warm condiments, amid spicy
odours; enjoying the past, the present and the
future ; and only awakening from its soft trance
to the sober certainty o*" a still higher bliss each
meal-time — three or even lour visions of
Heaven in the space of one solar day ! While
for the sick man of genius, " whose world is
of the mind, ideal, internal; when the mildew
of lingering disease has struck that world, and
begun to blacken and consume its beauty, what
remains but despondency, and bitterness, and
desolate sorrow felt and anticipated to the end 1"

"Wo to him," continues this Jeremiah, "if
his will likewise falter, if his resolution fail,
and his spirit bend its neck to the yoke of this
new enemy ! Idleness and a disturbed imagi-
nation will gain the mastery of him, and let
loose their thousand fiends to harass him, to
loiment him into madness. Alas! the bondage
of Algiers is freedom compared with this of
the sick man of genius,^whose heart has faint-
ed, and sunk beneath its load. His clay dwell-
ing is changed into a gloomy prison; every
nerve has become an avenue of disgust or an-
guish, and the soul sits within in her melan-
choly loneliness, a prey to the spectres of des-
pair, or stupified with excess of suffering;
doomed, as il were, to a life-in-death, to a con-
sciousness of agonized existence, without the
consciousness of power which should accom-
pany it. Happily death, or entire fatuity, at
length puts an end to such scenes of ignoble
misery, which, however, ignoble as they are,
we ought to view with pity rather than con-
tempt."— Life of Schiller, p. 167.

Yet on the whole, we say, it is a shame for
the man of genius to complain. Has he not
a "light from Heaven" within him, to which
the splendour of all earthly thrones and prin-
cipalities is but darkness'.' And the head that
wears such a crown grudges to lie uneasy '
If that same "light from Heaven," shining
through the falsest media, supported Syrian
Simon through all weather on his sixty-feet pil-
lar, or the still more wonderful Eremite, who
walled himself, for life, up to the chin, in stone
and mortar; how much more should it do,
when shining direct and pure from all inter-
mixture 1 Let the modern Priest of wisdom
either suffer his small persecutions and inflic-
tions, though sickness be of the number, in
patience, or admit that ancient fanatics and bed-
lamites were truer worshippers than he.

A foolish controversy on this subject of hap-
piness now and then occupies some intellectual
dinner-party ; speculative gentlemen we have
seen, more than once, almost forget their wine
in arguing whether Happiness was the chief
end of man. 'J'he most cry out, with Pope:
" Happiness, our being's end and aim;"' and
ask whether it is even conceivable that we
should fcdiow any other. How comes it, then,
cry the Opposition, that the gross are happier
than the refined; that evn though we know
them to be happier, we would not change
places with them ! Is il not written, " increase
of knowledge is increase of sorrow 1" And
yet also written, in characters still more inef-
faceable, " Pursue knowledge, attain clear vi-

sion, as the beginning of all good V Were yont
doctrine right, for what should we struggle with
our whole might, for what pray to Heaven, if
not that the "malady of thought" might be
utterly stifled within us, and a power of diges-
tion and secretion, to which that of the tiger
were trifling, be imparted instead thereofi
Whereupon the others deny that thought is a
malady; that increase of knowledge is increase
of sorrow; that Aldermen have a sunnier life
than Aristotle's, though the Stagyrite himself
died exclaiming, Fa'ilc mundiun iii.'ravi, an.rius
vixi, pertmbatus morinr, i^-r. : and thus the argu-
ment circulates, and the bottles stand still.

So far as that Happiness question ccmcerns
the symposia of speculative gentlemen, — the
rather as it really is a good enduring backlog
whereon to chop logic, for those so minded, —
we with great willingness leave it resting on
its own bottom. But there are earnest natures
for whom Truth is no plaything, but the staff
of life ; men whom the " solid reality of things"
will not carry forward; who when the " inward
voice" is silent in them, are powerless, nor will
the loud huzzaing of millions supply the want
of it. To these men, seeking anxiously for
guidance ; feeling that did they once clearly see
the right, they would follow it cheerfully to
weal or to wo. comparatively careless which;
to these men the question, what is the proper
aim of man, has a deep and awful interest.

For the sake of such, it may be remarked
that the origin of this argument, like that of
every other argument under the sun, lies in the
confusion of language. If Happiness mean
Welfare, there is no doubt but all men should
and must pursue their Welfare, that is to say,
pursue what is worthy of their pursuit. But
if, on the other hand, Happiness mean, as for
most men it does, "agreeable sensations,"
Enjoyment refined or not, then must we observe
that there is a doubt; or rather that there is a
certaint)' the other way. Strictly considered,
this truth, that man has in him something
higher than a Love of Pleasure, take Pleasure
in what sense you will, has been the text of all
true Teachers and Preachers, since the begin-
ning of the world ; and in one or another dia-
lect, we may hope, will continue to be preached
and taught till the world end. Neither is our
own day without its asserters thereof: what,
for example, does the astonished reader make
of this little sentence from Schiller's JEslhetic
Letters? It is on that old question the "im-
provement of the species;" which, however, is
handled here in a very new manner.

"The first acquisitions, then, which men
gathered in the Kingdom of Spirit were Jnx-iety
and Fear ; both, it is true, products of Reason,
not of Sense; but of a Reason that mistook its
object, and mistook its mode of application.
Fruits of this same tree are all your Happiness-
Systems, {Glilrkseliiikcilsnjsteiue,) whether they
have for object the passing Day, or the whole
of life, or what renders them no whit more
venerable, the whole of Eternity. A boundless
duration of Being and Well-being (D((sp(///s M?id
Wohlseyn.<) simply for Being and Well-being's
sake, is an Ideal belonging to Appetite alone,
and which only the struggle of mere Animal-
ism, (Thierheit,) longing to be infinite, gives

SCHILLER.

235

rise to. Thus without gaining any thing for
his Manhood, he, by this first effort of Reason,
loses the happy limitation of the Animal; and
has now only the unenviable superiority of
missing the Present in an effort directed to the
Distance, and whereby still, in the whole
boundless Distance, nothing but the Present is
sougiit for." — I rirfc iihcr die Aeslhetische Krzie-
hun^ des Ncvsrhcu, B. 24.

The JEsihclic Lcttcra, in which this and many
far deeper matters come into view, will one day
deserve a long chapter to themselves. Mean-
while we cannot but remark, as a curious
symptom of this time, that the pursuit of
merely sensuous good, of personal Pleasure in
one shape or other, should be the universally
admitted formula of man's whole duty. Once,
Epicurus had his Zeno ; and if the herd of
mankind have at all times been the slaves of
Desire, Drudging anxiously for their mess of
pottage, or filling themselves with swine's
husks, — earnest natures were not wanting, who,
at least in theory, asserted for their kind a
higher vocation than this ; declaring, as they
could, that man's soul was no dead Balance
for " motives" to sway hither and thither, but
a living, divine Soul, indefeasibly Free, whose
birthright it was to be the servant of Virtue,
Goodness, God, and in such service to be
blessed without fee or reward. Now-a-days,
however, matters are, on all hands, managed
far more prudently. The choice of Hercules
could not occasion much difficulty in these
times to any young man of talent. On the one
hand — by a path which is steep, indeed, yet
smoothed by much travelling, and kept in con-
stant repair by many a moral Macadam —
smokes (in patent calefactors) a Dinner of in-
numerable courses; on the other, by a down-
ward path, through avenues of very mixed
character, frowns in the distance a grim Gal-
lows, probably "improved drop." Thus is
Utility the only God of these days; and our
honest Benthamites are but a small Provincial
Synod of that boundless Communion. With-
out gift of prophecy we may predict, that the
straggling bush-fire which is kept up here and
there against that body of well-intentioned
men, must one day become a universal battle;
and the grand question. Mind vcrstis Matter, be
again under new forms judged of and decided.
— But we wander too far from our task ; to
which, therefore, nothing doubtful of a pros-
perous issue in due time to that Utilitarian
struggle, we hasten to return.

In forming for ourselves some picture of
Schiller as a man, of what may be called his
moral character, perhaps the very perfection
of his manner of existence tends to diminish
our estimate of its merits. What he aimed at
he has attained in a singular degree. His life,
at least from the period of manhood, is still
unruffled, — of clear even course. The com-
pleteness of the victory hides from us the
magnitude of the struggle. On the whole,
however, we may admit, that his character
was not so much a great character as a holy
one. We have often named him a Priest; and
this title, with the quiet loftiness, — the pure,
secluded, onl}' internal, yet still heavenly worth
that should belong to it, perhaps best describes

him. One high enthusiasm takes j'ossession
of his whole nature. Herein lies hio strength,
as well as the task he has to do; for this he
lived, and we may say also be died for it. In
his life we see not that the social affections
played any deep part. As a son, husband,
father, friend, he is ever kindly, honest, amia-
ble; but rarely, if at all, do outward things
stimulate him into what can be called passion.
Of the wild loves and lamentations, and all the
fierce ardour that distinguish, for instance, hit
Scottish contemporary, Burns, there is scarcely
any trace here. In fact, it was towards the
Ideal, not towards the Actual, that Schiller's
faith and hope was directed. His highest hap-
piness lay not in outw^ird honour, pleasure, so-
cial recreation, perhaps not even in friendly
affection, such as the world could show it ; bul
in the realm of Poetry, a city of the mind.
where, for him, all that was true and noble had
foundation. His habits, accordingly, though far
from dissocial, were solitary ; his chief business
and chief pleasure lay in silent meditation.

" His intolerance of interruptions," we are
told at an early period of his life, "first put
him on the plan of studying by night; an al-
luring, but pernicious practice, which began
at Dresden, and was never afterwards given up
His recreations breathed a similar spirit : he
loved to be much alone, and strongly moved.
The banks of the El~be were the favourite re-
sort of his mornings: here, wandering in soli-
tude, amid groves and lawns, and green and
beautiful places, he abandoned his mind to de-
licious musings ; or meditated on the cares
and studies which had lately been employing,
and were again soon to employ him. At times
he might be seen floating on the river, in a
gondola, feasting himself with the loveliness
of earth and sky. He delighted most to be
there when tempests were abroad ; his unquiet
spirit found a solace in the expression of its
own unrest on the face of Nature; danger lent
a charm to his situation ; he felt in harmony
with the scene, when the rack was sweeping
stormfully across the heavens, and the forests
were sounding in the breeze, and the river was
rolling its chafed waters into wild eddying
heaps."

" During summer," it is mentioned at a sub-
sequent date, "his place of study was in a
garden which he at length purchased, in the
suburbs of Jena, not far from the Weselhoft's
house, where, at that time, w^as the office of the
JlUgcmcinc LittenUurzeitnng, Reckoning from
the market-place of Jena, it lies on the south-
west border of the town, between the Engel-
gatter and the Neuthor, in a hollow defile,
through which a part of the Leutrabach flows
round the city- On the top of the acclivity,
from which there is a beautiful prospect into
the valley of the Saal, and the fir-mountains
of "the neighbouring forest, Schiller built him-
self a small house with a single chamber. It
was his favourite abode during hours of com-
position ; a great part of the works he then
wrote were written here. In Avinter he likewise
dwelt apart from the tumult of men, — in Gries-
bach's house, on the outside of the city trench.
On silling down to his desk at night, he was
wont to keep some strong coffee, or wine-ct"^

336

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

colate, but more frequently a flask of old Rhe-
nish, or Champagne, standing by him, that he
might from time to time repair the exhaustion
of nature. Often the neighbours used to hear
him earnestly declaiming in the silence of the
night; and whoever had an opportunity of
watching him on such occasions — a thing very
easy to be done, from the heights lying oppo-
site his little garden-house, on the other side
of the dale — might see him now speaking
aloud, and walking swiftly to and fro in his
chamber, then suddenly throwing himself
down into his chair, and writing; and drink-
ing the while, sometimes more than once, from
the glass standing near him. In winter he
was to be found at his desk till four, or even
five o'clock, in the morning; in summer till
towards three. He then went to bed, from
which he seldom rose till nine or ten."

And again :

" At Weimar his present way of life was
like his former one at Jena: his business was
to study and compose ; his recreations were
in the circle of his family, where he could
abandon himself to affections grave or trifling,
and in frank cheerful intercourse with a few
friends. Of the latter he had lately formed a
social club, the meetings of which afforded him
a regular and innocent amusement. He still
loved solitary walks : in the Park at Weimar
he might frequently be seen, wandering among
the groves and remote avenues, with a note-
book in his hand; now loitering slowly along,
now standing still, now moving rapidly on ; if
any one appeared in sight, he would dart into
another alley, that his dream might not be
broken. One of his favourite resorts, we are
told, was the thickly overshadowed, rocky path,
which leads to the Romischc Haus, a pleasure-
house of the Duke's, built under the direction
of Goethe. There he would often sit in the
gloom of the crags overgrown with cypresses
and boxwood; shady thickets before him ; not
far from the murmur of a little brook, which
there gushes in a smooth slaty channel, and
where some verses of Goethe are cut upon a
brown plate of stone, and fixed in the rock." —
Life of Schiller.

Such retirement, alike from the tumults and
the pleasures of busy men, though it seems to
diminish the merit of virtuous conduct in
Schiller, is itself, as hinted above, the best
proof of his virtue. No man is born without
ambitious worldly desires ; and for no man,
especially for no man like Schiller, can the
victory over them be too complete. His duty
lay in that mode of life ; and he had both dis-
covered his duty, and addressed himself with
his whole might to perform it. Nor was it in
estrangement from men's interests that this se-
clusion originated: but rather in deeper con-
cern for those. From many indications, we
can perceive that to Schiller the task of the
Poet appeared of far weightier import to man-
kind, in these times, than that of any other
man whatever. It seemed to him that he was
"casting his bread upon the waters, and would
find it after many days ;" that when the noise
of all conquerors, and demagogues, and politi-
cal reformers had quite died away, some tone

of heavenly wisdom that had dwelt even in
him might still linger among men, and be ac-
knowledged as heavenly and priceless, whether
as his or not; whereby, though dead, he would
yet speak, and his spirit would live throughout
all generations, when the syllables that once
formed his name had passed intoforgetfulness
for ever. We are told, " he was in the highest
degree philanthropic and humane: and often
said that he had no deeper wish than to know all
men happy." What was still more, he strove,
in his public and private capacity, to do his
utmost for that end. Honest, merciful, disin-
terested, he is at all times found: and for the
great duty laid on him no man was ever more
unweariedly ardent. It was " his evening song
and his morning prayer." He lived for it ; and
he died for it; "sacrificing," in the words of
Goethe, " his Life itself to this delineating of
Life."

In collision with his fellow-men, for with him
as with others this also was a part of his rela-
tion to society, we find him no less noble than
in friendly union with them. He mingles in
none of the controversies of th'e time; or only
like a goA in the battles of men. In his con-
duct towards inferiors, even ill-intentioned and
mean inferiors, there is everywhere a true, dig-
nified, patrician spirit. Ever witnessing, and
inwardly lamenting, the baseness of vulgar
Literature in his day, he makes no clamorous
attacks on it ; alludes to it only from afar: as in
Milton's writings, so in his, few of his con-
temporaries are named, or hinted at ; it was
not with men, but with things that he had a
warfare. The Review of Burger, so often des-
canted on, was doubtless highly afflicting to
that down-broken, unhappy poet; but no hos-
tility to Burger, only love and veneration for
the Art he professed, is to be discerned in it.
With Biirger, or with any other mortal, he had
no quarrel : the favour of the public, which he
himself enjoyed in the highest measure, he
esteemed at no high value. " The Artist," said
he in a noble passage, already known to Eng-
lish readers, " the Artist, it is true, is the son
of his time; but pity for him if he is its pupil,
or even its favourite ! Let some beneficent
divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the
breast of his mother, and nurse him with ihe
milk of a better time ; that he may ripen to his
full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky.
And having grown to manhood, let him return,
a foreign shape, into his century ; not, however,
to delight it b}'' his presence, but, dreadful like
the son of Agamemnon, to purify it!" On the
whole, Schiller has no trace of vanity; scarce-
ly of pride, even in its best sense, for the mo-
dest self-consciousness, which characterizes
genius, is with him rather implied than openly
expressed. He has no hatred ; no anger, save
against Falsehood and Baseness, where it may
be called a holy anger. Presumptuous trivi-
ality stood bared in his keen glance ; but his
look is the noble scowl that curls the lip of an
Apollo, when, pierced with sun-arrows, the
serpent expires before him. In a word, we
can say of Schiller, what can be said only of
few in any country or time : He was a high
ministering servant at Truth's altar; and bore

SCHILLER.

237

him worthily of the office- he held. Let this,
and that it was even in our age, be forever re-
membered to Ills praise.

Schiller's intellectual character has, as in-
deed is always the case, an accurate conformity
with his moral one. Here too he is simple in
his excellence; lofty rather than expansive or
varied ; pure, divinely ardent rather than great.
A noble sensibility, the truest sympathy with
Nature, in all forms, animates him ; yet
scarcely any creative gift altogether commen-
surate with this. If to his mind's eye all forms
of Nature have a meaning and beauty, it is
only under a few forms, chiefly of the severe
or pathetic kind, that he can body forth this
meaning, can represent as a Poet Avhat as a
Thinker he discerns and loves. We might
say, his music is true spheral music; yet only
with faw tones, in simple modulation; no full
choral harmony is to be heard in it. That
Schiller, at least in his later years, attained a
genuine poetic style, and dwelt, more or less,
in the perennial regions of his Art, no one will
deny : yet still his pcfetry shows rather like a
partial than a universal gift ; the laboured
product of certain faculties rather than the
spontaneous product of his whole nature. At
iiie summit of the pyre, there is indeed white
flame ; but the materials are not all in flame,
perhaps not all ignited. Nay, often it seems
to us, as if poetry were, on the whole, not his
essential gift ; as if his genius were reflective
in a still higher degree than creative; philoso-
phical and oratorical rather than poetic. To
the last, there is a stiff'ness in him, a certain
infusibility. His genius is not an ^olian-
harp for the common wind to play with, and
make wild, free melody; but a scientific har-
monica, that being artfully touched will yield
rich notes, though in limited measure. It may
be, indeed, or rather it is highly probable, that
of the gifts which lay in him only a small por-
tion was unfolded : for we are to recollect that
nothing came to him without a strenuous
efl^ort; and that he was called away at middle
age. At all events, here as v.'e find him we
should say, that of all his endowments the
most perfect is understanding. Accurate,
thorough insight, is a quality we miss in none
of his productions, whatever else may be
wanting. He has an intellectual vision, clear,
wide, piercing, methodical, — a truly philoso-
phic eye. Yet in regard to this also it is to be
remarked, that the same simplicity, the same
want of universality again displays itself He
looks aloft rather than around. It is in high,
far-seeing philosophic views that he delights ;
in speculations on Art, — on the dignity and
destiny of Man, rather than on the common
doings and interests of Men. Nevertheless
these latter, mean as they seem, are boundless
in significance; for every the poorest aspect
of Nature, especially of living Nature, is a
type and manifestation of the invisible spirit
Ihat works in Nature. There is properly no
object trivial or insignificant: but every finite
thing, could we look well, is as a window,
through which solemn vistas are opened into
Infinitude itself But neither as a Poet nor as
» Thinker, neither in delineation nor in expo-
sition and discussion, does Schiller more than

glance at such objects. For the most part, the
Common is to him still the Common, or is
idealized, rather as it were by mechanical art
than by inspiration : not by deeper poetic or
philosophic inspection, disclosing new beauty
in its everyday features, but rather by deduct-
ing these, by casting them aside, and dwelling
on what brighter features may remain in it.
Herein Schiller, as, indeed, himself was mo-
destly aware, diflfers essentially from most
great poets ; and from none more than from
his great contemporary, Goethe. Such intel-
lectual pre-eminence as this, valuable though
it be, is the easiest and the least valuable ; a
pre-eminence that, indeed, captivates the gene-
ral eye, but may, after all, have little intrinsic
grandeur. Less in rising into lofty abstrac-
tions lies the difficulty, than in seeing well and
lovingly the complexities of what is at hand.
He is wise who can instruct us and assist us
in the business of daily virtuous living; he
who trains us to see old truth under Academic
formularies may be wise or not as it chances;
but we love to see Wisdom in unpretending
forms, to recognise her royal features under
week-day vesture. — There may be more true
spiritual force in a Proverb than in a philoso-
phical System. A King in the midst of his
body-guards, with all his trumpets, war-horses,
and gilt standard-bearers, will look great
though he be little; but only some Roman
Carus can give audience to satrap-ambassa-
dors, while seated on the ground, with a
woollen cap, and supping on boiled pease, like
a common soldier.

In all Schiller's earlier writings, nay, more
or less, in the whole of his writings, this aris-
tocratic fastidiousness, this comparatively
barren elevation, appears as a leading cha-
racteristic. In speculation he is either alto-
gether abstract and systematic, or he dw< lis on
old, conventionally-noble themes; never look-
ing abroad, over the many-coloured stream of
life, to elucidate and ennoble it; or only look-
ing on it, so to speak, from a college window.
The philosophy even of his Histories, for ex-
ample, founds itself mainly on the perlectibility
of man, the efl^ect of constitutions, of religions,
and other such high, purely scientific objects.
In his Poetry we have a similar manifestation.
The interest turns on prescribed, old-establish-
ed matters, common love-mania, passionate
greatness, enthusiasm for liberty, and the like.
This, even in Don Carlos, a work of what may
be called his transition-period, the turning-
point between his earlier and his later period,
where still we find Posa, the favourite hern,
"towering aloft, far-shining, clear and cold, as
a sea-beacon." In after years, Schiller him-
self saw well that the greatest lay not here.
With unwearied effort he strove to lower and
to widen his sphere, and not without success,
as many of his Poems testify; for example,
the Lied dcr Glockc, (Song of the Bell,) every
way a noble composition ; and, in a still higher
degree, the tragedy of Wilhchn TM, the last,
and, so far as spirit and style are concerneds
the best of all his dramas.

Closely connected with this imperfection,
both as cause and as consequence, is Schil-
ler's singular want of Humour. Humour is

S38

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

properly the exponent of low things ; that
which first renders them poetical to the mind.
The man of Humour sees common life, even
mean life, under the new light of sportfulness
and love; whatever has existence has a charm
for him. Humour has justly been regarded as
the finest perfection of poetic genius. He who
wants it, be his other gifts what they may, has
only half a mind ; an eye for what is above
him, not for what is about him or below him.
Now, among all writers of any real poetic
genius, we cannot recollect one who, in this
respect, exhibits such total deficiency as
Schiller. In his whole writings there is
scarcely any vestige of it, scarcely any attempt
that way. His nature was without Humour;
and he had too true a feeling to adopt any
counterfeit in its stead. Thus no drollery or
caricature, still less any barren mockery,
which, in the hundred cases, are all that we
find pa^^sing current as Humour, discover
themselves in Schiller. His works are full of
laboured earnestness ; he is the gravest of all
writers. Some of his critical discussions,
especially in the Ai-sihethche Briefe, where he
designates the ultimate height of man's culture
by the title Spicltrich, (literally. Sport-impulse,)
prove that he knew what Humour was, and
how essential; as indeed, to his intellect, all
forms of excellence, even the most alien to his
own, were painted with a wonderful fidelity.
Nevertheless, he himself attains not that height
which he saw so clearly; to the last the Spiel-
trieb could be little more than a theory with
him. With the single exception of Wnlkn-
stein's Lager, where, too, the Humour, if it be
such, is not deep, his other attempts at mirth,
fortunately very few, are of the heaviest. A
rigid intensity, a serious enthusiastic ardour,
majesty rather than grace, still more than
lightness or sportfulness, characterizes him.
Wit he had, such wit as keen intellectual in-
sight can give ; yet even of this no large
endowment. Perhaps he was too honest, too
sincere, for the exercise of wit; too intent on
the deeper relations of things to note their
more transient collisions. Besides, he dealt in
Afhrmation, and not in Negation; in Avhich
last, it has been said, the material of wit
chiefly lies.

These observations are to point out for us
the special department and limits of Schiller's
excellence ; nowise to call in question its re-
ality. Of his noble sense for Truth, both in
speculation and in action ; of his deep, genial
insight into nature; and the living harmony
in which he renders back what is highest and
grandest in Nature, no reader of his works
need be reminded. In whatever belongs to
the pathetic, the heroic, the tragically elevat-
ing, Schiller is at home ; a master; nay, per-
haps the greatest of all late poets. To the
assiuuous student, moreover, much else that
lay in Schiller, but was never woi-ked into
shape, will become partially visible: deep in-
exhaustible mines of thought and feeling; a
whole world of gifts, the finest produce of
which was but beginning to be realized. To
his high-minded, unwearied efforts what was
impossible, had length of years been granted
him ! There is a tone in some of his later

pieces, which here and there breathes of the
very highest region of Art. Nor are the na-
tural or accidental defects we have noticed ia
his genius, even as it stands, such as to ex
elude him from the rank of great Poets.
Poets whom the whole world reckons great,
have, more than once, exhibited the like. Mil-
ton, for example, shares most of them with
him : like Schiller he dwells, with full power,
only in the high and earnest; in all other
provinces exhibiting a certain inaptitude, an
elephantine unpliancy: he too has little Hu-
mour; his coarse invective has in it con-
temptuous emphasis enough, yet scarcely any
graceful sport. Indeed, on the positive side,
also, these two worthies are not without a re-
semblance. Under far other circumstances,
with less massiveness, and vehement strength
of soul, there is in Schiller the same intensi-
ty; the same concentration, and towards
similar objects, towards whatever is Suldime
in Nature and in Art, which sublimities
they both, each in his several way, worship
with undivided heart. There is not in Schil-
ler's nature the same rich complexity of
rhythm, as in Milton's, with its depth of linked
sweetness ; yet in Schiller too there i^ some-
thing of the same pure, swelling force, some
tone which, like Milton's, is deep, majestic,
solemn.

It was as a Dramatic Author that Schiller
distinguished himself to the world: yet often
we feel as if chance rather than a natural ten-
dency had led him into this province; as if
his talent were essentially, in a certain style,
lyrical, perhaps even epic, rather than drama-
tic. He dwelt within himself, and could not
without effort, and then only within a certain
range, body forth other forms of being. Nay,
much of what is called his poetry seems to
us, as hinted above, oratorical rather than po- .
elical ; his first bias might have led him to be fl
a speaker, rather than a singer. Neverthe- >
less, a pure fire dwelt deep in his soul ; ana
only in Poetry, of one or the other sort, couIq
this find utterance. The rest of his nature, at
the same time, has a certain prosaic rigour;
so tnai noi without strenuous and complex en-
deavours, long persisted in, could its poetic
quality evolve itself. Quite pure, and as the
all-sovereign element, it perhaps never did
evolve itself; and among such complex en-
deavours, a small accident might influence
large portions in its course.

Of Schiller's honest, undivided zeal in this
great pi'oblem of self-cultivation, we have of\en
spoken. What progress he had made, and in
spite of what difficulties, appears, if we con-
trast his earlier compositions with those of
his later years. A few specimens of both
sorts we shall here present. By this means,
too, such of our readers as are unacquainted
with Schiller, may gain some clearer notion
of his poetic individuality than any descrip-
tion of ours could give. We shall take the
Robbers, as his first performance, what he him-
self calls "a monster produced by the unna-
tural union of Genius with Thraldom;" the
fierce fuliginous fire that burns in that singu-
lar piece will still be discernible in separa ed
passages. The following Scene, even in the

SCHILLER.

23»

yeasty vehicle of our common English ver-
sion, has not wanted its admirers; it is the
rtecond of the Third Act.

Country on the Danube.

The Robbers.

(Camped on a Height, under Trees: the Horses are
grazing on the Hill further downJ)

Moor. I can no farther (throws himself on the
ground.) My limbs ache as if ground to
pieces. My tongue parched as a potsherd.
(Schweitzer glides away unpcrveivcd.) I would
ask you to fetch me a handful of water from
the stream ; but ye all are wearied to death.

ScHWARZ. And the wine too is all down
there, in our jacks.

Moor. See, how lovely the Harvest looks ! —
The Trees almost breaking under their load.
The vine full of hope.

Grimm. It is a plentiful 3'ear.

Moon. Think'sl thou] — And so one toil in
the world Avili be repaid. One? — Yet over
night there may come a hailstorm, and shatter
it all to ruin.

ScHWAKz. Possible enough, it might all be
ruined two hours before reaping.

Moor. Ay, so say L It will all be ruined.
Why should man prosper in what he has from
the Ant; when he fails in what makes him
like the Gods ? — or is this the true aim of his
Destiny 1

ScHWARZ. I know it not.

Moor. Thou hast said well ; and done still
better, if thou never tri'dst to know it I — Bro-
ther,— I have looked at men, at their insect-
anxieties, and giant projects — their godlike
schemes and mouselike occupations — their
wondrous race-running after Happiness ; — he
trusting to the gallop of his horse, — he to the
'jOse of his ass, — a third to his own legs; this
whirling lottery of life, in which so many a
creature stakes his innocence, and — his Hea-
ven ! all trying for a prize, and — blanks are
the whole drawing, — there was not a prize in
the batch. It is a drama, Brother, to bring
tears into thy eyes, if it tickle thy midriff to
laughter.

ScHWARZ. How gloriously the sun is setting
yonder !

Moor (lost in the view.) So dies a Hero ! —
To be worshipped!

Grimm. It seems to move thee.

Moor. When I was a lad — it M^as my darling
thought to live so, to die so — (with suppressed
puiti.) It was a lad's thought !

Grimm. I hope so, truly.

Moor (draws his hat down on his fare.) There
was a time — Leave me alone, comrades.

ScHWARz. Moor! Moor! What, Devil? —
How his colour goes !

Grimm. Ha ! What ails him ! Is he ill 1

Moor. There was a time when I could not
sleep, if my evening prayer had been forgot-
ten—

Grimm. Art thou going crazed? Will Moor
let such milksop fancies tutor him?

Moor (lays his head on Grinnn's breast.) Bro-
ther! Brother!

Grimm. Come! don't be a child, — I beg —

Moor. Were I a child ! — Oh, were I one !

Grimm. Pooh! Pooh!

ScHWARz. Cheer up. Look at the brave
landscape, — the fine evening.

Moor. Yes, Friends, this world is all so
lovely.

ScHWARz. There now — that's right.

Moor. This Earth is so glorious.

Grimm. Right, — Right — that is it.

Moor (sinking bark.) And I so hideous in
this lovely world, and I a monster in this glo-
rious Earth.

Grimm. Out on it !

Moor. My innocence ! My innocence ! —
See, all things are gone forth to bask in the
peaceful beam of the Spring, — why must I alone
inhale the torments of Hell out of the joys of
Heaven ? — That all should be so happy, all so
married together b)' the spirit of peace ! — The
whole world one family, its Father above — that
Father not mwe ! — I alone the castaway, — I
alone struck out from the company of the just ;
— for me no child to lisp my name, — never for
me the languishing look of one whom I love ;
never, never, the embracing of a bosom friend
(dashing vnldiy back.) Encircled with murder-
ers,— serpents hissing round me, — rushing
down to the gulph of perdition on the eddying
torrent of wickedness, — amid the (lowers of
the glad world, a howling Abaddon !

ScHWARz (to the rest.) How js this ? I never
saw him so.

Moor (with piercing sorrow.) Oh, that I might
return into my mother's womb, — that I might
be born a beggar! — No! I durst not pray, O
Heaven, to be as one of these day-labourers —
Oh! I would toil till the blood ran down my
temples to buy myself the pleasure of one
noontide sleep, — the blessedness of a single
tear.

Grimm (10 the rest.) Patience, a moment.
The fit is passing.

Moor. There ivas a time too when I could
weep — 0 ye days of peace, thou castle of my
father, ye green lovely valleys ! 0 all ye Ely-
sian scenes of my childhood ! will ye never
come again, never with your balmy sighing
cool my burning bosom ? Mourn with me, Na-
ture ! They will nevercome again, never cool
my burning bosom with their balmy sighing.
They are gone! gone! and will not return!

Or take that still wilder monologue of Moor's
on the old subject of suicide; in the midnight
Forest, among the sleeping Robbers :

(He lays aside the lute, and walks vp and down in
deep thought.)

Who shall warrant me? 'Tis all so

dark, — perplexed labyrinths, — no outlet, no
loadstar — were it but car with this last draught
of breath — Over, like a sorry farce. But whence
this fierce Hunger aher Happiness ? whence this
ideal of a never-reached perfection ? this coniinva-
tion of uncompleted plans ? — if the pitiful
pressure of this pitiful ihln^ (holding out a pis-
tol) makes the wise man equal with the fool,
the coward with the brave, the nobleminded
with the caitiff? — There is so divine a harmo-
ny in all irrational Nature, why should there
be this dissonance in rational ? No! no ! there
IS somewhat beyond, for I have yet never
known happiness.

340

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Think ye, I will tremble? spirits of my
murdered ■«nes ! I will not tremble. (Trcni-
hling viokiillij.) — Your feeble dying moan, —
your black-choked faces, — your frightfully
gaping wounds are but links of an unbreaka-
ble chain of Destiny ; and depend at last on
my childish sports, on the whims of my
nurses and pedagogues, on the temperament
of my father, on the blood of my mother —
(shaken with horror.) Why has my Perillus
made of me a Brazen Bull to roast mankind
in my glowing belly 1

(Gazing uii. the Pistol.') Time and Eternity
— linked together by a single moment ! — Dread
key, that shultest behind me the prison of life,
and before me openest the dwelling of eternal
Night — say — O say — whither, — whither \vi\t thou
lead me 1 Foreign, never circumnavigated
Land! — See, manhood waxes faint under //i/s
image; the effort of the finite gives up, and
Fancy, the capricious ape of Sense, juggles
our credulity with strange shadows. — No ! No !
It becomes not a man to waver. Be what thou
wilt, vameless Yonder — so this me keep but true.
Be what thou wilt, so I take myself along with
me — ! — Outward things are but the colouring
of the man — I am my Heaven and my Hell.

What if thou shouldst send me companionless
to some burnt and blasted circle of the Uni-
verse; which thou hast banished from thy
sight : where the lone darkness and the mo-
tionless desert were my prospects — for ever ]
— I would people the silent wilderness with
my fantasies; I should have Eternity for lei-
sure to unravel the perplexed image of the
boundless wo. — Or wilt Thou lead me through
still other births ! still other scenes of pain,
from stage to stage — Onwards to Annihilation 1
The life-threads that are to be woven for me
Yonder, cannot I tear them asunder, as I do
these? — Thou canst make me Nothing; — this
freedt)m canst Thou not take from me. (He
loads the Pistol. Suddenly he Stops.) And shall
I for terror of a miserable life — die? — Shall I
give wretchedness the victory over me? — No,
I will endure it. (He tlirows the Pistol away.)
Let misery blunt itself on my pride ! I will
go through with it. — Act IV. Scene VI.

And now with these ferocities, and SybilJine
frenzies, compare the placid strength of the
following delineation, also of a stern charac-
ter, from the Maid of Orleans ; where Talbot,
the gray veteran, dark, unbelieving, indomita-
ble, passes down, as he thinks, to the land of
utter Nothingness, contemptuous even of the
Fate that destroys him, and —

" In death reposes on the soil of France,
Like liero on his unsurrender'd shield."

It is the sixth Scene of the third Act; in the
heat of a Battle :
(The scene changes to an open Space encircled with

Trees. During the music, Soldiers are seen hastily

retreating across the Background.)

Talbot, leaning on Fastolf, and accompanied by
Soldiers. Soon after, Lionel.

TALBOT.

Here, set me down beneath this tree, and you
Betake yourselves again to battle : qiiick!
I need no help to die.

FASTOLF.

O day of wo ! (Lionet cntert.)
Look what a sight awaits you, Lionel'.
Our leader wounded, dying I

LIONEL.

God forbid :
O noble Talbot, this is not a time to die.
Yield not to Death; force faltering Nature
By your strength of soul, that life depart not !

TALBOT.

In vain ! the day of Destiny ia come
That levels witli the dust our power in France.
In vain, in the fierce clash of desp'rate battle,
Have I risk'd our utmost to withstand it:
The bolt has smote and crush'd nie, and I lie
To rise no more for ever. Ilheims is lost ;
Make haste to rescue Paris.

LIONEL.

Paris is the Dauphin's :
A post arrived even now with th' evil news
It had surrender'd.

TALBOT {tears away his bandages.)
Then flow out, ye life-streams;
This Sun is growing loathsome to me.

LIONEL.

Fastolf,
Convey him to the rear : this post can hold
Few instants more ; you coward knaves, fall back,
Resistless comes the Witch, and havoc round her.

Madness, thou conquerest, and I must yield :
Against Stupidity the Gods themselves are powerless.
High Reason, radiant Daughter of the head of God,
Wise Foundress of the system of the Universe,
Conductress of the Stars, who art thou, then,
If tied lo th' tail o' th' wild horse. Superstition,
Thou must plunge, eyes open, vainly shrieking,
Slieer down with that drunk Beast to the Abyss ?
Cursed who sets his life upon the great
And dignified; and with forecasting spirit
Lays out wise plans! The Fool-King's is this World.

LIONEL.
Oh ! Death is near ! Think of your God, and pray !

TALBOT.
Were we, as brave men, worsted by the brave,
'T had been but Fortune's common fickleness :
But that a paltry farce should tread us down ! —
Did toil and peril, all our earnest life,
Deserve no graver issue ■!

LIONEL (.grasps his hand.)

Talbot, farewell !
The meed of bitter tears I'll duly pay you,
When the fight is done, should I outlive it
But now Fate calls me to the field, where yet
She wav'ring sits, and shakes her doubtful urn.
Farewell ! we meet beyond the unseen shore.
Brief parting for long friendship ! God be with you ! lEiit

TALBOT.

Soon it is over, and to the earth I render,

To th' everlasting Sun, the transient atoms

Which for pain and pleasure jnin'd to form me ;

And of the mighty Talbot, whose renown

Once fill'd the world, remains nought but a handful

Of flitting dust. Thus man conies to his end ;

And all our conquest in the fight of Life

Is knowledge that 'tis Nothing, and contempt

For hollow shows which once we chas'd and worship'd.

SCENE VIL
£nferCHARLES,BuRouNDT, Dunois,Du Ciiatel,

and Soldiers.

BURGUNDT.

The trench is stormed.

SCHILLER.

2U

nuNors.-
Bravo I The fight is ours.
CHAHLES (jthscrving TA.I.110T.)
ITii '■ who is this that to the light nf day
Is liiddins; his cnnslrained and sad farewell i
His hearing speaks no common man ; go, haste,
Assist him, if assistance yet avail.

(Solditrs from the Dauphin's suite stepfvrward.)

Bark! Keep away ! Approach not the Departing,
Ilitii whom in life ye never wished too near.

BURGUNnr.

What do I see 1 Great Talhot in his blood !
(He goes towards hiui. TALBOT gazes fixedly at hivi and
di's.)
FASTOLF.
Off, Burgundy! With the aspert of a Traitor
Disturb not the last moment of a Hero.

The " Power-words and Thunder-word.s," as
the Germans call them, so freqvient in the
Bobbers: * are altogether wantina: here; that
volcanic fury has assuaged itself; instead of
smoke and red lava, we have sunshine and a
verdant world. For still more striking exam-
ples of this benignant change, we might refer
to many scenes, (too long for our present pur-
poses) in Walk >i stein, and indeed in all the
Dramas which followed this, and most of all
in Wilhehn Tell, which is the latest of them.
The careful, and in general truly poetic struc-
ture of these works, considered as complete
Poems, would exhibit it infinitely better ; but
for this object, larger limits thaft ours at pre-
sent, and studious Readers as well as a Re-
viewer, were essential.

In his smaller Poems, the like progress is
visible. Schiller's works should all be dated,
as we study them ; but indeed the most, by
internal evidence, date themselves. — Besides
the Lied der Glorke, already mentioned, there
are many lyrical pieces of high merit; particu-
larly a whole series of Bullfids, nearly every
one of which is true and poetical. The Ritler
Togs,cnber!i, the Drngon-fght, the Diver, are all
well known ; the Cranes of Ibyfus has in it,
under this simple form, something Old-Grecian,
an emphasis, a prophetic gloom, which might
seem borrowed even from the spirit of ^schy-
lus. But on these, or any farther on the other
poetical works of Schiller, we must not dilate
at present. One little piece, which lies by us
translated, we may give as a specimen of his
style in this lyrical province, and therewith
terminate this part of our subject. It is en-
titled ./llpenlied, (Song of the Alps,) and seems
to requii'e no commentary. Perhaps something
of the clear, melodious, yet still somewhat
metallic tone of tne original may penetrate
even through oui version :

SoxG OF THE Alps.
By the edge of the chasm is a slippery Track,

The torrent beneath, and the mist hanging o'er thee :
The cliffs of the mountain, huge, rugged, and black,

Are frowning like Giants before thee ;
And, wouldst thou not waken the sleeping Lawine,
Walk silent and soft through the deadly ravine.

• Thus, to take one oflen cited instance, Moor's simple
question, " Whether there is any powder leftl" receives
this emphatic answer, " Powder enough to blow the
Earth into the Moon !" \

31

That Bridge with its dizzying, perilous span
Aloft o'er the gulph and its flood suspended,

Think'st thou it was built by the art of man,
By his hand that grim old arch was bended 1

Far down in the jaws of the gloomy abyss

The water is boiling and hissing — for ever will hiss.

That Gate through the rocks is as darksome and drear.
As if to the region of Shadows it carried :

Yet enter ! A sweet laughing landscape is here,
Where the Spring with the Autumn is married.

From the world with its sorrows and warfare and wail,

O could I but hide in this bright little vale !

Four Rivers rush down from on high.

Their spring will be hidden for ever;
Their course is to all the four points of the sky,

To each point of the sky is a river ;
And fast as they start from their old Mother's feet, ,
They dash forth, and no more will they meet.

Two Pinnacles rise to the depths of the Blue ;

Aloft on their white summits glancing,
Bedeck'd in their garments of golden dew,

The Clouds of the Sky are dancing ;
There threading alone their lightsome maze,
Uplifted apart from all mortals' gaze.

And high on her ever-enduring throne

The Queen of the mountain reposes ;
Her head serene, and azure, and lone

A diamond crown encloses ;
The .Sun with his darts shoots round it keen and hot.
He gilds it always, he warms it not.

Of Schiller's Philosophic talent, still more
of the results he had arrived at in philosophy,
there were much to be said and thought, which
we must not enter upon here. As hinted above,
his primary endowment seems to us fully as
much philosophical as poetical ; his intellect,
at all events, is peculiarly of that character;
strong, penetrating, yet systematic and scho-
lastic, rather than intuitive ; and manifesting
this tendency both in the objects it treats, and
in its mode of treating them. The transcen-
dental Philosophy, which arose in Schiller's
busiest era, could not remain without influence
on him ; he had carefully studied Kant's System,
and appears to have not only admitted but
zealously appropriated its fundamental doc-
trines; remoulding them, however, into his
own peculiar forms, so that they seem no longer
borrowed, but permanently acquired, not less
Schiller's than Kant's. Some, perhaps, little
aware of his natural wants and tendencies, are
of opinion that these speculations did not profit
him: Schiller himself, on the other hand,
appears to have been well contented with his
Philosophy; in which, as harmonized with his
Poelry, the assurance and safe anchorage
for his moral nature might lie.

" From the opponents of the New Philoso-
phy," says he, "I expect not that tolerance,
which is shown to every other system, no
better seen into than this : for Kant's Philo-
sophy itself, in its leading points, practises iio
tolerance; and bears much too rigorous a
character, to leave any room for accommoda-
tion. But in my eyes this does it honour;
proving how little it can endure to have truth
tampered with. Such a Philosophy will not be
discussed with a mere shake of the head. In
the open, clear, accessible field of Inquiry it
builds up ils system ; seeks no shade, makes
no reservation ; but even as it treats its neigli-
1 hours, so it requires to be treated; and ma/

S43

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

be forgiven for lightly esteeming every thing
but Proofs. Nor am I terrified to think that
the law of Change, from which no human and
no divine work finds grace, will operate on
this Philosophy, as on every other, and one
day its Form will be destroyed: but its Foun-
dations will not have this destiny to fear; for
ever since mankind has existed, and any Rea-
son among mankind, these same first principles
have been admitted, and on the whole acted
upon." — Correspondence u-ith Goethe, I. 58.

Schiller's philosophical performances relate
chiefly to matters of Art; not, indeed, without
significant glances into still more important
regions of speculation: nay. Art, as he viewed
it, has its basis on the most important interests
of man, and of itself involves the harmonious
adjustment of these. We have already un-
dertaken to present our readers, on a future
occasion, with some abstract of the JEsthctic
Letters, one of the deepest, most compact
pieces of reasoning we are anywhere acquaint-
ed with : by that opportunity, the general
character of Schiller, as a Philosopher, will
best fall to be discussed. Meanwhile, the two
following brief passages, as some indication
of his views on the highest of all philosophical
questions, may stand here without commentary.
He is speaking of Wilhchn Meistcr, and in the
first extract, of the Fair Saint's Confessions,
which occupy the Fifth Book of that work :

"The transition from Religion in general to
the Christian Religion, by the experience of
sin, is excellently conceived. * * * I find vir-
tually in the Christian System the rudiments
of the Highest and Noblest; and the difl^erent
phases of this System, in practical life, are so
ofl"ensive and mean, precisely because they are
bungled representations of that same Highest.
If you study the specific character of Chris-
tianity, what distinguishes it from all mono-
theistic Religion, it lies in nothing else than in
that niuking (lead of the Laic, the removal of that
Kantean Imperative, instead of which Chris-
tianity requires a free Inclination. It is thus,
in its pure form, a representing of Moral
Beauty, or the Incarnation of the Holy; and in
this sense, the only cpsthetic Religion: hence,
too, I explain to myself why it so prospers
with female natures, and only in women is
now to be met with under a tolerable figure."
— Correspondence, I. 195.

"But in seriousness," he says elsewhere,
"whence may it proceed that you have had a
man educated, and in all points equipt, without
ever coming upon certain wants which only
Philosophy can meet? I am convinced, it is
entirely attributable to the ccsihetu- direction you
have taken through the whole Romance.
Within the eesthetic temper there arises no
want of those grounds of comfort, which are
to be drawn from speculation : such a temper
has self-subsistence, has infinitude, within it-
self; only when the Sensual and the Moral in
man strive hostilely together, need help be
sought of pure Reason. A healthy poetic na-
ture wants, as you yourself say, no Moral Law,
no Rights of Man, no Political Metaphysics.
You might have added as well, it wants no
Deity, no Immortality, to stay and uphold
f'.sell withal. Those three points round which,

in the long run, all speculation turns, may in
truth aflbrd such a nature matter for poetic
play, but can never become serious concerns
and necessities for it." — II. 131.

This last seems a singular opinion ; and may
prove, if it be correct, that Schiller himself
was no "healthy poetic nature;" for undoubt-
edly with him those three points were "serious
concerns and necessities;" as many portions
of his works, and various entire treatises, will
testify. Nevertheless, it plays an important
part in his theories of Poetry; and often,
under milder forms, returns on us there.

But, without entering farther on those com-
plex topics, we must here for the present take
leave of Schiller. Of his merits we have all
along spoken rather on the negative side ; and
we rejoice in feeling authorized to do so. That
any German writer, especially one so dear to
us, should already stand so high with British
readers that, in admiring him, the critic may
also, without prejudice to right feeling on the
subject, coolly judge of him, cannot be other
than a gratifying circumstance. Perhaps
there is no other true Poet of that nation with
whom the like course would be suitable.

Connected with this there is one farther ob-
servation we must make before concluding.
Among young students of German Literature,
the question often arises, and is warmly
mooted : whether Schiller or Goethe is the
greater Poet? Of this question we must be
allowed to say that it seems rather a slender
one, and for two reasons. First, because
Schiller and Goethe are of totally dissimilar
endowments and endeavours, in regard to all
matters intellectual, and cannot well be com-
pared together as Poets. Secondly, because
if the question mean to ask, which Poet is on
the whole the rarer and more excellent, as
probably it does, it must be considered as long
ago abundantly answered. To the clear-sighted
and modest Schiller, above all, such a question
would have appeared surprising. No one
knew better than himself, that as Goethe was
a born Poet, so he was in great part a made
Poet; that as the one spirit was intuitive, all-
embracing, instinct with melody, so the other
was scholastic, divisive, only partially and as
it were artificially melodious. Besides, Goethe
has lived to perfect his natural gift, which the
less happy Schiller was not permitted to do.
The former, accordingly, is the national Poet;
the latter is not, and never could have been.
We once heard a German remark that readers
till their twenty-fifth year usually preferred
Schiller; after their twenty -fifth year, Goethe.
This probably was no unfair illustration of the
question. Schiller can seem higher than
Goethe only because he is narrower. Thus to
unpractised eyes, a Peak of Teneriffe, nay, a
Strasburg Minster, when we stand on it, may
seem higher than a Chimborazo; because the
former rise abruptly, without abutment or en-
vironment; the latter rises gradually, carrying
half a world aloft with it; and only the deeper
azure of the heavens, the widened horizon, the
"eternal sunshine," disclose to the geographer
that the " Region of Change" lies far below him.
However, let us not divide these two Friends,
who in life were so benignantly united. With-

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

243

put asserting for Schiller any claim that even
enemies can dispute, enough will remain for
him. We may say that, as a Poet and Thinker,
he attained to a perennial Truth, and ranks
among the noblest productions of his century
and nation. Goethe may continue the German
Poet, but neither through long generations can

Schiller be forgotten. "His works, too, the
memory of what he did and was, will arise
afar off like a towering landmark in the soli-
tude of the Past, when distance shall have
dwarfed into invisibility many lesser people
that once encompassed him, and hid him from
the near beholder."

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.*

[Westminster Review, 1831.]

Is the year 1757, the Swiss Professor Bod-
mer printed an ancient poetical manuscript,
under the title of Chricmhddcn Ruche und die
Klage, (Chricmhilde's Revenge, and the La-
ment;) which may be considered as the first
of a series, or stream of publications, and
speculations still rolling on, with increased
current, to the present day. Not, indeed, that
all these had their source or determining cause
in so insignificant a circumstance; their
source, or rather thousand sources, lay far
elsewhere. As has often been remarked, a
certain antiquarian tendency in Literature, a
fonder, more earnest looking back into the
Past, began about that time to manifest itself in
all nations, (witness our own Percy's Relujues:)
this was among the first distinct symptoms of
it in Germany: where, as with ourselves, its
manifold effects are still visible enough.

Some fifteen years after Bt)dmer's publica-
tion, which, for the rest, is not celebrated as
an editorial feat, one C. H. Muller undertook a
Collection of Gervian Poems from the Tu-elflh,
Thirteenth, and Fovrteevth Centuries ; wherein,
among other articles, he reprinted Bodmer's
Chricmhdde and Klas:e, with a highly remarka-
ble addition prefixed to the former, essential
indeed to the right understanding of it ; and
the whole now stood before the world as one
Poem, under the name of the Nibcluvgen Lied,
or Lay of the Nibelungen. It has since been
ascertained that the Klage is a foreign inferior
appendage; at best, related only as epilogue
to the main work: meanwhile out of this Nibe-
hivgeri, such as it Avas, there soon proceeded
«ew inquiries, and kindred enterprises. For
aiuch as the Poem, in the shape it here bore,
R'as defaced and marred, it failed not to attract
observation : to all open-minded lovers of
poetry, especially where a strong patriotic
feeling existed, this singular, antique Nihelungett
was an interesting appearance. Johannes
Midler, in his famous Swiss Hisionj, spoke of it
in warm terms: subsequently, August Wilhelm
Schlegel, through the medium of Das Beutsche
Miiscnni, succeeded in awakening something
like a universal popular feeling on the subject;
and. as a natural consequence, a whole host
of Editors and Critics, of deep and of shallow
endeavour, whose labours we yet see in pro-

* Das J^ibcluvgen Lied, i'ber.ietzt vov Karl Sinirork.
(Tlip JVihrlinipni Lied, translated by Karl Siiiirock.)
B vols. 121110. Berlin, 1827.

gress. The Nibelungen has now been investi-
gated, translated, collated, commented upon,
with more or less result, to almost boundless
lengths: besides the Work named at the head
of this Paper, and which stands there simply
as one of the latest, we have Versions into the
modern tongue by Von der Hagen, by Hins-
berg, Lachmann, BCisching, Zeune, the last in
Prose, and said to be worthless; Criticisms,
Introductions, Keys, and so forth, by innumer-
able others, of whom we mention only Docen
and the Brothers Grimm.

By which means, not only has the Poem
itself been elucidated with all manner of re-
searches, but its whole environment has come
forth in new light; the scene and personages
it relates to, the other fictions and traditions
connected with it, have attained a new import-
ance and coherence. Manuscripts, that for ages
had lain dormant, have issued from their
archives into public view; books that had
circulated only in mean guise for the amuse-
ment of the people, have become important,
not to one or two virtuosos, but to the general
body of the learned: and now a whole System
of antique Teutonic Fiction and Mythology
unfolds itself, shedding here and there a real
though feeble and uncertain glimmer over
what was once the total darkness of the old
Time. No fewer than Fourteen ancient Tradi-
tionary Poems, all strangely intertwisted, and
growing out of and into one another, have
come to light among the Germans ; who now,
in looking back, find that they too, as well as
the Greeks, have their Heroic Age, and round
the old Valhalla, as their Northern Pantheon,
a world of demi-gods and wonders.

Such a phenomenon, unexpected till of late,
cannot but interest a deep-thinking, enthusi-
astic people. For the Nibelungen especially,
which lies as the centre and distinct keystone
of the whole too chaotic System, — let us say
rather, blooms as a firm sunny island in the
middle of these cloud-covered, ever-shifting,
sand-whirlpools, — they cannot sufficiently tes-
tify their love and veneration. Learned profes-
sors lecture on the Nibthmgen, in public schools,
with a praiseworthy view to initiate the Ger-
man youth in love of their fatherland; from
many zealous and nowise ignorant critics we
hear talk of a " great Northern Epos," of a
"German Iliad;" the more saturnine are shamed
into silence, or hollow mouth-homage; thus
from all quarters comes a sound ol j'ovf'il

S44

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

acclamation: the Nibelungen is welcomed as a
precious national possession, recovered after
six centuries of neglect, and takes undisputed
place among the sacred books of German
literature.

Of these curious transactions, some rumour
has not failed to reach us in England, where
our minds, from their own antiquarian dis-
position, were willing enough to receive it.
Abstracts and extracts of the Nibelungen have
been printed in our language ; there have been
disquisitions on it in our Reviews: hitherto,
however, such as nowise to exhaust the sub-
ject. On the contrary, where so much was to
be lold at once, the speaker might be some-
what puzzled where to begin: it was a much
readier method to begin with the end, or with
any pari of the middle, than like Hamilton's
Pam (whose example is too little followed in
literary narrative) to begin with the beginning.
Thus has our stock of intelligence come
rushing out on us quite promiscuously and
pell-mell; whereby the whole matter could not
but acquire a tortuous, confused, altogether
inexplicable, and even dreary aspect; and the
class of "well-informed persons'' now find
themselves in that uncomfortable position,
where they are obliged to profess admiration,
and at the same time feel that, except by name,
they know not what the thing admired is.
Such a position towards the venerable Nibelun-
gen, which is no less bright and graceful than
historically significant, cannot be the right
one. Moreover, as appears to us, it might be
somewhat mended by very simple means.
Let any one that had honestly read the Nibe-
lungen, which in these days is no surprising
achievement, only tell us what he found there,
and nothing that he did not find: we should
then know something, and, what were still bet-
ter, be ready for knowing more. To search out
the secret roots of such a production, ramified
through successive layers of centuries, and
drawing nourishment from each, may be work,
and too hard work, for the deepest philosopher
and critic; but to look with natural eyes on
what part of it stands visibly above ground,
and record his own experiences thereof, is what
any reasonable mortal, if he will take heed,
can do.

Some such slight service we here intend
proflTering to our readers : let them glance with
us a little into that mighty maze of Northern
Archspology; where, it may be, some pleasant
prospects will open. If the Nibelungen is what
we have called it, a firm sunny island amid
the weltering chaos of antique tradition, it must
be worth visiting on general grounds; nay, if
the primeval rudiments of it have the antiquity
assigned them, it belongs especially to us
English Tculoties as well as to the German.

Far be it from us, meanwhile, to venture
rashly or farther than is needful, into that same
traditionary chaos, fondly named the "Cycle
of Northern Fiction," with its Fourteen Sectors,
(or separate Poems,) which are rather Four-
teen shoreless Limbos, where we hear of
pieces containing "a hundred thousand verses,"
and "seventy thousand verses," as of a quite
natnral afl^air! How travel through that inane
country; by what art discover the little grain

of Substance that casts such multiplied im-
measurable Shadows T The primeval Mythus,
were it at first philosophical truth, or were it
historical incident, lloats too vaguely on the
breath of iiien : each successive Singer and
Redactor furnishes it with new personages,
new scenery, to please a new audience; each
has the privilege of inventing, and the far
wider privilege of borrowing and new-model-
ling from all that have preceded him. Thus
though Tradition may have but one root, it
grows like a Banian, into a whole overarching
labyrinth of trees. Or rather might we say, it
is a Hall of Mirrors, where in pale light each
mirror reliects, convexly or concavely, not
only some real Object, but the Shadows of this
in other mirrors ; which again do the like for
it: till in such refiection and re-reflection the
whole immensity is filled with dimmer and
dimmer shapes; and no firm scene lies round
us, but a dislocated, distorted chaos, fading
away on all hands, in the distance, into utter
night. Only to some brave Von der Hagen,
furnished with indefatigable ardour, and a deep,
almost a religious love, is it given to find sure
footing there, and see his way. All xhose Dukes
ofJlquitania, therefore, and EtzeVs Couri-hoUhngs,
and Dietrirhe and Sigcno!s,\ve shall leave stand-
ing where they are. Such as desire farther in-
formation, will find an intelligible account of
the whole Series or Cycle, in Messrs. Weber
and Jamieson's Illustrutiuns of Nurlhern Jlnti'
quities ; and all possible furtherance, in the
numerous German works above alluded to;
among which Von derHagen's writings, though
not the readiest, are probably the safest guides.
But for us, our business here is with the
Nibelungen, the inhabited poetic country round
which all these wildernesses lie ; only as en-
vironments of which, as routes to which, are
they of moment to us. Perhaps our shortest
and smoothest route will be through the Held-
enburh, (Hero-book ;) which is greatly the most
important of these subsidiary Fictions, not
without interest of its own, and closely related
to the Nibelungen. This Helrlenbuch, therefore,
we must now address ourselves to traverse
with all despatch. At the present stage of the
business, too, we shall forbear any historical
inquiry and argument concerning the date and
local habitation of those Traditions; reserving
what little is to be said on that matter till the
Traditions themselves have become better
known to us. Let the reader, on trust, for the
present, transport himself into the twelfth or
thirteenth century; and therefrom looking back
into the sixth or fifth, see what presents itselfl

Of the HehJenburh, tried on its own merits,
and except as illustrating that other far worthier
Poem, or at most as an old national, and still
in some measure popular book, we should have
felt strongly inclined to say, as the curate in
Don Quixote so often did, M corral eon cllo, Out
of window with it ! Doubtless there are touches
of beauty in the work, and even a sort of
heartiness and antique quaintness in its wild-
est follies ; but on the whole that George-and-
Dragon species of composition has long ceased
to find favour with any one; and except for its
groundwork, more or less discernible, of old

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

S4S

North-ern Fiction, this Hddcnbuch has liftie to
distinguish it from these. Nevertheless, what
is worth remark, it seems to have been a far
higher favourite than the Nibelungcn, with an-
cient readers: it was printed soon after the
invention of printing: some think in 1472, for
there is no place or date on the first edition; at
all events, in 1491, in 1509, and repeatedly
since; whereas the Nibelungcn, though written
earlier, and in worth immeasurably superior,
had to remain in manuscript three centuries
longer. From which, for the thousandth time,
inferences might be drawn as to the infallibility
of popular taste, and its value as a criterion for
poetry. However, it is probably in virtue of this
neglect, that the Nibcluvgcn boasts of its actual
purity; that it now comes before us, clear and
graceful as it issued from the old singer's head
and heart; not over-loaded with Ass-eared
Giants, Fiery Dragons, Dwarfs, and Hairy Wo-
men, as the Hddcnbuch is, many of which, as
charity would hope, may be the produce of a
later age than that famed Swabian Em, to which
these poems, as we now see them, are common-
ly referred. Indeed, one Casper von Roen is
understood to have passed the whole Hcldenbuch
through his limbec, in the fifteenth century ; but
like other rectifiers, instead of purifying it, to
have only drugged it with still fiercer ingredi-
ents to suit the sick appetite of the lime.

Of this drugged and adulterated Hero-Boole
(the only one we yet have, though there is talk
of a better) we shall quote the long Title-page
of Lessing's Copy, the edition of 1560; from
which, with a few intercalated observations,
the reader's curiosity may probably obtain what
little satisfaction it wants.

Das Hcldenbuch Wclchs aiifs ncue corrigirt und
gebesstrt ist, mit shbnen Figuren gezkri, Gedruckt
zu Frankfurt am Mayn, durch Wefgatid Han und
Sygmund Feyerabcnd,&c. That is to say:

"The Hero-Fook, which is of new corrected
and improved, adorned with beautiful Figures.
Printed at Frankfurt on the Mayn, through
Weygand Han, and Sygmund Feyerabend.

" Part First saith of Kaiser Ottnit and the
iittle King Elberich, how they with great peril,
over sea, in Heathendom, won from a king
his daughter, (and how he in lawful marriage
took her to wife.")

From which announcement the reader al-
ready guesses the contents : how this little
King Elberich was a Dwarf, or Elf, some half-
span long, yet full of cunning practices, and
the most helpful activity; nay, stranger still,
had been Kaiser Ottnit of Lamparwi, or Lom-
bardy's father, — having had his own ulterior
views in that indiscretion. How they sailed
with Messina ships, into Paynim land; fought
with that unspeakable Turk, King Machabol,
in and about his fortress and metropolis of
Montebur, which was all stuck round with
Christian heads ; slew from seventy to a hun
dred thousand of the Infidels at one heat; saw
the lady on the battlements; and at length,
chiefly by Dwarf Elberich's help, carried her
off in triumph: wedded her in Messina; and
without dilficulty, rooting out the Mohammedan
prejudice, converted her to the creed of Mother
Church. The fair runaway seems to have
he^en of a gentle, tractable disposition, very

different from old Machabol ; concerning whom
it is chiefly to be noted that Dwarf Elberich,
rendering himself invisible on their first inter-
view, plucks out a handful of hair from his
chin ; thereby increasing to a tenfold pitch the
royal choler; and, what is still more remark-
able, furnishing the poet Wieland, six centuries
afterwards, with the critical incident in his
Oberon. As for the young lady herself, we can-
not but admit that she was well worth sailing
to Heathendom for; and shall here, as our
sole specimen of that old German doggerel,
give the description of her, as she first ap-
peared on the battlements during the fight;
subjoining a version as verbal and literal as
the plainest prose can make it. Considered as
a detached passage, it is perhaps the finest we
have met with in the Hetdenbuch.

Ilir lierz brann also eclione,
Recht als ein rot rubein,
Oleich dew. vollen moiie
Oaben ilir iivglein scliein
Sich hetl die mairet reine
Mit rosen wold bckleid
Und auch mit Berlin Kleipe,
J^Tieinand da triist die meid.
Sie tnar schon an dem leib&,
Und lu den Seilen schmal
Recht als ein Kcrtte Scheibe
Wohlgescha^en iiberall :
Ihr bcyden lidnd genieine
Dars ihr g-entznichts gebrachi
Ihr naglein .schOn und reine.
Das man sich darin bcsach.
Ihr har war sch<iii umbfangen.
Mit elder sciden fein ;
Das Hess sic nicder hangen.
Das hubscite Magedlein.
Sie triig ein kron viit steinc*.
Sie war von gold so rot ;
Elberich dem viel JcUinen
War lu der Magte not.

Da vornen in den Kronen
Lag ein KarfunkeUtein,
Der in dem Pallasl schone
■^ecbl als ein Kerti ersckein f
•^nf jreni hatipt das hare
iVuT laut^er und aucjijein
Es leuchlet also klare
Recht als der Sonnen sthein.

Die Magt die stand alleinc.
Oar traicrig war jr inut;
Ihrfarb und die war reine,
Lieblicli we Milch und Blut ;
Her durch jr ropffe reiittn
Schien jr hals als der Schnr«
Elberich dem vicl Kleinen
That der Maget Jammer we&.

Iler heart burnt (with anxiety) as beautifn.
Just as a red ruby,
Like tbe full moon

Her eyes (eyelings, pretty eyes) gave sheea«
Herself had (lie maiden pure
Well adorned with roses,
And also with pearls small :
No one there comforted the maid.
She was fair of body.
And ill the waist slender ;
Iliqht as a (golden) candlestick
Wellf ishione-d everywhere :
Iler two hands proper.
So that she wanted nought ;
Her little nails fair and pure.
That you could see yourself therein.
Her hair was beautifully girt
With uoble silk (band) kne ;
z2

S46

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

She let it flow down,

Tlie lovely inaiiiling.

She wore a crown with jewels.

It was of gold so red :

For Elbericli the very small

The maid had need (to console her.)

There in front of the crown
Lay a carbuncle-stone,
Which in the ;>alace fair
Even as a taper seemed ;
On her head the hair
Was glossy and also fine.
It shone as bright
Even as the sun's sheen.

The maid she stood alone,
Right sad was ber mind ;
Her colour it was pure,
Lovely as milk and blood:
' Out through her pure locks

Shone her neck like the snow.

Elberich the very sn)all

Was touched with the maiden's sorrow.

Happy man was Kaiser Ottnit, blessed with
such a wife, after all his travail ; — had not the
Turk Machabol cunningly sent him, in re-
venge, a box of young Dragons, or Dragon-
eggs, by the hands of a caitiff Infidel, con-
triver of mischief; by whom in due course of
time they were hatched and nursed to the in-
finite wo of all Lampartie, and ultimately to
the death of Kaiser Ottnit himself, whom they
swallowed and attempted to digest, once with-
out effect, but the next time too fatally, crown
and all !

"Part Second announceth (meJJet) of Herr
Hugdietrich and his son Wolfdietrich ; how
they for justice's sake, oft by their doughty acts
succoured distressed persons, with other bold
heroes that stood by them in extremity."

Concerning which Hugdietrich, Emperor of
Greece, and his son Wolfdietrich, one day the
renowned Dietrich of Bern, we can here say
little inore than that the former trained him-
self to sempstress work ; and for many weeks,
plied his needle, before he could get wedded and
produce Wolfdietrich ; who commg into the
world in this clandestine manner, was letdown
into the castle-ditch, and like Romulus and
Remus nursed by a Wolf, whence his name.
However, after never-imagined adventures, with
enchanters and enchantresses, pagans, and gi-
ants, in all quarters of the globe, he finally, with
utmost effort, slaughtered those Lombardy Dra-
gons ; then married Kaiser Ottnit's widow, whom
he had rather flirted with before ; and so lived
universally respected in his new empire, per-
forming yet other notable achievements. One
strange property he had, sometimes useful to
him, sometimes hurtful: that his breath, when
he became angry, grew flame, red hot, and
would lake the temper out of swords. We
find him again in the Nibdungen, among King
Etzel's (Aitila's) followers : a staid, cautious,
yet still invincible man ; on which occasion,
though with great reluctance, he is forced to
interfere, and does so with effect. Dietrich is
the favourite hero of all those Southern Fic-
tions, and well acknowledged in the Northern
also, where the chief man, however, as we
shall find, is not he, but Siegfried.

" Part ^hird showeth of the Rose-garden at

Worms, which was planted by ChrimhJIte,
King Gibrich's daughter; whereby afterwards
most part of those Heroes and Giants came to
destruction and were slain."

In this Third Part the Southern or Lombard
Heroes come into contact and collision with
another as notable. Northern class ; and for
us much more important. Chriemhild, whose
ulterior history makes such a figure in the
Nibeiuiigcn, had, it would seem, near the an-
cient City of Worms, a Rose-garden, some
seven English miles in circuit; fenced only
by a silk thread ; wherein, however, she main-
tained Twelve stout fighting men ; several of
whom, as Hagen, Volker, her three Brothers,
above all the gallant Siegfried her betrothed,
we shall meet with again ; these, so unspeaka-
ble was their prowess, sufficed to defend the
silk-thread Garden against all mortals. Our
good antiquary. Von der Hagen, imagines that
this Rose-garden business (in the primeval
Tradition) glances obliquely at the Ecliptic
with its Twelve Signs, at Jupiter's fight with
the Titans, and we know not what confused
skirmishing in the Utgard, or Asgard, or Mid-
gard of the Scandinavians. Be this as it may,
Chriemhild, we are here told, being very beau-
tiful, and very wilful, boasts in the pride of
ber heart, that no heroes on earth are to be
compared with hers; and hearing accidentally
that Dietrich of Bern has a high character in
this line, forthwith challenges him to visit
Worms, and with eleven picked men, to do
battle there against those other Twelve cham-
pions of Christendom that watch her Rose-
garden. Dietrich, in a towering passion at the
style of the message, which was "surly and
stout," instantly pitches upon his eleven se-
conds, who also are to be principals ; and with
a retinue of other sixty thousand, by quick
stages, in which obstacles enough are over-
come, reaches Worms, and declares himself
ready. Among these eleven Lombard heroes
of his, are likewise several whom we meet
with again in the Nibelungen ; besides Dietrich
himself, we have the old Duke Hildebrand,
Wolfhart, Ortwin. Notable among them, in
another way, is Monk Ilsan, a truculent, gray-
bearded fellow, equal to any Friar Tuck in
Robin Hood.

The condilions of fight are soon agreed on:
there are to be twelve successive duels, each
challenger being expected to find his match ■
and the prize of victory is a Rose-garland from
Chriemhild, and cin Hclsscn und ein Kiissen, that
is to say virtually, one kiss from her fair lips,
to each. But here, as it ever should do. Pride
gets a fall ; for Chriemhild's bully-hectors, are
in divers ways all successively felled to the
ground by the Berners ; some of whom, as old
Hildebrand, will not even take her Kiss when
it is due : even Siegfried himself, most reluc-
tantly engaged with by Dietrich, and for a
while victorious, is at last forced to seek
shelter in her lap. Nay, Monk Ilsan, after the
regular fight is over, and his part in it well
performed, calls out, in succession, fiftj'-two
other idle Champions of the Garden, part of
them Giants, and routs the whole fraternity;
thereby earning, besides his own regular
allowance, fifty-two spare Garlands, and fifty

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

24r

two several kisses ; in the course of which
latter, Chriemhild's cheek, a just punishment
as seemed, was scratched to the drawing of
blood by his roug:h beard. It only remains to
be added that King Gibrich, Chriemhild's
Father, is now fain to do homage for his king-
dom to Dietrich; who returns triumphant to
his own country ; where also, Monk Ilsan, ac-
cording to promise, distributes these fifty-two
Garlands among his fellow Friars, crushing a
garland on the bare crown of each, till " ihe
red blood ran over their ears." Under which
hard but not undeserved treatment, they all
agreed to pray for remission of Ilsan's sins:
indeed, such as continued refractory he tied
together by the beards, and hung pair-wise
over poles ; whereby the stoutest soon gave in.

So etulRlh ht're lliis ditty
Of strife from woman's pride :
God on our priefo take pily.
And Mary still by us abide.

"In Part Fourtli is announced (gemclt) of the
little King Laurin, the Dwarf, how he encom-
passed his Rose-garden with so great manhood
and art-magic, till at last he was vanquished
by the heroes, and forced to become their Jug-
gler, with, &c. &c."

Of which Fourth and happily last part we
shall here say nothing; inasmuch as, except
that certain of our old heroes again figure
there, it has no coherence or connection with
the rest of the HeUknbuch : and is simply a new
tale, which by way of episode Heinrich von
Ofierdingen, as we learn frona his own words,
had subsequently appended thereto. He says:

Heinrich von Ofterdingen
This story hath been singing.
To the joy of Princes bold,
They gave him silver and gold.
Moreover pennies and garments rich!
Here endeth this Book the which
Doth sing our noble Heroes' story :
God help us all to heavenly glory.

Such is some outline of the famous Helden-
hurh ; on which it is not our business here to
add any criticism. The fact that it has so
long been popular betokens a certain worth in
it; the kind and degree of which is also in
some measure apparent In poetry " the rude
man," it has been said, " requires only to see
something going on; the man of more reiine-
ment wishes to feel ; the truly refined man
must be made to reflect." For the first of
these classes our Hero-Eook, as has been appa-
rent enough, provides in abundance; for the
other two scantily, indeed; for the second not
not at all. Nevertheless our estimate of this
work, which as a series of Antique Traditions
may have considerable meaning, is apt rather
to be too low. Let us remember that this is
not the origin3i\ Hddeyiburli which we now see;
but only a version of it into the Knight-errant
dialect of the thirteenth, indeed partly of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with all the
fantastic monstrosities, now so trivial, pertain-
ing to that style; under which disguises the
really antique earnest groundwork, interesting
as old Thought, if not as old Poetry, is all but
quite obscured from us. But Antiquarian
diligence is now busy with the Heldenbuch
also, from which what ligh' is in it will doubt-

less be elicited, and here and there a deformity
removed. Though the Ethiop cannot chang«
his skin, there is no need that even he should
go abroad unwashed.*

Casper von Roen, or whoever was the ulti-
mate redactor of the Heldenbuch, whom Lessing
designates as "a highly ill-informed man,"
would have done better had he quite omitted
that little King Laurin, " and his little Rose-
garden," which properly is no Rose-garden at
all ; and instead thereof introduced the GehbrnU
Siegfried, (Behorned Siegfried,) whose history
lies at the heart of the whole Northern Tradi-
tions; and, under a rude prose dress, is to ihis
day a real child's-book and people's-book
among the Germans. Of this Siegfried we'
have already seen somewhat in the Rose-gar-
den at Worms ; and shall ere long see much
more elsewhere ; for he is the chief hero of the
Nibelungen: indeed nowhere can we dip into
those old Fictions, whether in Scandinavia or
the Rhine-land, but under one figure or another,
whether as Dragon-killer and Prince-royal, or
as Blacksmith and Horse-subduer, as Sigurd,
Sivrit, Siegfried, we are sure to light on him.
As his early adventures belong to the strange
sort, and will afterwards concern us not a
little, we shall here endeavour to piece together
some consistent outline of them ; so far indeed
as that may be possible, for his biographers,
agreeing in the main points, differ widely in
the details.

First, then, let no one from the title Gehornte,
(Horned, Behorned,) fancy that our brave
Siegfried, who was the loveliest as well as the
bravest of men, was actually cornuted, and had
horns on his brow, though like Michael An-
gelo's Moses; or even that his skin, to which
the epithet Behorned refers, was hard like a
crocodile's, and not softer than the softest
shamoy: for the truth is, his Hornedness
means only an Invulnerability, like that of
Achilles, which he came by in the following
manner. All men agree that Siegfried was a
king's son ; he was born, as we here have
good reason to know, "at Santen in Nether-
land," of Siegemund and the fair Siegelinde:
yet by some family misfortune or discord, of
which the accounts are very various, he canxe
into singular straits during boyhood; having
passed that happy period of life, not under the
canopies of costly state, but by the sooty stithy,
in one Mimer a Blacksmith's shop. Here,
however, he was nowise in his proper ele-
ment; ever quarrelling with his fellow appren
tices; nay, as some say, breaking the hardest
anvils into shivers by his too stout hammer-
ing. So that Mimer, otherwise a first-rate
Smith, could by no means do with him there.
He sends him, accordingl)^ to the neighbouring
forest, to fetch charcoal ; well aware that a
monstrous Dragon, one Regin, the Smith's cvrn
Brother, would meet him and devour iiim.

'■ Our inconsiderable knowledge of the H-!denbvch ia
derived from various secondary sources; chiefiy from
Lessing's IVcrke [B. XHI ], where the reader will tind
an epitome of the whole Poem, with Extracts by Hep
Fiilleborn, from which the above are taken. A still
more accessible and larger Abstract, with long specimens
translated into verse, stands in the Illustrations of J^Tortk-
ern Antiquities, [p. 45 — 167.] Von der Hagen has sine*
been employed specially on Ihe Heldenbuch ; with what
result we have not vet learned.

848

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

But far otherwise it proved : Siegfried by main I
force slew this Dragon, or rather Dragonized
Smith's-Brother ; made broth of him ; and,
warned by some significant phenomena, bathed
therein; or, as others assert, bathed directly in
the monster's blood without cookery ; and
hereby attained that Invulnerability, complete
in all respects, save that between his shoulders
where a limetree leaf chanced to settle and
stick during the process, there was one little
spot, a fatal spot as afterwards turned out, left
in its natural state.

S egfried, now seeing through the craft of the
Smith, returned home and slew him; then set
forth in search of adventures, the bare cata-
logue of which were long to recite. We men-
tion only two, as subsequently of moment
both for him and for us. He is by some said
to have courted and then jilted the fair and
proud Queen Brunhild of Isenland ; nay, to have
thrown down the seven gates of her Castle;
and then ridden off with her wild horse Gana,
having mounted him in the meadow, and in-
stantly broken him. Some cross passages
between him and Queen Brunhild, who under-
stood no jesting, there must clearly have been,
so angry is her recognition of him in the Nibe-
lungcn ; nay, she bears a lasting grudge against
him there, as he, and indeed, she also, one day
too sorely felt.

His other grand adventure is with the two
sons of the deceased King Nibelung, in Nibe-
iungen-land : these two youths, to whom their
father had bequeathed a Hoard or Treasure,
beyond all price or computation, Siegfried,
"riding by alone," found on the side of a
mountain, in a state of great perplexity. They
had brought out the treasure from the cave
■where it usually lay ; but how to part it was
the difficulty; for not to speak of gold, there
were as many jewels alone " as twelve wagons
in four days and nights each going three jour-
neys could carry away ;" nay, " however much
you took from it there was no diminution;"
besides, in real property, a Sword, Balmung,
of great potency ; a Divining-rod " which gave
power over every one;" and a Tamkappe, (or
Cloak of Darkness,) which not only rendered
the wearer invisible, but also gave him twelve
men's strength. So that the two Princes Royal,
without counsel save from their Twelve stupid
Giants, knew not how to fall upon any amicable
arrangement; and, seeing Siegfried ride by so
opportunely, requested him to be arbiter; oifer-
ing also the Sword Balmung for his trouble.
Siegfried, who readily undertook the impossible
problem, did his best to accomplish it; but, of
course, without effect; nay the two Nibelungen
Princes, being of choleric temper, grew impa-
tient, and provoked him; whereupon, with the
Sword Balmung he slew them both, and their
Twelve Giants (perhaps originally Signs of
the Zodiac) to boot. Thus did the famous
Nibelungen Hort, (Hoard,) and indeed the whole
Nibelungen-land come into his possession;
wearing the Sword Balmung, and having slain
the two Princes and their champions, what
was there farther to oppose him 1 Vainly did
the Dwarf Alberich, our old friend Elberich
of the Heldciibiich, who had now become special
keeper of this Hoard, attempt some resistance

with a Dwarf Army; he was driven back into
the cave : plundered of his Tum/.-appe . and
obliged with all his myrmidons to swear fealty
lo the conqueror, whom indeed thenceforth he
and they punctually obeyed.

Whereby Siegfried might now farther style
himself King of the Nibelungen ; master of
the infinite Nibelungen Hoard (collected doubt-
less by art-magic in the beginning of Time, in
the deep bowels of the Universe) with the
Wiinschclniihe, (Wishing or Divining-rod,) per-
taining thereto ; owner of the Tarnkappe, which
he ever after kept by him, to put on at will ; and
though last not least. Bearer and Wielder of
the Sword Balmung,* by the keen edge of which
all this gain had come to him. To which last
acquisitions, adding his previously acquired
Invulnerability, and his natural dignities as
Prince of Netherland, he might well show him-
self before the foremost at Worms or else-
where; and attempt any the highest adventure
that fortune could cut out for him. However,
his subsequent history belongs all to the Nibe-
lungen Song ; at which fnir garden of poesy we
are now, through all these shaggy wildernesses
and enchanted woods, finally arrived.

Apart from its antiquarian value, and not
only as by far the finest monument of old
German art, but intrinsically, and as a mere
detached composition, this Nibelungen has an
excellence that cannot but surprise us. With
little preparation, any reader of poetry, even
in these days, might find it interesting. It is
not without a certain Unity of interest and
purport, an internal coherence and complete-
ness; it is a Whole, and some spirit of Music
informs it : these are the highest characteristics
of a true Poem. Considering farther what in-
tellectual environment we now find it in, it is
doubly to be prized and wondered at ; for it
differs from those Hero-Books, as molten or

* By this Sword Balmung also tiangs a tale. Doubt-
less it was one of those invaluable weapons sonietitnes '
fabricated by the old Norlhern Smiths, compared with
which our modern Foxes, and Fe.rraras, and Tole-
dos are mere leaden tools. Von der Hagen seems to
think it simply the Sword Mimung under another name ;
in which case Sie<;fried'.s old master, Mimer, had been
the nsaker of it, and called it after himself, as if it had j
been his son. In Scandinavian chronicles, veridical or ■
not, we have the following account of that transaction. •
Mimer (or as some have it, surely without ground, one '
Veliant, once an apprentice of his) was challenged by
another Craftsman, named Amilias, who boasted that he
had made a suit of armour which no stroke could dint, —
to equal that feat, or own himself the second Smith
then e,\tant. This last the stout Mimer would in no
case do, but proceeded to forge the Sword Mimung ;
with which, when it was finished, he, "in presence of
the King," cut asunder "a thread of wool iloatitrg on
water." This would have seemed a fair fire-edge to
most Smiths: not so to Mimer : be sawed the blade in
pieces, welded it in '' a red hot fire for three days," tem-
pered it with " milk and oatmeal," and by much other
cunning, brought out a sword that severed "a ball of
wool floating' on water." But neither would this suliice
him; he relumed to bis smithy ; and by means known
only to himself, produced in the course of seven weeks
a third and final edition of Mimun?, which split asunder
a whole floating pack of wool. The comparative trial
now took place forthwith. Amilias, cai^ed in his im-
penetrable coat of mail, sat down on a bench, in presence
of assembled thousands, and bade Mimer strike him.
Mimer fetched of course his best blow, on which Amiliaa
observed that there was a strange feeling of cold iron in
his inwards. "Shake thyself," said Mimer; the luck-
less wight did so, and fell in two halves, being cleft sheer
through from collar to haunch, never more to swing
hammer in this world. — See Illustrations of JVorthern
Antiquities, p. 31.

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

249

carved metal does from rude agglomerated ore ;
almost as some Shakspeare from his fellow
Dramatists, whose Tamburlaines and Island
Princesses, themselves not destitute of merit,
first show us clearly in what pure loftiness and
loneliness the Hamlels and Tempests reign.

The unknown Singer of the Kibelungen,
tliough no Shakspeare, must have had a deep,
poetic soul; wherein things discontinuous and
inanimate shaped themselves together into
}ife, and the Universe with its wondrous pur-
por. stood significantly imaged ; overarching,
as '.nth heavenly firmaments and eternal har-
monies, the little scene where men strut and
fret their hour. His Poem, unlike so many
old and new pretenders to that name, has a
basis and organic structure, a beginning, mid-
die, and end ; there is one great principle and
idea set forth in it, round which all its multi-
farious parts combine in living union. Re-
markable it is, moreover, how along with this
essence and primary condition of all poetic
virtue, the minor external virtues of what we
call Tasje, and so forth, are, as it were, pre-
supposed; and the living soul of Poetry being
there, its body of incidents, its garment of lan-
guage, come of their own accord. So, too, in
the caseof Shakspeare : his feeling of propriety,
as compared with that of the Marlowes and
Fletchers, his quick sure sense of what is fit
and unfit, either in act or word, might astonish
us, had he no other superiority. But true In-
spiration, as it may well do, includes that same
Taste, or rather a far higher and heartfelt
Taste, of which that other " elegant" species
is but an ineffectual, irrational apery : let us
see the herald Mercury actually descend from
his Heaven, and the bright wings, and the
graceful movement of these, will not be want-
ing.

With an instinctive art, far difl^erent from
acquired artifice, this Poet of the Nibchiugeit,
working in the same province with his con-
temporaries of the Heldenbiuh, on the same
material of tradition, has, in a wonderful de-
gree, possessed himself of what these could
only strive after; and with his "clear feeling
of fictitious truth," avoided as false the errors
and monstrous perplexities in which they
vainly struggled. He is of another species
than they; in language, in purity and depth
of feeling, in fineness of invention, stands
quite apart from them.

The language of the Heldcubvrh, as we saw
above, was a feeble half-articulate child's-
speech, the metre nothing better than a misera-
ble doggerel ; whereas here in the old Prank-
ish {Obcrdutsch) dialect of the Nibelurigen, we
have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real
system of verse, not without essential regu-
larity, great liveliness, and now and then even
harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often
call it a diffuse diluted utterance; at the same
time it is genuine, with a certain antique
garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the
thoughts as well as the words. The simplicity
is never silly, even in that perpetual recur-
rence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as
where two words for instance lib (body, life,
leib) and wip (woman, wife, u-eip) are indis-
solubly wedded together, and the one never
32

shows itself without the other following,^
there is something which reminds us not so
much of poverty, as of trustfulness and child-
like innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies
in those old tones, where, in gay dancing melo-
dies, the sternest tidings are sung to us ; and
deep floods of Sadness and Strife play lightly
in little curling billows, like seas in summer.
It is as a meek smile, in whose still, thought-
ful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and
love, and heroic strength lie revealed. But in
other cases, too, we have seen this outward
sport and inward earnestness offer grateful
contrast, and cunning excitement; for example,
in Tasso ; of whom, though otherwise different
enough, this old Northern Singer has more
than once reminded us. There, too, as here,
we have a dark solemn meaning in light
guise; deeds of high temper, harsh self-denial,
daring, and death, stand embodied in that soft,
quick-flowing, joyfully-modulated verse. Nay,
farther, as if the implement, much more than
we might fancy, had influenced the work done,
these two Poems, could we trust our individual
feeling, have in one respect the same poetical
result for us: in the Nibelungcn as in the Geru-
siilemme, the persons and their story are indeed
brought vividly before us, yet not near and
palpably present; it is rather as if we looked
on that scene through an inverted telescope,
whereby the whole was carried far away into
the distance, the life-large figures comprised into
brilliant miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny,
elf-like, and beautified as well as lesstmed,
their colours being now closer and brighter,
the shadows and trivial features no longer
visible. This, as we partly apprehend, comes
of Singing Epic Poems; most part of which
only pretend to be sung. Tasso's rich melody
still lives among the Italian people; the Nibe-
lunge)) also is what it professes to be, a Song.

No less striking than the verse and language
is the quality of the invention manifested here.
Of the Fable, or narrative material of the
Nibelungcn, we should say that it had high,
almost the highest merit ; so daintily, yet firmly,
is it put together; with such felicitous selec-
tion of the beautiful, the essential, and no less
felicitous rejection of whatever was unbeauti-
ful or even extraneous. The reader is no
longer afflicted with that chaotic brood of Fire-
drakes, Giants, and malicious turbaned Turks,
so fatally rife in the He!denb)4rli : all this is
swept awaj', or only hovers in faint shadows
afar off; and a free field is opened for legiti-
mate perennial interests. Yet neither is the
Kibehtvgen without its wonders : for it is poetry
and not prose; here too, a supernatural world
encompasses the natural, and, though at rare
intervals and in a calm manner, reveals itself
there. It is truly wonderful with what skill
our simple, untaught Poet deals with the mar-
vellous ; admitting it without reluctance or
criticism, yet precisely in the degree and
shape that will best avail him. Here, if in no
other respect, we should say that he has a de-
cided superiority to Homer himself. The whole
story of the Kibclungoi is fateful, mysterious,
guided on by unseen influences; yet the
actual marvels are few, and done in the far
distance: those Dwarfs, and CU aks of Dark-

250

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ness, and charmed Treasure-caves, are heard
of raiher than beheld, the tidings of them seem
to issue from unknown space. Vain were it
to inquire where thatNibelungen land specially
is : its very name is Nebel-hmd or Nifl-hind, the
land of Darkness, of Invisibility. 'I'he " Nibe-
lungen Heroes," that muster in thousands and
tens of thousands, though they march to the
Rhine or Danube, and we see their strong
limbs and shining armour, we could almost
fancy to be children of the air. Far beyond
the firm horizon, that wonder-bearing region
swims on the infinite waters ; unseen by
bodily eye, or at most discerned as a faint
streak, hanging in the blue depths, uncertain
whether island or cloud. And thus the Nibc-
luvgcn Song, though based on the bottomless
foundation of Spirit, and not unvisited of skyey
messengers, is a real, rounded, habitable Earth,
where we find firm footing, and the wondrous
and the common live amicably together. Per-
haps it would be diflicult to find any Poet of
ancient or modern times, who in this trying
problem has steered his way with greater
delicacy and success.

To any of our readers, M'ho may have per-
sonally studied the Nibclimgen, these high
praises of ours will not seem exaggerated: the
rest, who are the vast majority, must endeavour
to accept them with some degree of faith, at
least, of curiosity ; to vindicate, and judicially
substantiate them would far exceed our pre-
sent opportunities. Nay, in any case, the
criticisms, the alleged Characteristics of a
Poem are so many Theorems, which are in-
deed enunciated, truly or falsely, but the
Demonstration of which must be sought for in
the reader's own study and experience. Nearly
all that can be attempted here, is some hasty
epitome of the mere Narrative; no substantial
image of the work, but a feeble outline and
shadow. To which task, as the personages
and their environment have already been in
some degree illustrated, we can now proceed
without obstacle.

The Nibelu7}gen has been called the Northern
Epos ; yet it has, in great part, a Dramatic
character: those thirty-nine J}vcniiurcn (Adven-
tures) which it consists of, might be so many
scenes in a Tragedy. The catastrophe is dimly
prophesied from the beginning; and, at every
fresh step, rises more and more clearly into
view. A shadow of coming Fate, as it were,
a low inarticulate voice of Doom falls from the
first, out of that charmed Nibelungen-land : the
discord of two women, is as a little spark of
evil passion, that ere long enlarges itself into a
crime; foul murder is done; and now the Sin
rolls on like a devouring fire, till the guilty and
the innocent are alike encircled with it, and a
whole land is ashes, and a whole race is swept
away.

Uns ist in alien vimren Wunders vil geseit,
Von helden lobebwren Von grozer chuonheit.
Von vroudenundhoch-gezilen Von wehtenundvon chlagcn,
Von ckuner reclien striten Muget ir mi wunder horen
sagen.

We find in ancient story, Wnnrtera many told,
Of heroes in great glory, With spirit free and bold,
Of joyances, and high-tides, Of weeping and of wo,
Of noble Recken striving, Mote ye now wonders know.

This is the brief artless Proem ; and the pro-
mise contained in it proceeds directly towards
fulfilment. In the very second stanza wts
learn : —

Es wiihs in Burgonden Kin vil edel magedin.
Das in alien landen J^iht schoners mohte sin,
Chriemhilt vas si gehein Si wart ein schone wip,
Darumbe miiscn degene Vil verlitsen den lip.

A right nohle maiden Did srnw in Burgundy,
That in ail lands of earth Noiiglit fairer ninte there be ;
Chrieniliild of Worms she hi^'ht, She was a fairi^st wife :
For the wliich must warriors A many lose their life.*

Chriemhild, this world's-wonder, a king's
daughter and king's sister, and no less coy and
proud than fair, dreams one night that "she
had petted a falcon, strong, beautiful, and wild;
which two eagles snatched away from her:
this she was forced to see ; greater sorrow felt
she never in the world." Her mother, Ute, to
whom she relates the vision, soon redes it for
her; the falcon is a noble husband, whom, God
keep him, she must suddenly lose. Chriemhild
declares warmly for the single state ; as indeed,
living there at the Court of Worms, with her
brothers, Gunther, Gemot, Geiselher, "three
kings noble and rich," in such pomp and re-
nown, the pride of Burgunden-land and Earth,
she might readily enough have changed for
the worse. However, dame Ute bids her not be
too emphatical ; for " if ever she have heart-felt
joy in life, it will be from man's love, and she
shall be a fair wife, (wip), when God sends her
a right worthy Ritter's Itp." Chriemhild is more
in earnest than maidens usually are when they
talk thus ; it appears, she guarded against love
"for many a lief-long day ;" nevertheless, she
too must yield to destiny. " Honourably she
was to become a most noble Ritter's wife."
"This," adds the old Singer, "was that same
falcon she dreamed of: how sorely she since
revenged him on her nearest kindred ! For that
one death died full many a mother's son."

It may be observed that the Poet, here,
and all times, shows a marked partiality for
Chriemhild; ever striving, unlike his fellow
singers, to magnify her worth, her faithfulness,
and loveliness ; and softening, as much as may
be, whatever makes against her. No less a
favourite with him is Siegfried, the prompt,
gay, peaceably fearless hero ; to whom, in the
Second ^ventivre, we are here suddenly intro-
duced, at Santen (Xanten) the Court of Neth-
erland ; whither, to his glad parents, after
achievements (to us partially known) "of
which one might sing and tell for ever," that
noble prince has returned. Much as he has done
and conquered, he is but just arrived at man's

♦ This is the first of a thousand instances, in which
the two inseparables. Hip and Lip, or in modern tongue,
JVeib and Leib, as mentioned above, appear together.
From these two opening stanzas of the Mibetungen Lied,
in its purest form, the reader may obtain some idea of
the versification ; it runs on in more or less regular Al-
exandrines, with a ca!sural pause in each, where the
capital letter occurs; indeed, the lines seem originally
to have bet-n divided into two at that point, for some-
times, as in Stanza First, the middle words (inaren, lobe-
bairen ; gezilev, strite^i) also rhyme ; but this is rather a
rare case. The word lieclien or Recken, used in the First
Stanza, is the constant designation for bold fighters, and
has the same root with rick, (thus in old French, hoivmea
riches ; in Spanish, ricos hombres,) which last is here also
synonymous with powerful, and is applied to kings, and
even to the Almighty, Oot dem richen.

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

SSi

years : it i.s on occasion of this J03'ful event,
that a high-tide (hochgezil) is now held there,
with infinite joustings, minstrelsy, largesses,
and other chivalrous doings, all which is sung
with utmost heartiness. The old King Siege-
mund oflers to resign his crown to him; but
Siegfried has other game a-field : the un-
paralleled beauty of Chriemhild has reached his
ear and his fancy; and now he will to Worms,
5ind woo her, at least "see how it stands with
her." Fruitless is it for Siegemund and the
mother Siegelinde to represent the perils of that
enterprise, the pride of those Burgundian
Gunthers andGernots, the fierce temperof their
uncle Hagen ; Siegfried is as obstinate as young
nien are in these cases, and can hear no coun-
sel. Nay, he will not accept the much more
libeial proposition, to take an army with him,
and conquer the country, if it must be so; he
will ride forth, like himself, with twelve cham-
pions only, and so defy the future. Where-
upon, the old people finding that there is no
other course, proceed to make him clothes ;* —
at least, the good queen with " her fair women
sitting night and day," and sewing, does so, the
father furnishing noblest battle and riding gear;
— and so dismiss him with many blessings and
lamentations. "For him wept sore the king
and his wife, but he comforted both their bodies
(/(/*) ; he said, ' ye must not weep, for my
body ever shall ye be without care.' "

Sad was it to the Recken, Stood weeping many a maid,
I ween, their heart had them The tidiiit's true foresaid
Thiit of their friends so niai^y Death therel)y should find ;
Cause had they of lamenting Such boding in tlieir mind.

Nevertheless, on the seventh morning, that
adventurous company " ride up the sand," (on
the Rhine beach to Worms,) in high temper,
in dress and trappings, aspect and bearing,
more than kingly.

Siegfried's reception at King Gunther's court,
and his brave sayings and doings there for
some time, we must omit. One fine trait of
his chivalrous delicacy it is that, for a whole
year, he never hints at his errand; never once
sees or speaks of Chriemhild, whom, neverthe-
less, he is longing day and night to meet. She,
on her side, has often through her lattices
noticed the gallant stranger victorious in all
tillings and knightly exercises; whereby it
would seem, in spite of her rigorous predeter-
minations, some kindness for him is already
gliding in. Meanwhile, mighty wars and
threats of invasion arise, and Siegfried does
the state good service. Returning victorious,
both as general and soldier, from Hessen,
(Hessia,) where, by help of his own courage
and the sword Balmung, he has captured a
Danish King, and utterly discomfited a Saxon
one; he can now show himself before Chriem-
hild without other blushes than those of timid
love. Nay, the maiden has herself inquired
pointedly of the messengers, touching his ex-
ploits; and "her fair face grew rose-red when
she heard them." A gay High-tide, by way of
triumph, is appointed; several kings, and two-
and-lhirty princes, and knights enough with

♦ This is a never-fiiling preparative for all expedi-
tions, and always specified and insisted on with a simple,
loving, almost female impressiveness.

" gold-red saddles," come to joust, and better
than whole infinities of kings and princes with
their saddles, the fair Chriemhild herself, under
guidance of her mother, chiefly too in honour
of the victor, is to grace that sport. " TJte the
full rich" fails not to set her needle-women to
work, and " clothes of price are taken from
their presses," for the love of her child, " where-
with to deck many women and maids." And
now, " on the Whitsun-morning," all is ready,
and glorious as heart could desire it : brave
Ritters " five thousand or more," all glancing
in the lists; but grander still, Chriemhild her-
self is advancing beside her mother, with a
hundred body-guards, all sword-in-hand and
many a noble maid " wearing rich raiment," in
her train !

"Now issued forth the lovely one, {minnech-
liche,) as the red morning doth from troubled
clouds ; much care fled away from him, who
bore her in his heart, and long had done ; he
saw the lovely one stand in her beauty.

"There glanced from her garments full
many precious stones, her rose-red colour
shone full lovely ; try what he might, each
man must confess that in this world he had
not seen aught so fair.

" Like as the light moon stands before the
stars, and its sheen so clear goes over the
clouds, even so stood she now before many
fair women ; whereat cheered was the mind
of the hero.

"The rich chamberlains you saw go before
her, the high spirited Recken would not for-
bear, but pressed on where they saw the lovely
maiden. Siegfried the lord was both glad and
sad.

"He thought in his mind, how could this be
that I should woo thee 1 That was a foolish
dream ; yet must I for ever be a stranger, I
were rather {sanfter, softer) dead. He became
from these thoughts, in quick changes, pale
and red.

"Thus stood so lovely the child of Siege-
linde, as if he were limned on parchment by
a master's art; for all granted that hero so
beautiful they had never seen."

In this passage, which we have rendered,
from the Fifth Jvcniivre, into the closest prose,
it is to be remarked, among other singular-
ities, that there are two similes: in which
figure of speech our old Singer deals very
sparingly. The first, that comparison of
Chriemhild to the moon among stars with its
sheen going over the clouds, has now for
many centuries had little novelty or merit;
but the second, that of Siegfried to a Figure
in some illuminated Manascript, is graceful in
itself; and unspeakably so to antiquaries, sel-
dom honoured, in their Black-letter stubbing
and grubbing, with such a poetic windfall.

A prince and a princess of this quality are
clearly made for one another. Nay, on the
motion of young Herr Gemot, fair Chriemhild
is bid specially to salute Siegfried, she who
had never before saluted man : which unpa-
ralleled grace the lovely one, in all courtliness,
openly does him. "Be welcome," said she,
"Herr Siegfried, a noble Ritter good;" from
which salute, lor this seems to have been all,
" much raised was his mind." He bowed

S52

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

with graceful reverence, as his manner was
with women; she took him by the hand, and
with fond stolen glances, they looked at each
other. Whether in that ceremonial joinings of
hands there might not be some soft, slight
pressure, of far deeper import, is what our
Singer will not lake upon him to say ; how-
ever, he thinks the affirmative more probable.
Henceforth, in that bright May weather, the
two were seen constantly together: nothing
but felicity around and before them. — In these
days, truly, it must have been that the famous
Prize-fight with Dietrich of Bern and his ele-
ven liOmbardy champions, took place, little to
the profit of the two Lovers , were it not ra-
ther that the whole of that Rose-garden trans-
action, as given in the Heldcnbvrh, might be
falsified and even imaginary; for no mention
or hint of it occurs here. War or battle is
not heard of; Siegfried, the peerless, walks
wooingly by the side of Chriemhild the peer-
less : matters, it is evident, are in the best
possible course. ,

But now comes a new side-wind, which,
however, in the long run also forwards the
voyage. Tidings, namely, reached over the
Rhine, not so surprising we might hope, " that
there was many a fair maiden;" whereupon
Gunther the King "thought with himself to
win one of them." It was an honest purpose
in King Gunther, only his choice was not the
discreetest. For no fair maiden will content
him but Queen Brunhild, a lady who rules in
henla-nd, far over sea, famed indeed for her
beauty, yet no less for her caprices. Fables
we have met with of this Brunhild being pro-
perly a Valkyr, or Scandinavian Houri, such
as were wont to lead old northern warriors
from their last battle field, into Valhalla; and
that her castle of Jsenstcin stood amidst a lake
of fire ; but this, as we said, is fable and
groundless calumny, of which there is not so
much as notice taken here. Brunhild, it is
plain enough, was a flesh-and-blood maiden,
glorious in look and faculty, only with some
preternatural talents given her, and the strang-
est, wayward habits. It appears, for example,
that any suitor proposing for her has this brief
condition to proceed upon : he must try the
adorable in the three several games of htirling
the Spear (at one another), Leaping, and
throwing the Stone; if victorious, he gains
her hand; if vanquished, he loses his own
head ; which latter issue, such is the fair
Amazon's strength, frequent fatal expeiiment
has shown to be the only probable one.

Siegfried, who knows something of Burn-
hild and her ways, votes clearly against the
whole enterprise ; however, Gunther has once
for all got the whim in him, and must see it
out. The prudent Hagen von Toneg. uncle to
love-sick Gunther, and ever true to him, then
advises that Siegfried be requested to take
part in the adventure; to which request Sieg-
fried readily accedes on one condition ; that
should they prove fortunate he himself is to
have Chriemhild to wife, when they return.
This readily settled, he now takes charge of
.he business, and throws a little light on it for
the others. They must lead no army thither,
only two, Hagen and Dankwart. besides the

king and himself, shall go. The grand sub-
ject of waele* (clothes) is ne.xt hinted at, and
in general terms elucidated; whereupon a so-
lemn ccjusultation with Chriemhild ensues;
and a great cutting out, on her part, of white
silk from Araby, of green silk from Zazemang,
of strange fish-skins covered with morocco
silk; a great sewing thereof for seven weeks,
on the part of her maids ; lastly a fitting-on
of the three suits by each hero, for each had
three; and heartiest thanks in return, seeing
all fitted perfectly, and was of grace and price
unutterable. What is still more to the point,
Siegfried takes his Cloak of Darkness with
him, fancying he may need it there. The
good old Singer, who has hitherto alluded only
in the faintest way to Siegfried's prior adven-
tures and miraculous possessions, introduces
this of the Tarnknppe with great frankness
and simplicity. " Of wild dwarfs, (gelwaigen,)"
says he, "I have heard tell, they are in hollow
mountains, and for defence wear somewhat
called Tarnkappe, of wondrous sort : " the
qualities of which garment, that it renders in-
visible, and gives twelve men's strength, are
already known to us.

The voyage to Isenstein, Siegfried steering
the ship thither, is happily accomplished in
twenty days. Gunther admires to a high de-
gree the fine masonry of the place; as indeed
he well might, there being some eighty-six
towers, three immense palaces, and one im-
mense hall, the whole built of " marble green
as grass;" farther he sees many fair women
looking from the windows down on the bark,
and thinks the loveliest is she in the snow-
white dress; which, Siegfried informs him, is
a worthy choice; the snow-white maiden being
no other than Brunhild. It is also to be kept
in mind that Siegfried, for reasons known best
to himself, had previously stipulated that,
though a free king, they should all treat him
as vassal of Gunther; for whom accordingly
he holds the stirrup, as they mount on the
beach; thereby giving rise to a misconception,
which in the end led to saddest consequences.

Queen Brunhild, who had called back her
maidens from the windows, being a strict dis
ciplinarian, and retired into the interior of her
green marble Isenstein, to dress still better,
now inquires of some attendant. Who these
strangers of such lordly aspect are, and what
brings them. The attendant professes himself
at a loss to say; one of them looks like Sieg-
fried, the other is evidently by his port a noble
king. His notice of Von Troneg Hagen is
peculiarly vivid.

The third of those companions. He is of aspect stern.

And yet with lovely body, Rich queen, as ye might dis-
cern;

From those his rapid glances. For the eyes nc Jght rest
in him,

Meseems this foreign Recke Is of temper fierce and
grim.

This is one of those little graphic touches*
scattered all over our Poem, which do more
for picturing out an object, especially a man,
than whole pages of enumeration and mensura-
tion. Never after do we hear of this stout, in-

* Hence our English weeds, and Scotch wad (pifdge) ;
and, say the etymologists, waddivg, and even wedding.

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

393

domitahle Ilagen, in al'. ihe wild deeds and
sufferings he passes through, but those simukn
blirkcii of his come before us, with the rest-
less, deep, dauntless spirit thai looks through
them.

Brunhild's reception of Siegfried is not with-
out tartness; which, however, lie, wifh polished
courtesy, and the nimblest address, ever at his
command, softens down, or hurries over: he
is here, without will of his own, and so forth,
only as attendant on his master, the renowned
King Gunther, who comes to sue for her hand,
as the summit and keystone of all earthly
blessings. Brunhild, who had determined on
fighting Siegfried himself, if he so willed it,
makes .^mall account of this King Gunther, or
his prowess; and instantly clears the ground,
and equips her for battle. The royal wooer
must have looked a little blank when he saw a
shield brought in for his fair one's handling,
" three spans thick with gold and iron," which
four chamberlains could hardly bear, and a
spear or javelin she meant to shoot or hurl,
which was a burden for three. Hagen, in angry
apprehension for his king and nephew, ex-
claims that they shall all lose their life, (//;),)
and that she is the tiuvcls inp, or Devil's wife.
Nevertheless Siegfried is already there in his
CloHk of Darkness, twelve men strong, and
privily whispers in the ear of royalty to be of
comlort ; takes the shield to himself, Gunther
only affecting to hold it, and so fronts the edge
of battle. Brunhild performs prodigies of
spear-hurling, of leaping, and stone-pitching;
but Gunther, or rather Siegfried, " who does
the work, he only acting the gestures," nay,
who even snatches him up into the air and
leaps carrying him, — gains a decided victory,
and the lovely Amazon must own with sur-
prise and shame, that she is fairly won.
Siegfried presently appears wiihout Ta7->ikappe,
and asks with a grave face. When the games
then are to begin 1

So far well; yet somewhat still remains to
be done. Brunhild will not sail for Worms,
to be wedded, till she have assembled a fit
train of warriors: wherein the Burgundians,
being here without retinue, see symptoms or
possibilities of mischief. The deft Siegfried,
ablest of men, again knows a resource. In
his Turnkapne he steps on board the bark,
which, seen from the shore, appears to drift ofi~
of its own accord ; and therein, stoutly steering
towards Nilelungcu-hnul, he reaches that mys-
terious country and the mountain where his
Hoard lies, before the second morning; finds
Dwarf Alberich and all his giant sentinels at
their post, and faithful almost to the death ;
these soon rouse him thirty thousand Nibelun-
gen Recken, from whom he has only to choose
one thousand of the best; equip them splen-
didly enough ; and therewith return to Gunther,
simjily as if they were that sovereign's own
body-suard, that had been delayed a little by
stress of weather.

The final arrival at Worms ; the bridal
feasts, for there are two, Siegfried also receiv-
ing his reward; and the joyance and splendour
of man and maid, at this lordliest of hightides;
and the joustings, greater than those at Aspra-
monl or Montauban — every reader can fancy

for himself. Remarkable only is the evil eye
with which queen Brunhild still continues to
regard the noble Siegfried. She cannot under-
stand how Gunther, the Landlord of the Rhine,*
should have bestowed his sister on a vassal:
the assurance that Siegfried also is a prince
and heir-apparent, the prince namely of Ne-
therland, and little inferior to Burgundian
majesty itself, yields no complete satisfaction,
and Brunhild hints plainly that, unless the
truth be told her, unpleasant consequences
may follow. Thus is there ever a ravelled
thread in the web of life ! But for this little
cloud of spleen, these bridal feasts had been
all bright and balmy as the month of June.
Unluckily, too, the cloud is an electric one;
spreads itself in time into a general earth-
quake; nay, that very night becomes a thun-
der-storm, or tornado, unparalleled we may
hope in the annals of connubial happiness.

The Singer of the Nibelimgeii, unlike the Au-
thor of Roderick Randoin, cares little for inter-
meddling with " the chaste mysteries of
hymen." Could we, in the corrupt, ambigu-
ous, modern tongue, hope to exhibit any sha-
dow of the old, simple, true-hearted, merely
historical spirit, with which, in perfect purity
of soul, he describes things unattempted yet in
prose or rhyme, — we could a tale unfold!
Suffice it to say. King Gunther, Landlord of
the Rhine, falling sheer down from the third
heaven of hope, finds his spouse the most
athletic and intractable of women ; and him^
self, at the close of the adventure, nowise
encircled in her arms, but tied hard and fast
hand and foot, in her girdle, and hung thereby,
at considerable elevation, on a nail in the wall.
Let any reader of sensibility figure the emo-
tions of the royal breast, there as he vibrates
suspended on his peg, and his inexorable bride
sleeping sound in her bed below! Towards
morning he capitulates; engaging to observe
the prescribed line of conduct with utmost
strictness, so he may but avoid becoming a
laughing-stock to all men.

No wonder the dread king looked rather
grave next morning, and received the con-
gratulations of mankind in a cold manner.
He confesses to Siegfried, who partly suspects
how it may be, that he has brought the "evil
devil" home to his house in the shape of wife,
whereby he is wretched enough. However,
there are remedies for all things but death.
The ever-serviceable Siegfried undertakes
even here to make Ihe crooked straight. What
may not an honest friend with Tarnkappe and
twelve men's strength perform] Proud Brun-
hild, next night, after a fierce contest, OAvns
herself again vanquished; Gunther is there to
reap the fruits of another's victory; the noble
Siegfried withdraws, taking nothing with him
but the luxury of doing good, and the proud
queen's Ring and Girdle gained from her in.
that struggle; which small trophies he, with
the last infirmity of a noble mind, presents tc
his own fond wife, little dreaming that they
would one day cost him and her, and all of

* Der IVirt vom Rive : sinsrtilr.r enongh the word IVirt/l,
often npplird to royiilty in tliat old (iialect, is now alsn
ttio title of iniilieepers. To such base uses may v»
come.

554

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

them, so dear. Such readers as take any in-
terest in poorGunther will be gratified to learn,
that from this hour Brunhild's preternatural
fiiculties quite left her, being all dependent on
her maidhood ; so that any more spear-hurling,
or other the like extraordinary work, is not to
be apprehended from her.

If v/e add that Siegfried formally made over
to his dear Chriemhild the Nibelungen Hoard,
by way of Margengabc, (or, as we may say. Join-
ture;) and the high-tide, though not the honey-
moon being past, returned to Netherland with
his spouse, to be welcomed there with infinite
rejoicings, — we have gone through as it were
the First Act of this Tragedy, and may here
pause to look round us for a moment. The
main characters are now introduced on the
scene, the relations that bind them together are
dimly sketched out: there is the prompt, cheer-
fully heroic, invulnerable, and invincible Sieg-
fried, now happiest of men; the high Chriem-
hild, fitly-mated, and if a moon, revolving glo-
rious round her sun, ori'V(ef/f/(joy and darling);
not without pride and female aspirings, yet not
prouder than one so gifted and placed is
pardonable for being. On the other hand, we
have King Gunther, or rather let us say king's-
mantle Gunther, for never except in that one
enterprise of courting Brunhild, in which too,
withoat help, he would have cut so poor a
figure, does the worthy sovereign show will
of his own, or character other than that of
good potter's clay; farther, the suspicious, fore-
casting, yet stout and reckless Hagen, him
with the rajiid gla7)ces, and these turned not too
kindly on Siegfried, whose prowess he has
used yet dreads, whose Nibelungen Hoard he
perhaps already covets; lastly, the rigorous and
vigorous Brunhild, of whom also more is to be
feared than hoped. Considering the fierce
nature of these now mingled ingredients, and
how, except perhaps in the case of Gunther
there is no menstruum of placid stupidity to
soften them, except in Siegfried, no element of
heroic truth to master them and bind them to-
gether,— unquiet fermentation may readily be
apprehended.

Meanwhile, for a season all is peace and
sunshme. Siegfried reigns in Netherland, of
which his father has surrendered him the
crown ; Chriemhild brings him a son, whom
in honour of the uncle he christens Gunther,
which courtesy the uncle and Brunhild repay
in kind. The Nibelungen Hoard is still open
and inexhaustible; Dwarf Alberich and all the
Recken there still loyal ; outward relations
friendly, internal supremely prosperous : these
are halcyon days. I3ut, alas, they cannot last.
Queen Brunhild, retaining with true female
tenacity her first notion, right or wrong, re-
flects one day that Siegfried, who is and shall
be nothing but her husband's vassal, has for a
long while paid him no service; and, deter-
mined on a remedv, manages that Siegfried
and his queen shall be invited to a high-tide
at Worms, where opportunity may chance for
enforcing that claim. Thither accordingly,
after ten years' absence, we find these illustri-
ous guests returning; Siegfried escorted by a
thousand Nibelungen Ritters, and farther by
his father Siegemund, who leads a train of

Netherlanders. Here for eleven days, amid
infinite joustings, there is a true heaven on
earth: but the apple of Discord is already
lying in the knightly ring, and two Women,
the proudest and keenest-tempered of the
world, simultaneously stoop to lift it. Avcntiure
Fourteenth is entitled " How the two queens
rated one another." Never was courtlier
Billingsgate uttered, or which came more
directly home to the business and bosoms of
women. The subject is that old story of Pre-
cedence, which indeed, from the time of Cain
and Abel downwards, has wrought such efll'u-
sion of blood and bile both among men and wo-
men; lying at the bottom of all armaments and
battle-fields, whether Blenheims and Water-
loos, or any plate-displays, and tongue-and
eye skirmishes, in the circle of domestic Tea:
nay, the very animals have it ; and horses,
were they but the miserablest Shelties and
Welsh ponies, will not graze together till it has
been ascertained, by clear fight, who is master
of whom, and a proper drawing-room etiquette
established.

Brunhild and Chriemhild take to arguing
about the merits of their husbands : the latter
fondly expatiating on the pre-eminence of her
Fneilel, how he walks " like the moon among
stars" before all other men, is reminded by
her sister that one man at least must be ex-
cepted, the mighty king Gunther of Worms, to
whom, by his own confession long ago at
Isenstein, he is vassal and servant. Chriemhild
will sooner admit that clay is above sunbeams,
than any such proposition ; which therefore
she, in all politeness, requests of her sister
never more to touch upon while she lives.
The result may be foreseen : rejoinder follows
reply, statement grows assertion ; flint-sparks
have fallen on the dry flax, which from smoke
bursts into conflagration. The two queens part
in hottest, though still clear-flaming anger.
Not, however, to let their anger burn out, only
to feed it with more solid fuel. Chriemhild
dresses her forty maids in finer than royal ap-
parel; orders out all her husband's Recken;
and so attended, walks foremost to the Minster,
where mass is to be said; thus practically assert-
ing that she is not only a true queen, but the
worthier of the two. I3runhild, quite outdone
in splendour, and enraged beyond all patience,
overtakes her at the door of the Minster, with
peremptory order to stop : "before king's wife
shall vassal's never go."

Then said the fair Chrieiiihilile, Right angry was ho-

mood :
"Couldest thou but hold thy peace, It were surely fo

thy gnoil.
Thyself iiast all pnlhitpd With shame thy fair bodye ;
How can a Concubine By right a King's wife be 1"

"Whom hast thou Concubined'!" The King's wifi

qiiirkly spake ;
" That do 1 tlii'e," said Chrienihilde ; " For thy pride an<.

vauiitiiig's sake ;
Who first had thy fair body Was Siegfried my beloved

Man ;
My br<ither was it not That thy maidhood from thee wan."

In proof of which outrageous saying, she pro-
duces that Ring and Girdle; the innocent con-
quest of which, as we well know, had a far other

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

255

origin. Bnmhild bursts into tears ; " sadder
day she never saw." Nay, perhaps a new light
now rose on her over much that had been
dark in her late history; "she rued full sore
•jiat ever she was born."

Here, then, is the black injury, which only
blood will wash away. The evil fiend has
begun his work ; and the issue of it lies be-
yond man's control. Siegfried may protest
his innocence of that calumny, and chastise
his indiscreet spouse for uttering it even in
the heat of anger: the female heart is wounded
beyond healing; the old springs of bitterness
against this hero unite into a fell flond of hate;
while he sees the sunlight, she cannot know a
joyful hour. Vengeance is soon offered her :
Hagen, who lives only for his prince, under-
takes this bad service ; by treacherous profes-
sions of attachment, and anxiety to guard
Siegfried's life, he gains from Chriemhild the
secret of his vulnerability ; Siegfried is carried
out to hunt ; and in the hour of frankest gayety
is stabbed through the fatal spot; and, felling
the murderer to the ground, dies upbraiding
his false kindred, yet, with a touching sim-
plicity, recommending his child and wife to
their protection. " Let her feel that she is yonr
sister; was there ever virtue in princes, be
true to her : for me my Father and my men
shall long wait." " The flowers all round
were wetted with blood, then he struggled with
death; not long did he this, the weapon cut
him too keen ; so he could speak nought more,
the Recke bold and noble."

At this point, we might say, ends the Third
Act of our Tragedy ; the whole story hence-
forth takes a darker character; it is as if a
tone of sorrow and fateful boding became more
and more audible in its free, light music. Evil
has produced new evil in fatal augmentation :
injury is abolished ; but in its stead there is
guilt and despair. Chriemhild, an hour ago so
rich, is now robbed of all: her grief is bound-
less as her love has been. No glad thought
can ever more dwell in her; darkness, utter
night, has come over her, as she looked into
the red of morning. The spoiler too walks
abroad unpunished; the bleeding corpse wit-
nesses against Hagen, nay he himself cares
not to hide the deed. But who is there to
avenge the friendless? Siegfried's father has
returned in haste to his own land ; Chriemhild
is now alone on the earth, her husband's grave
is all that remains to her; there only can she
sit, as if waiting at the threshold of her own
dark home; and in prayers and tears, pour out
the sorrow and love that have no end. Still
farther injuries are heaped on her: by advice
of tne crafty Hagen, Gunther, who had not
planned the murder, yet permitted and wit-
nessed it, now comes with whining professions
of repentance and good-will ; persuades her to
send for the Nibelungen Hoard to Worms :
where no sooner is it arrived, than Hagen and
the rest forcibly take it from her; and her last
trust in affection or truth from monal is rudely
cut away. Bent to the earth, she weeps only
for her lost Siegfried, knows no comfort, but
will weep for ever.

One lurid gleam of hope, after long years of I had translated some considerable portion of
darkness, breaks in on her, in the prospect oft this Twenty-fifth jivcntiitre, "How the Nibelun

revenge. King Etzel sends from his far country
to solicit her hand: the embassy she hears at
first, as a woman of ice might do ; the good
Rudiger, Etzel's spokesman, pleads in vain
that his king is the richest of all earthly kings;
That he is so lonely "since Frau Heike died;"
that though a Heathen he has Christians about
him, and may one day be converted: till, at
length, w-hen he hints distantly at the power of
Etzel to avenge her injuries, she on a sudden
becomes all attention. Hagen, foreseeing such
possibilities, protests against the match; but
is overruled: Chriemhild departs with Rudiger
for the land of the Huns; taking cold leave of
her relations ; only two of whom, her brothers
Gemot and Geiselher, innocent of that murder,
does she admit near her as convoy to the
Uonau.

The Nibelungen Hoard has hitherto been
fatal to all its possessors ; to the two sons of
Nibelung; to Siegfried its conqueror: neither
does the Burgundian Royal House fare better
with it. Already, discords threatening to
arise, Hagen sees prudent to sink it in the
Rhine; first taking oath of Gunther and his
brothers, that none of them shall reveal the
hiding-place, while any of the rest is alive.
But the curse that clave to it could not be
sunk there. The Nibelungen-land is now
theirs : they themselves are henceforth called
Nibelungen ; and this history of their fate is
the Nibelungen Song, or Nibcluvgea Noih,
(Nihelungen's Need, extreme need, or final
wreck and abolition.)

The Fifth Act of our strange eventful history
now draws on. Chriemhild has a kind husband,
of hospitable disposition, who troubles himself
little about her secret feelings and 'intents.
With his permission, she sends two minstrels,
inviting the Burgundian Court to a high-tide,
at Etzel's: she has charged the messengers to
say that she is happy, and to bring all Gun-
ther's champions with them. Her eye was on
Hagen, but she could not single him from the
rest. After seven days' deliberation, Gunther
answers that he will come. Hagen has loudly
dissuaded the journey, but again been over-
ruled. "It is his fate," says a commentator,
"like Cassandra's, ever to foresee the evil,
and ever to he disregarded. He himself sliul
his ear against the inward voice; and now Iul;
warnings are uttered to the deaf." He argues
long, but in vain: nay, young Gemot hints at
last that this aversion originates in ])ersonal
fear :
Tlit-n sprite Vnn Troiieg Ilacen : "Nnwise is it tlirnu^h

f.-.-ir;
Sn ynii C(iiiiniaTi(l it. IlHrors, Then up, frird on your gpar ;
1 liile witli veil till- fnrfiiiiist Inm ICinj.' Etzel's Imiii."
Since lli»n full iiiniiy a helm Was shivered liy his hand.

Frau Ute's dreams and omens are now una
vailing with him; "whoso heedeth dreams,"
said Hagen, "of the right story wotteth not:'*
he has computed the worst issue, and defied iu
Many a little touch of pathos, and even
solemn beauty lies carelessly scattered in these
rhymes, had we space to exhibit such here.
As specimen of a strange, winding, diffuse,
yet innocently graceful style of narrative, we

256

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

gen marched (fared) to the Huns," into verses
as literal as might be ; which now, alas, look
mournfully different from the original ; almost
like Scriblerus's shield when the barbarian
housemaid had scoured it. Nevertheless, to
do for tiie reader what we can, let somewhat
of that modernized ware, such as it is, be set
before liim. The brave Nibelungen are on the
eve of departure ; and about ferrying over the
Rhine ; and here it may be noted that Worms,*
with our old Singer, lies not in its true posi-
tion, but at some distance from the river; a
proof at least that he was never there, and
probably sang and lived in some very distant
region :

The boats were floating ready, And many men there

were ;
What clothes of price they had They took and stow'd

them there,
Was never a rest from toiling Until the even tide,
Then they took the flood right gaily. Would longer not

abide.

Brave tents and hutches You saw raised on the grass,
Other side the Rhine-stream That camp it pitched was :
The king to stay a while Was besought of his fair

wife ;
That night she saw him with her. And never more in life.

Trumpets and flutes spoke out. At dawning of the day,
That time was come for parting, So they rose to march

away :
Who loved-one had in arms Did kiss that same, I ween ;
And fond farewells were bidden By cause of Etzel's

Queen.

Frau Ute's noble sons They had a serving man,
A brave one and a true : Or ever the march began.
He spe;iketh to King Gunther, What for his ear was fit,
He said : " Wo for this journey, I grieve because of it.*'

* This City of Worms, had we a right imagination,
ouirlit to be as venerable to us Moderns, as any Thebes
or Troy was to the Ancients. Whether founded by the
Gods or not, it is of quite unknown antiquity, and has
witnessed the most wonderful thiuL's. Witliin authentic
times, the Romans were here, and if tradition may be
credited, Attila also; it was the seat of the Anstrasian
kings ; the frequent residence of Charlemagne himself;
innumerable Festivals, Highlides, Tournaments, and
Imperial Diets were held in it, of which latter, one at
least, that where Luther appeared in 15'2[. will be for
ever retnembered liy all mankitul. Nor is Worms more
famous in history than, as indeed we may see here, it is
in romance ; whereof many monuments and vestiges
remain to this day. " A pleasant meadow there," says
Von der lla^'en, " is still called Chriemhild's Rosenirarten.
The name IVoniis itself is derived (by Legendary Etymo-
losy) from the Dragon, or IVorm. which Sieufried slew,
the figure of which once formed the City Arms ; in past
times, there was also to be seen here an ancient strone
Riesev-Haiix, (Giant's house,) and many a memorial of
Siegfried : his Lance, 66 feet long, (almost 80 English
feet.) in the Cathedral ; his Statue, of eigantic size on
the JVei/e Tlinrm (New Tower) on the Rhine ;" &c. &c.
"And lastly the Siegfried's Chapel, in primeval Pre-
Gothic architecture, not long since pulled down. In the
time of the Meislersiiiiirers, too, the Stadtrath was
bound to n'we every Master, who sans; the Lay of Sieg-
fried {Meisterlied vnn Sieo/rierffn, the purport of which is
now unknown) without mistake, a certain gratuity." —
Olo.'isiirti to the J^iheUinfren, $ PVorms.

One is sorry to learn that this famed Imperial City is
no longer Imperial, but much fallen in every way from
its palmy state ; the 30,(100 inhabitants (to be found there
in (Justavus Adol|)|ius's time) having now declined into
some 6.800, — " who maintain themselves by wine-grow-
ing, Rhineiioats, tobacco-manufacture, and making
siisar-of-lead." So hard has war, which respects no-
thing, pressed oii Worms, ill-placed for safety, on the
hostile border : Louvois, or Louis XIV., in 1669, had it
utterly devastated; whereby in the interior, "spaces
that were once covered with buildings are now gar-
Uons." — See Conv. Lexicon, J IVorins.

He Rumold hight, the Sewer, Was known as hero true ;
He spake : " Whom shall his people And land be trusted

tol
Wo on't, will nought persuade ye, Brave Recken, from

this road !
Frau Chriemhild's flattering message No good doth seem

to bode."

" The land to thee be trusted, And my fair boy also.
And serve thou well the women, I tell thee ere I go,
Whomso thou findest weeping Her heart give comfort to :
No harm to one of us King Etzel's wife will do."

The steeds were standing ready, For the Kings and for
their men ; \

With kisses tenderest. Took leave full many then,

Who, in gallant cheer and hope, To march were nought
afraid !

Them since that day bewaileth Many a noble wife and
maid.

But when the rapid Recken Took horse and prickt away.
The women shent in sorrow You saw behind them stay;
Of parting all too long Their hearts to them did tell ;
When grief so great is coming. The mind forebodes not
well.

Nathless the brisk Biirgonden All on their way did go,
Then rose the country over A mickle dole and wo ;
On both sides of the hills. Woman and man did weep :
Let their folk do how they list, These gay their course
did keep.

The Nibelungen Recken* Did march with them as welli
In a thotisand glittering hauberks, Who at home had

ta'en farewell
Of many a fair woman Should see them never more :
The wound of her brave Siegfried Did grieve Chriein-

hilde sore.

Then 'gan they shape their journey Towards the River

Maine,
All on through East-Franconia, King Gunther and his

train :
Hagen he was their leader. Of old did know the way,
Dankwart did keep, as marshal, their ranks in good

array.

As they, from East-Franconia, The Salfield rode along.
Might you have seen them prancing, A bright and lordly

throng.
The Princes and their vassals, All heroes of great fame :
The twelfth morn brave king Gunther Unto the Donau

came.

There rode Von Troneg Hagen, The foremost of that

host,
He was to the Nibelungen The guide they loved the most:
The Ritter keen disniounted,Set foot on the sandy ground,
His steed to a tree he tied, Look'd wistful all around.

"Much Bcaith," Von Troneg said, "May lightly chant«

to thee.
King Gunther, by this tide. As thou with eyes mayst see :
The river is overflowing. Full strong runs here its stream,
For crossing of this Donau Some counsel might well be-
seem."

" What counsel hast thou, brave Hagen," King Gunther

then did say.
Of thy own wit and cunningl Dishearten me not I pray:
Thyself the ford will find us. If knightly skill it can.
That safe to yonder shore We may pass both horse and

man."

♦ These are the Nibelungen proper who had come to
Worms with Siegfried, on the famed bridal journey
from Isenstein, long ago. Observe, at the same time,
that ever since the Miheluvn-en Nonril was transferred
to Rhineland, the whole subjects of Kins Gunther are
often called Nibelungen, and their subsequent hisicry
is this JVibcluvgen Suiig.

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

25r

" To me I trow," spake Hagen, " Life hath not grown so

cheap,
To with will and drown nic In riding these waters

deep ;
But first, of men some few By this hand of mine shall

die,
In great King Etzel's country, As best good will have I.

" But bide ye here by the River, Ye Hitters brisk and

sound,
Myself will seek some boatman. If boatman, here be

found,
To row us at his ferry. Across to Gelfrat's land :"
Tlie Troneger grasped his buckler, Fared forth along the

strand.

lie was full bravel} harness'd, Himself the knightly

bore,
With buckU-r and will helmet, Which bright enough he

wore :
And, bound ibove his hauberk, A weapon broad was

seen.
That cut with both its edges, Was never sword so keen.

Then hither he and thither Search'd for the Ferryman,
He heard a splashing of waters, To watch the same he

'gan ;
It was the white Mer-women, That in a Fountain clear.
To cool their fair bodyes, Were merrily bathing here.

From these Mer-women, who "skimmed
aloof like white cygnets, at sight of him," Ha-
gen snatches up "their wondrous raiment;"
on condition of returning which, they rede
him his fortune; how this expedition is to
speed. At first favourably :

She said : " To Etzel's country, Of a truth ye well may

hie,
Tor here I pledge my hand, Now kill me if I lie ;
That heroes seeking honour Did never arrive tliereat
So richly as ye shall do, Believe thou surely that."

But no sooner is the wondrous raiment
restored them, than they change their tale ;
for in spite of that matchless honour, it ap-
pears, every one of the adventurous Recken
is to perish.

Outspake the wild Mer-woman : " I tell thee it will ar-
rive,

Of all your gallant host No man shall be left alive,

Except kinf Gunther's chaplain. As we full well do
know ;

lie only, home returning, To the Rhine-land back shall
go."

Then spake Von Troneg Ilagen, His wroth did fiercely

swfll:
" S;ich tidings to my master I were risht wroth to tell,
Th-it in king Etzel's country We all must lose our life :
Yet show nie over the water. Thou wise all-knowing

■wife "

Thereupon, see'ng him bent on ruin, she
gives directions how to find the ferry, but
withal counsels him to deal warily: the ferry-
house stands on the other side of the river;
the boatman, too, is not only the hottest-tem-
pered of men, but rich and indolent; never-
theless, if nothing else will serve, let Hagen
call himself Amelrich, and that name will
bring him. All happens as predicted: the
boatman, heedless of all shouting and offers
of gold clasps, bestirs himself lustily at the
name of Amelrich ; but the more indignant
is he, on taking in his fare, to find it a coun-
terfeit. He orders Hagen, if he loves his life,
lo leap out.

33

" Now say not that," spake Hagen; "Right hard am 1

bested,
Take from me for good friendship This clasp of gold so

red ;
And row our thousand heroes And steeds across this

river :"
Then spake the wrathful boatman, "That will I surely

never."

Then one of his oars he lifted. Right broad it wag and

long.
He struck it down on Ilagen, Did the heromickle wrong.
That in the boat he staggered, and alighted on his knee;
Other such wrathful boatman Did never the Troneger

see.

His proud unbidden guest He would now provoke still

more.
He struck his head so stoutly That it broke in twain the

oar.
With strokes on head of Hagen ; He was a sturdy wight:
Nathless had Gelfrat's boatman Small profit of that fight.

With fiercely raging spirit, the Troneger turn'd him

round,
Clutcli'd quick enough his scabbard, And a weapon there

he f lund ;
He smote his head from offhim. And cast it on the sand.
Thus had that wrathful boatman His death from Ilagen'a

hand.

Even as Von Troneg Hagen The wrathful boatmen slewi
The boat whirl'd round to the river, He had work enough

to do;
Or ever he turn'd it shorewards, To weary he began,
But kept full stoutly rowing, The bold king Gunther's

man.

He wheel'd it back brave Hagen, With many a lusty

stroke.
The strong oar, with such rowing. In his hand asundei

broke ;
He fain would reach the Recken, All waiting on the

shore,
No tackle now he had; Hei,* how deftly he spliced the

oar.

With throng from off his buckler ! It was a slender band ;
Ri-lht over against a forest He drove the boat to land ;
Where Gunther's Recken waited, In crowds along th«

beach ;
Full many a goodly hero Moved down his boat to reach.

Hagen ferries them over himself "into the
unknown land," like a right yare steersman;
yet ever brooding fiercely on that prediction
of the wild Mer-woman, which had outdone
even his own dark forebodings. Seeing the
Chaplain, who alone of them all was to return,
standing in the boat beside his iluippehoumc,
(pyxes and other sacred furniture,) he deter-
mines to belie at least this part of the pro-
phecy, and on a sudden hurls the chaplain
overboard. Nay, as the poor priest swims
after the boat, he pushes him down, regardless
of all remonstrance, resolved that he shall die.
Nevertheless it proved not so: the chaplain
made fur the other side; when his strength
failed, "then God's hand helped him," and at
length he reached the shore. Thus does the
stern truth stand revealed to Hagen by the very

♦ These apparently insignificant circumstances, down
even to mending the oar frou) his shield, are preserved
with a singular fidelity, in llie most distorted editions of
the tale: see, for example, the Danish ballad, Lady
Grimlii/d's Wrack (IranslalAl in the J^orthern ^ntit/vi-
ties, p. 27.'), by Mr. Jamieson.) This ''Hei!'' is a brisk
interjection, whereby the worthy old Singer now and
then introduces his own person, when any thing very
eminent is going forward.

r 2

S58

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

means he took for eluding it: "he thought
with himself these Recken must all lose their
lives." From this time, a grim reckless spirit
takes possession of him; a courage, an auda-
city, waxing more and more into the fixed
strength of desperation. The passage once
finished, he dashes ihe boat in pieces, and casts
it in the stream, greatly as the others wonder
at him.

" Why do ye tliis, good brother V Said the Ritter Dank-
wart then,

"IIow shall we cross this river, When the road we come
again t

Returning home from Hunland, Here must we lingering
stay 1"

Not then did Hagen tell him That return no more could
they.

In this shipment "into the unknown land"
(here lies, for the more penetrating sort of
commentators, some hidden meaning and
allusion. The destruction of the unreturning
Ship, as of the Ship Argo, of ^neas's Ships,
and the like, is a constant feature of such
traditions : it is thought, this ferrying of the
Nibelungen has a reference to old Scandina-
vian Mythuses; nay, to the oldest, most uni-
versal emblems shaped out by man's Imagina-
tion ; Hagen the ferryman being, in some sort,
a type of Death, who ferries over his thousands
and tens of thousands into a Land still more
unknown.*

But leaving these considerations, let us re-
mark the deep fearful interest, which, in ga-
thering strength, rises to a really tragical
height in the close of this Poem. Strangely
has the old Singer, in these his loose melodies,
modulated the wild narra(ive into a poetic
whole, with what we might call true art, were
it not rather an instinct of genius still more
unerring. A fateful gloom now hangs over the
fortunes of the Nibelungen, which deepens and
deepens as they march onwards to the judg-
ment-bar, till all are engulphed in utter night.

Hagen himself rises in tragic greatness ; so
helpful, so prompt and strong is he, and true
to the death, though without hope. If sin can
ever be pardoned, then that one act of his is
pardonable; by loyal faith, by free daring, and
heroic constancy, he has made amends for it.
Well does he know what is coming; yet he
goes forth to meet it, offers to Ruin his sullen
welcome. Warnings thicken on him, which
he treats lightly, as things now superfluous.
Spite of our love for Siegfried, we must pity
and almost respect the lost Hagen, now in his
extreme need, and fronting it so nobly. "Mixed
was his hair with a gray colour, his limbs
strong, and threatening his look." Nay, his
sterner qualities are beautifully tempered by
another feeling, of which till liow we under-
stood not that he was capable, — the feeling of
friendship. There is a certain Volker of
Alsace here introduced, not for the first time,
yet first in decided energy, who is more to
Hagen than a brother. This Volker, a courtier
and noble, is also a Spielmann, (minstrel,) a
Fidelcre giif, (fiddler good ;) and surely the
prince of all Fidehres ; in truth a very phoenix,
melodious as the soft nightingale, yet strong

• See Von der Hagen's J^ibelungen ihre Bedeutung, &c.

as the royal eagle : for also in the brunt of
battle he can play tunes ; and with a Steel Fid'
dieboiv, beats strange music from the cleft hel
mets of his enemies. There is, in this con-
tinual allusion to Volker's Schwcrlfiklbogen,
(Sword-fiddlebow,) as rude as it sounds to us,
a barbaric greatness and depth ; the light
minstrel of kingly and queenly halls is gay
also in the storm of Fate, its dire rushing pipes
and whistles, to him : is he not the image of
every brave man fighting with Necessity, be
that duel when and where it may ; smiting the
fiend with giant strokes, yet every stroke
musicnl? — This Volker and Hagen are united
inseparably, and defy death together. "What-
ever Volker said pleased Hagen ; whatever
Hagen did pleased Volker."

But into these last Ten Jventiures, almost
like the image of a Doomsday, we must hardly
glance at present. Seldom, perhaps, in the
poetry of that or any other age, has a grander
scene of pity and terror been exhibited than
here, could we look into it clearly. At every
new step new shapes of fear arise. Dietrich
of Bern meets the Nibelungen on their way,
with ominous warnings: but warnings, as we
said, are now superfluous, when the evil itself
is apparent and inevitable. Chriemhild, wasted
and exasperated here into a frightful Medea,
openly threatens Hagen, but is openly defied
by him; he and Volker retire to a seat before
her palace, and sit there, while she advances
in angry tears, with a crowd of armed Huns to
destroy them. But Hagen has Siegfried's
Balmung lying naked on his knee, the Minstrel
also has drawn his keen Fiddlebow, and the
Huns dare not provoke the battle. Chriemhild
would fain single out Hagen for vengeance ;
but Hagen, like other men, stands not alone:
and sin is an infection which will not rest with
one victim. Partakers or not of his crime, the
others also must share his punishment. Sin-
gularly touching, in the meanwhile, is king
Etzel's ignorance of what every one else un-
derstands too well; and how, in peaceful hos-
pitable spirit, he exerts himself to testify his
joy over these royal guests of his, who are
bidden hither for far other ends. That night
the wayworn Nibelungen are sumptuously
lodged; yet Hagen and Volker see good to
keep watch: Volker plays them to" sleep:
"under the door of the house he sat on the
stone: bolder fiddler was there never any;
when the tones flowed so sweetly they all gave
him thanks. Then sounded his strings till all
the house rang; his strength and the art were
great, sweeter and sweeter he began to play,
till flitted forth from him into sleep full many
a care-worn soul." It was their last lullaby;
they were to sleep no more. Armed men
appear, but suddenly vanish, in the night;
assassins sent by Chriemhild, expecting no
sentinel: it is plain that the last hour draws
nigh.

In the morning the NibpLungen are for the
Minster to hear mass ; they are putting on
gay raiment; but Hagen tells them a diflcrcnt
tale: "Ye must take other garments, Recken ;"
"instead of silk shirts, hauberks; for rich
mantles your good shields;" "and, beloved
masters, moreover squires and men, ye shall

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

25»

fxx>\ earnestly go to the church, and plain to
God ihe powerful (Got clem rirhcn) of your sor-
row and utmost need; and know of a surety
that death for us is nigh." In Etzel's Hall,
where ine Nibelungen appear at the royal
^east in complete armour, the Strife, incited by
Chriemhild, begins: the first answer to her
provocation is from Hagen, who hews off the
head of her own and Etzel's son, making it
bound into the mother's bosom :"" then began
among the Recken a murder grim and great."
Dietrich, with a voice of preternatural power,
commands pause; retires with Etzel and
Chriemhild; and now the bloody work has
free course. We have heard of battles, and
massacres, and deadly struggles in siege and
storm ; but seldom has even the poet's imagina-
tion pictured any thing so fierce and terrible as
this. Host after host, as they enter that huge
vaulted Hall, perish in the conflict with the
doomed Nibelungen ; and even after the terrific
uproar, ensues a still more terrific silence. AH
night, and through morning it lasts. They
throw the dead from the windows; blood runs
like water; the Hall is set fire to, they quench
it with blood, their own burning thirst they
slake with blood. It is a tumult like the Crack
of Doom, a thousand voiced, wild stunning
hubbub: and, frightful lilie a Trump of Doom,
the Hivord-fiddhbow of Volker, who guards the
door, makes music to that death-dance. Nor
are traits of heroism wanting, and thrilling-
tone? of pity and love ; as in that act of Rudi-
ger, Eizel's and Chriemhild's champion, who,
bound by oath, "lays his soul in God's hand,"
and enters that Golgotha to die fighting against
his friends; yet first changes shields with
Hagen, whose own, also given him by Rudiger
in a far other hour, had been shattered in the
tight. " When he so lovingly bade give him
tjie shield, there were eyes enough red with
hot tears ; it was the last gift which Rudiger
of Bechelaren gave to any Recke. As grim
as Hagen was, and as hard of mind, he wept
at this gift which the hero good, so near his last
limes, had given him; full many a noble Rit-
•er began to weep."

At last Volker is slain ; they are all slain, save
"jnly Hagen and Gunther, faint and wounded,
fet still unconquered among the bodies of the
dead. Dietrich the wary, though strong and
invincible, whose Recken too, except old Hilde-
brand, he now finds are all killed, though he
had charged them strictly not to mix in the
quarrel, at last arms himself to finish it. He
iubdues the two wearied Nibelungen, bihds
them, delivers them to Chriemhild; '-and Herr
Dietrich went away with weeping eyes, worthily
from the heroes." These never saw each other
more. Chriemhild demands of Hagen, Where
the Nibelungen Hoard is 1 But he answers her
that he has sworn never to disclose it, while
any of her brothers live. "I bring it to an
end," said the infuriated woman ; orders her
brother's head to be struck ofl", and holds it up
to Hagen. "Thou hast it now according to
thy v.-ill," said Hagen ; " of the Hoard knoweth
none but God and I ; from thee, she-devil,
(ViihiKlinne,) shall it for ever be hid." She
kills him with his own sword, once her hus-
band's; and is herself struck dead by Hilde-

brand, indignant at the wo she has wrought;
King Etzel, there present, not opposing the
deed. Whereupon the curtain drops over that
wild scene, "the full highly honoured were
lying dead ; the people, all had sorrow and
lamentation, in grief had the king's feast ended,
as all love is wont to do;

Ine than iu nicht bescheiden JVai aider da geschacji,
IVan ritter iinde wrovvrn Weinen man do sack
Dar-iiio die edeln clnterhte Ir lieben vriunde tot :
Da hat das mccre ein ende ; Diz ist der M'ibelunge not,

I cannot say you now What hath befallen since,

The women all were weeping, And the Ritters and the

prince.
Also the noble sqnires, Their dear friends lying dead ;
Here hath the story ending ; This is the J\''ibelung'en'B

JVecd.

We have now finished our slight analysis
of this Poem ; and hope that readers, who are
curious in this matter, and ask themselves,
What is the Nibclmige?}? may have here found
some outlines of an answer, some help towards
farther researches of their own. To such
readers another question will suggest itself:
Whence this singular production comes to us,
When and How it originated? On which
point also, what little light our investigation
has yielded may be summarily given.

The worthy Von der Hagen, who may well
understand the Nihelv.ngen better than any other
man, having rendered it into the modern
tongue, and twice edited it in the original, not
without collating some eleven manuscripts, and
travelling several thousands of miles to make
the last edition perfect, — writes a Book some
years ago, rather boldly denoininated The Nibe-
lungen, its meaning for the present and for ever ;
wherein, not content with any measurable
antiquity of centuries, he would fain claim an
antiquity beyond all bounds of dated time.
Working his way with feeble mine-lamps of
etymology and the like, he traces back the
rudiments of his beloved Nibelungen, " to which
the flower of his whole life has been conse-
crated," into the thick darkness of the Scandi-
navian Nif.heim und. Mvspelhcim, and the Hindoo
Cosmogony; connecting it farther (as already
in part we have incidentally pointed out) with
the Ship Argo, with Jupiter's goatskin ^gis,
the fire-creed of Zerdusht, and even with the
heavenly Constellations. His reasoning is
somewhat abstruse ; yet an honest zeal, very
considerable learning and intellectual force
bring him tolerably through. So much he
renders plausible or probable: that in the
Ntbclungen, under more or less defacement, I'o
fragments, scattered like mysterious Runes, yet
still in part decipherable, of the earliest
Thoughts of men ; that the fiction of the Nibe-
lungen was at first a religious or philosophical
Mythus; and only in later ages, incorporating
itself more or less completely with vague
traditions of real events, took the form of a
story, or mere Narrative of earthly transac-
tions; in which last form, moreover, our
actual Niltdnngcn Lied is nowise the original
Narrative, but the second, or even third redac-
tion of one much earlier.

At what particular era the primeval fiction

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

f>f the Nibelungen passed from its Mythological
into its Historical shape; and the obscure
spiritual elements of it wedded themselves
to the obscure remembrances of the Northern
Immigrations; and the Twelve Signs of the
Zndiac became Twelve Champions of Attila's
Wife, — there is no fixing with the smallest
certainty. It is known from history that Egin-
barl, the secretary of Charlemagne, compiled,
by order of that monarch, a collection of the
ancient German Songs; among which, it is
fondly believed by antiquaries, this Nibelungen,
(not indeed our actual Nibelungen Lied, yet an
older one of similar purport,) and the main
traditions of the Heldcnburh connected there-
with, may have had honourable place. Un-
luckily Eginhart's Collection has quite per-
ished; and only his Life of the Great Charles,
in which this circumstance stands noted, sur-
vives to provoke curiosity. One thing is cer-
tain, Fuico, Archbishop of Rheims, in the
year 885, is introduced as "citing certain
German books," to enforce some argument of
his by instance of" King Ermerich's crime
.towards his relations;" which King Ermerich
and his crime are at this day part and parcel
of the "Cycle of German Fiction," and pre-
supposed in the Nibelungen.* Later notices,
of a more decisive sort, occur in abundance.
Saxo Grammaticus, who flourished in the
twelfth century, relates that about the year
ll.'JO, a S.ixon minstrel being sent to Seeland,
with a treacherous invitation from one royal
Dane to another; and not daring to violate his
oath, yet compassionating the victim, sang to
him by way of indirect warning "the Song of
Chriemhikl's Treachery to her Brothers;" that
is to say, the latter portion of the Story which
we still read at greater length in the existing
NibdiDigen Lierl. To which direct evidence,
that these traditions were universally known
in the twelfth century, nay, had been in some
shape committed to writing, as "German
Books," in the ninth or rather in the eighth, —
we have still to add the probability of their
being "ancient songs," even at that earliest
date; all which may perhaps carry us bade
into the seventh or even sixth century ; yet not
farther, inasmuch as certain of the poetic per-
sonages that figure in them belong historically
to the fifth.

Other and more open proof of antiquity lies
in the fact, that these Traditions are so univer-
sally difl^used. There arc Danish and Icelandic
versions of them, externally more or less
altered and distorted, yet substantially real
copies, professing indeed to be borrowed
from the German ; in particular we have the
Njlnigd and the IVtlkiu i iS'aij*;, composed in the
thirteenth century, which still in many ways
illusfaie the German original. Innumerable
othet songs and sagas point more remotely in
the same direction. Nay, as Von der Hagen
informs us, certain rhymed tales, founded on
these old adventures, have been recovered
from popular recitation, in the Faroe Islands,
within ihe-^e few years.

If we ask now, what lineaments of Fact still
exist in these Traditions ; what are the Histori-

♦ Von der Hagen's JViic/un^en. Einteitiing, } vii.

cal events and persons which onr primeval
Mythiises have here united with, and so
strangely metamorphosed ? the answer is un-
satisfactory enough. The great Northern Im-
migrations, unspeakably momentous and glori-
ous as they were for the Germans, have well
nigh faded away utterly from all vernacular
records. Some traces, nevertheless, some
names, and dim shadows of occurrences iii
that grand movement, still linger here: which,
in such circumstances, we gather with avidity.
There can be no doubt, for example, but this
" Etzel, king of Hunland," is the Attila of
history; several of whose real achievements
and relations are faintly, yet still recognisably
pictured forth in these Poems. Thus his first
queen is named Halke, and in the Scandinavian
versions, Herka ; which last (Erca) is also the
name that Priscus gives her, in the well-known
Account of his embassy to Attila. Moreover,
it is on his second marriage, which had in fact
so mysterious and tragical a character, that the
whole catastrophe of the Nthclungea turns. It
is true, the " Scourge of God" plays but a tame
part here ; however, his great acts, though all
past, are still visible in their fruits: besides, it
is on the Northern or German personages that
the tradition chiefly dwells.

Taking farther into account the general
"Cycle" or System of Northern Tradition,
whereof this Nibelungen is the centre and key-
stone, there is, as indeed we saw in the Hdden-
bncli, a certain Kaiser Ottnit and a Dietrich of
Bern ; to whom also it seems unreasonable to
deny historical existence. This Bern, (Verona,)
as well as ihe Rabenschlncht, (Battle of Ravenna,)
is continually figuring in these Fictions ; though
whether under Ottnit we are to understand Odo-
acer the vanquished, and under Dietrich of Bern,
Theodoricus Veronensis, the victor both at Ve-
rona and Ravenna, is by no means so indubita-
ble. ChronologicaldifficuUiesstand muchinthe
way. For our Dietrich of Bern, as we saw in
the Nibelungen, is represented as one of Etzel's
Champions: now Attila died about the year
450; and this Ostrogoth Theodoric did not
fight his great Battle at Verona till 489; that
of Ravenna, which was followed by a three
years' siege, beginning next year. So that
before Dietrich could become Dietrich o/ Bern,
Etzel had been gone almost half a century
from the scene. Startled by this anachronism,
some commentators have fished out another
Theodoric, eighty years prior to him of Verona,
and who actually served in Attila's hosts, with
a retinue of Goths and Germans ; with which
New Theodoric, however, the old Ottnit, or
Odoacer, of the Hddenbuch, must, in his turn,
part company ; whereby the case is in no whit
mended. Certain it seems, in the mean iime,
that Diclrirli, which signifies lUrh in People, is
the same name which in Greek becomes Theo-
doricus ; for, at first, (as in Piocopiuo,) this
very Tbendorirus is always written (z)ejSe^i)(^,
which almost exactly crresponds with the
German sound. But such are the inconsis-
tencies involved in both hypotheses, that we
are forced to conclude one of two things;
either that the singers of those old lays were
little versed in the niceties of History, and un-
ambitious of passing for authorities therein,

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

sei

v^iich seems a remartably easy conclusion ;
or else, with Lessing, that they meant some
quite other series of persons and transactions,
some Kaiser Otto, and his two Anti-Kaisers,
(in the twelfth century:) which, from what has
come to light since Lessing's day, seems now
an untenable position-
However, as concerns the Nibclnngen, the
most remarkable coincidence, if genuine, re-
mains yet to be mentioned. "Thwortz," a
Hungarian Chronicler, (or perhaps chronicle,)
of we know not what aulhoriiy, relates, " that
Aitila left his kingdom to his two sons Chaba
and Aladar, the former by a Grecian mother,
the latter by Kremheilch, (Chriemhild,) a
German ; that Theodoric, one of his followers,
€owed dissension between them; and along
with the Teutonic hosts took part with his
half-counitryman, the younger son; whereupon
rose a great slaughter, which lasted for fifteen
days, and terminated in the defeat of Chaba,
(the Greek.) and his flight into Asia."* Could
we but put faith in this Thwortz, we might
fancy that some vague rumour of that Krem-
heilch tragedy, swoln by the way, had reached
the German ear and imagination ; where,
gathering round older Ideas and Mythuses, as
Matter round its Spirit, the first rude form of
C'hnciiilulde^s Revenge and the Wreck of the Nibe-
lu)i<ien bodied itself forth in Song.

Thus any historical light, emitted b}'- these
old Fictions, is little better than darkness visi-
ble; sulTicient at most to indicate that great
Northern Immigrations, and wars and rumours
of wars, have been ; but nowise how and what
they have been. Scarcely clearer is the special
history of the Fictions themselves: where (hey
were first put together, who have been their
successive redactors and new-modellers. Von
der Hagen, as we said, supposes that there
may have been three several series of such.
Two, at all events, are clearly indicated. In
their present shape, we have internal evidence
that none of these Poems can be older than the
twelfth century ; indeed great part of the Hero-
I'ook can be proved to be considerably later.
With this last it is understood that Wolfram
von Eschenbach and Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
two singers, otherwise noted in that era, were
largely concerned ; but neither is there any
demonstration of this vague belief: while
again, m regard to the Author of our actual
h'ibeUiniien not so much as a plausible con-
jecture can be formed.

Some vote for a certain Conrad von Wurz-
burg; others for the above-named Eschenbach
and Ofterdingen ; others again for Klingsohr
of Ungerland, a minstrel who once passed for
a magician. Against all and each of which
hypotheses there are objections; and for none
of them the smallest conclusive evidence.
Who this gifted Singer may have been, only in
so I'ar as his Work itself proves that there
was but One, and the style points to the latter
half of the twelfth century, — remains altogether
dark: the unwearied Von der Hagen himself,
after fullest investigation, gives for verdict,
" we know it not." Considering the high
worth of the Nibelungen, and how many feeble

• Weber. (IHustratxans of JVurlliern Jlntiqukies. p. 39,)
whociLcs Gurrea {Ztitunffjiir Einaiedler) as his authority.

ballad-mongers of that Swubian Era have
transmitted us their names, so total an oblivion,
in this infinitely more important case, may
seem surprising. Bat those Minvelieder (Love-
songs) and Provencal Madrigals were the
Court Poetry of that time, and gained honour
in high places; while the old National Tradi-
tions were common property and plebeian, and
to sing them an unrewarded labour.

Whoever he may be, let him have our grati-
tude, our love. Looking back with a farewell
glance, over that wondrous old Tale, with its
many-coloured texture " of joyances and high-
tides, of weeping and of wo," so skilfully
yet artlessly knit up into a whole, we cannot
but repeat that a true epic spirit lives in it;
that in many ways, it has meaning and charms
for us. Not only as the oldest Tradition of
Modern Europe, does it possess a high ant*
quarian interest; but farther, and even in the
shape we now see it under, unless the *' Epics
of the Son of Fingal" had some sort of au-
thenticity, it is our oldest Poem also; the ear-
liest product of these New Ages, which on its
own merits, both in form and essence, can be
named Poetical. Considering its chivalrous,
romantic tone, it may rank as a piece of lite-
rary composition, perhaps considerably higher
than the Spanish Cid ; taking in its historical
significance, and deep ramifications into the
remote Time, it ranks indubitably and greatly
higher.

It has been called a Northern Iliad; but
except in the fact that both poems have a nar-
rative character, and both sing "the destruc-
tive rage" of men, the two have scarcely any
similarity. The Singer of the Nibelungen is a
far different person from Homer; far inferior
both in culture and in genius. Nothing of the
glowing imagery, of the fierce bursting ener-
gy, of the mingled fire and gloom, that dwell
in the old Greek, makes its appearance here.
The German Singer is comparatively a simple
nature; has never penetrated deep into life;
never " questioned Fate," or struggled with
fearful mysteries; of all which we find traces
in Homer, still more in Shakspeare ; but with
meek believing submission, has taken the Uni-
verse as he found it represented to him; and
rejoices with a fine childlike gladness in the
mere outward shows of things. He has little
power of delineating character; perhaps he
had no decisive vision thereof. His persons
are superficially distinguished, and not alto-
gether without generic difference; but the por-
traiture is imperfectly brought out; there lay
no true living original within him. He has
little Fancy ; we find scarcely one or two simi-
litudes in his whole Poem; and these one or
two, which, moreover, are repeated, betoken
no special faculty that way. He speaks of the
" moon amcmg stars ;" says often, of sparks
struck from steel armour in battle, and so forth,
that they were wie es wehle der trind, " as if the
wind were blowing them." We have men-
tioned Tasso along with him; yet neither ia
this case is there any close resemblance; the
light playful grace, still more, the Italian pomp
and sunny luxuriance of Tasso are wanting
in the other. His are humble, wood-uotes
wild; and no nightingale's, but yet a sweet

86»

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

sky-hidden lark's. In all the rhetorical gifts,
to say nothing of rhetorical attainments, we
should pronounce him even poor.

Nevertheless, a noble soul he must have
been, and furnished with far more essential
requisites for Poetry, than these are : namely,
with the heart and feeling of a Poet. He has
a clear eye for the Beautiful and True ; all
unites itself gracefully and compactly in his
imagination : it is strange with what careless
felicity he winds his way in that complex nar-
rative, and be the subject what it will, comes
through it unsullied, and with a smile. His
great strength is an unconscious instinctive
strength; wherein truly lies its highest merit.
The whole spirit of Chivalry, of Love, and
heroic Valour, must have lived in him, and in-
spired him. Everywhere he shows a noble
Sensibility; the sad accents of parting friends,
the lamentings of Avomen, the high daring of
men, all that is worthy and lovely prolongs it-
self in melodious echoes through his heart. A
true old Singer, and taught of Nature herself!
Neither let us call him an inglorious Milton,
smce now he is no longer a mute one. What
good were it that the four or five Letters com-
posing his Name could be printed, and pro-
nounced, with absolute certainty] A.11 that
was mortal in him is gone utterly; of his life,
and its environment, as of the bodily taberna-

cle he dwelt in, the very ashes remain not
like a fair heavenly Apparition, which indeet
he was, he has melted into air, and only th#
Voice he uttered, in virtue of its inspired gift,
yet lives and will live.

To the Germans this Nibchmgen Song is na
turally an object of no common love ; neither
if they sometimes overvalue it, and vague an-
tiquarian wonder is more common than jusi
criticism, should the fault be too heavily visit-
ed. After long ages of concealment, they
have found it in the remote wilderness, still
standing like the trunk of some almost antedi-
luvian oak; nay with boughs on it still green,
after all the wind and weather of twelve hun
dred years. To many a patriotic feeling, which
lingers fondly in solitary places of the Past, it
may well be a rallying-point, and " Lovers
Trt/sling-Tree"

For us also it has its worth. A creation
from the old ages, still bright and balmy, if we
visit it ; and opening into the first History of
Europe, of Mankind. Thus all is not oblivion*
but on the edge of the abyss, that separates the
Old world from the New, there hangs a fair
rainbow-land; which also in (three) curious
repetitions, as it were, in a secondary, and
even a ternary reflex, sheds some feeble
twilight far into the deeps of the primeval
Time.

GEEMAN LITERATURE OE THE EOURTEENTH
AND EIFTEENTH CENTURIES.*

[Foreign Quarterly Review, 1831.]

It is not with Herr Soltau's work, and its
merits or demerits, that we here purpose to
concern ourselves. The old Low-German
Apologue was already familiar under many
shapes ; its versions into Latin, English, and
all modern tongues : if it now comes before
our German friends under a new shape, and
they can read it not only in Gottsched's prosaic
Prose, and Goethe's poetic Hexameters, but
also " in the metre of the original," namely, in
Doggerel; and this, as would appear, not with-
out comfort, for it is " the second edition ;" —
doubtless the Germans themselves will look to
it, will direct Herr Soltau aright in his praise-
worthy labours, and, with all suitable speed,
forward him from his second edition into a
third. To us strangers the fact is chiefly in-
teresting, as another little memento of the in-
destructible vitality there is in worth, however
rude; and to stranger Reviewers, as it brings
that wondrous old Fiction, with so much else
that holds of it, once more specifically into
view.

The Apologue of Reynard the Fox ranks un-

* Reineckeder Fuchs, iibersetzt von D. tV. Soltau. (Rey-
nard the Fox, translated by U. W. Soltau.) 2d edition,
8vo. Luneb»:rg, 1830.

doubtedly among the most remarkable Books,
not only as a Gem>an, but, in all senses, as a
European one ; and yet for us perhaps its ex-
trinsic, historical character, is even more note-
worthy than its intrinsic. In Literary History
it forms, so to speak, the culminating point, or
highest manifestation of a Tendency which
had ruled the two prior centuries: ever down-
wards from the last of the Hohenstauffen Em-
perors, and the end of their Swabian Era, to
the borders of the Reformation, rudiments and
fibres of this singular Fable are seen, among
innumerable kindred things, fashioning them-
selves together ; and now, after three other
centuries of actual existence, it still stands
visible and entire, venerable in itself, and the
enduring memorial of much that has proved
more perishable. Thus, naturally enough, it
figures as the representative of a whole group
that historically cluster round it; in studying its
significance, we study that of a whole in-
tellectual period.

As this section of German Literature closely
connects itself with the corresponding section
of European Literature, and indeed offers an
expressive, characteristic epitome thereof, some
insight into it, were such easilv procurable.

EARLY GEEMAN LITERATURE.

263

might not be without profit. No Literary His-
torian that we know of, least of all any in
England, having looked much in this direction,
either as concerned Germany or other coun-
tries, whereby a long space of time, once busy
enough, and full of life, now lies barren and
void in men's memories, — we shall here en-
deavour to present, in s\jch clearness as first
attempts maj admit, the result of some slight
researches of cur own in regard to it.

The Troubadour Period in general Literature,
to which the Sumbian Em in German answers,
has, especially within the last generation, at-
tracted inquiry enough ; the French have their
Raynouards, we our Webers, the Germans
their Haugs, Griiters, Langs, and numerous
other Collectors and Translators oi Minnelieder :
among whom Ludwig Tieck, the foremost in
far other provinces, has not disdained to take
the lead. We shall suppose that this Literary
Period is partially known to all readers. Let
each recall whatever he has learned or figured
regarding it; represent to himself that brave
young heyday of Chivalry and Minstrelsy,
when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart,
sang sirveii.'es, and with the hand that could
wield the sword and sceptre twanged the melo-
dious strings; when knights-errant tilted, and
ladies' eyes rained bright influences ; and
suddenly, as at some sunrise, the whole Earth
had grown vocal and musical. Then truly was
the time of singing come ; for princes and pre-
lates, emperors and squires, the wise and the
simple, men, women, and children, all sang
and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done.
It was a universal noise of Song ; as if the
Spring of Manhood had arrived, andwarblings
from every spray, not indeed without infinite
twitterings also, which, except their gladness,
had no music, were bidding it welcome. This
was the Sicabian Era: justly reckoned not
only superior to all preceding eras, but pro-
perly the First Era of German Ijiterature.
Poetry had at length found a home in the life
of men ; and every pure soul was inspired by
it; and in words, or still better, in actions,
strove to give it utterance.

" Believers," says Tieck, " sang of Faith ;
Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly
actions and battles; and loving believing
knights were their chief audience. The Spring,
Beauty, Gayety, were objects that could never
lire ; great duels and deeds of arms carried
away every hearer, the more surely the stronger
thf-y were painted ; and as the pillars and dome
of the Church encircled the flock, so did Re-
ligion, as the Highest, encircle Poetry and
Reality; and every heart, in equal love hum-
bled itself before her."*

Let the reader, we say, fancy all this, and
moreover that, as earthly things do, it is all
passing away. And now, from this extreme
verge of the Swabian Era, let us look forward
into the inane of the next two centuries, and
see whether there also some shadows and dim
forms, significant in their kind, may not begin
to grow visible. Already, as above indicated,
Remccke de Fos rises clear in the distance, as
the. goal of our survey : let us now, restricting

ourselves to the German aspects cf the matter,,
examine what may lie between.

Conrad the Fourth, who died in 1254, was
the last of the Swabian Emperors : and Con-
radin his son, grasping too early at a Southern
Crown, perished on the scafl'ald at Naples in
1268 ; with which stripling, more fortunate in
song than in war, and whose death, or murder,
with fourteen years of other cruelty, the Sicilian
Vespers so frightfully avenged, the imperial
line of the HohenstaufTen came to an end.
Their House, as we have seen, gives name to
a Literary Era; and truly, if dales alone were
regarded, we might reckon it much more than
a name. For with this change of dynasty, a
great change in German Literature begins to
indicate itself; the fall of the HohenstaufTen is
close followed by the decay of Poetry; as if
that fair flowerage and umbrage, which blos-
somed far and wide round the Swabian Family,
had in very deed depended on it for growth
and life ; and now, the stem being felled, the
leaves also were languishing, and soon to
wither and drop away. Conradin, as his father
and his grandfather had been, was a singer;
some lines of his, though he died in his six-
teenth year, have even come down to us ; but
henceforth no crowned poet, except, long after-
wards, some few with cheap laurel crowns, is
to be met with : the Gay Science was visibly
declining. In such times as now came, the
court and the great could no longer patronize
it; the polity of the Empire was, by one con-
vulsion after another, all but utterly dismem-
bered; ambitious nobles, a sovereign without
power; contention, violence, distress, every-
where prevailing. Richard of Cornwall, who
could not so much as keep hold of his sceptre,
not to speak of swaying it wisely ; or even the
brave Rudolf of Hapsburg, who manfully ac-
complished both these duties, had other work
to do than sweet singing. Gay Wars of the
IVurlburg were now changed to stern Bailies of
the Marrhfield ,■ in his leisure hours, a good Em-
peror, instead of twanging harps, must hammer
from his helmet the dints it had got in his
working and fighting hours.* Amid such rude
tumults the Minne-Song could not but change
its scene and tone; if, indeed, it continued at
all, which, hoM'ever, it scarcely did ; for now, no
longer united in courtly choir, it seemed to lose
both its sweetness and its force, gradually be-
came mute, or in remote obscure corners lived
on, feeble and inaudible, till afier several cen-
turies, when, under a new title, and with far
inferior claims, it again solicits some notice
from us.

Doubtless, in this posture of afl^airs political,
the progress of Literature could be little for-
warded from without; in some directions, as in
that of Court-Poetry, we may admit that it was

* Minnelieder aus dem Scliwiibischen Zeilalter. (yor-
*ede, z.)

* It was on this famous plain of the Marchficld that
Ottorar, Kin;; of Bohemia, toiiqiiered liela of Hungary,
in 12(i0 ; and was himself, in 1978, conquered and slain
by Rudolf of Hapsburg, at that time much left to his own
resources ; whose talent for mending heln ets, howevei,
is perhaps hut a poetical tradition, ('urious, moreover,
it was here again, after more than five < enturies, that
the House of Hapsburg received its worst overthrow,
and from a new and greater Rudolf, namely, from Na-
poleon, at Wagram, which lies in the middle of this
same Marchtield.

264

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

obstructed or altogether stopped. But why not
sinly Court-Poetry, but Poetry of all sorts should
have declined, and as it were gone out, is quite
another question ; to which, indeed, as men
must have their theory on every thing, answer
has often been attempted, but only with par-
tial success. To most of the German Literary
Historians this so ungenial condiiion of the
Court and Government appears enough : by the
warlike, altogether practical character of Ru-
dolf, by the imbecile ambition of his success-
ors, by the general prevalence of feuds and
lawless disorder, the death of Poetry seems fully
accounted for. In which conclusion of theirs,
allowing all force to the grounds it rests on, we
cannot but perceive that there lurks some fal-
lacy; the fallacy, namely, so common in these
times, of deducing the inward and spiritual ex-
clusively from the outward and material ; of
tacitly, perhaps unconsciously, denying all
independent force, or even life, to the former,
and looking out for the secret of its vicissitudes
solely in some circumstance belonging to the
latter. Now it cannot be too often repealed,
where it continues still unknown or forgotten,
that man has a soul as certainly as he has a
body; nay, much more certainly ; that properly
it is the course of his unseen, spiritual life,
which informs and rules his external visible
life, rather than receives rule from it; in which
spiritual life, indeed, and not in any outward
action or condition arising from it, the true
secret of his history lies, and is to be sought
after, and indefinitely approached. Poetry,
above all, we should have known long ago, is
one of those mysterious things whose origin
and developments never can be what we call
explained; often it seems to us like the wind,
blowing where it lists, coming and departing
with little or no regard to any the most cunning
theory that has yet been devised of it. Least
of all does it seem to depend on court patron-
age, the form of government, or any modifica-
tion of politics or economics, catholic as these
influences have now become in our philosophy :
it lives in a snow-clad, sulphureous Iceland, and
not in a sunny, wine-growing France ; flour-
ishes under an arbitrary Elizabeth, and dies
out under a constitutional George; Philip II.
has his Cervantes, and in prison ; Washington
and Jackson have only their Coopers and
Browns. Why did poetry appear so brightly
after the Battles of Thermopylas and Salamis,
and quite turn away her face and wings from
those of Lexington and Bunker's Hill? We
answer, the Greeks were a poetical people, the
Americans are not; that is to sa3^ it appeared
because it did appear ! On the whole, we could
desire that one of two things should happen :
Either that our theories and genetic histories
of Poetry should henceforth cease, and man-
kind rest satisfied, once for all, with Dr. Ca-
banis's theory, which seems to be the simplest,
that " Poetry is a product of the smaller intes-
tines," and must be cultivated medically by the
exhibition nf castor-oil : Or else that, in future
speculations of this kind, we should endeavour
to start with some recognition of the fact, once
well known, and still in words admitted, that
Poetry is Inspiration; has in it a certain spi-
rituality and divinity which no dissecting-knife

will discover; arises in the most secret and
most sacred resion of man's soul, as it were in
our Holy of Holies ; and as for external things,
depends only on such as can operate in thai
region ; among which it will be found that Acts
of Parliament, and the state of the 8milhfield
markets, nowise play the chief parts.

With regard to this change in German Lite-
rature, especially, it is to be remarked, that the
phenomenon was not a German, but a Euro-
pean one ; whereby we easily infer, so much at
least, that the roots of it must have lain deeper
than in any change from Hohenstaiiflen Empe-
rors to Hapshurg ones. For now the Trouba-
dours and Trouveres, as well as the Minnesin-
gers,weresinking into silence; the world seemed
to have rhymed itself out ; those chivalrous
roundelays, heroic tales, mythologies, and quaint
love-sicknesses, had grown unprofitable to the
ear. In fact. Chivalry itself was in the wane;
and with it that gay melody, like its other pomp.
More earnest business, not sportfully, but with
harsh endeavour, was now to be done. The
graceful minuet-dance of Fancy must give
place to the toilsome thorny pilgrimage of Un-
derstanding. Life and its appurtenances and
possessions, which had been so admired and
besung, now disclosed, the more they came to
be investigated, the more contradictions. The
Church no longer rose with its pillars " like a
venerable dome over the united flock;" but,
more accurately seen into, was a straight pri-
son, full of unclean creeping things ; against
which thraldom all better spirits could not but
murmur and struggle. Everywhere greatness
and littleness seemed so inexplicably blended:
Nature, like the Sphinx, her emblem, with her
fair woman's face and neck, showed also the
claws of a Lioness. Now too her Riddle had
been propounded; and thousands of subtle,
disputations School-men were striving earnest-
ly to read it, that they might live, morally live,
that the monster might not devour them. These,
like strong swimmers, inbouridless bottomless,
vortices of Logic, swam manfully, but could not
get to land.

On a better course,yet with the like aim. Phy-
sical Science was also unfolding itself. A
Roger Bacon, an Albert the Great, are cheer-
ing apfiearances in this era: not blind to the
greatness of Nature, yet no longer with poetic
reverence of her, but venturing fearlessly into
her recesses, and extorting from her many a
secret; the first victories of that long series
which is to make man more and more her King.
Thus everywhere we have the image of con-
test, of effort. The spirit of man, which once,
in peaceful, loving communion with the Uni-
verse, had uttered forth its gladness in Song,
now feels hampered and hemmed in, and strug
gles vehemently to make itself room. Power
is the one thing needful, and that Knowledge
which is Power: thus also Intellect become.'^
the grand faculty, in which all the others are
well niijh absorbed.

Poetry, which has been defined as " the har-
monious unison of Man with Nature," could
not flourish in this temper of the times. The
number of poets, or rather versifiers, hence-
forth greatly diminishes ; their style also, and
topics, are diflferent and less poetical. Men

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

265

wish to be practically instructed rather than
poetically amused : Poetry itself must assume
a preceptorial character, and teach whole-
some saws and moral maxims, or it will not
be listened to. Singing for the Song's sake
is now nowhere practised ; but in its stead
there is everywhere the jar and bustle of ar-
gument, investigation, contentious activity.
Such throughout the fourteenth century is the
general aspect of mind over Europe. In Italy
alone is there a splendid exception : the mys-
tic song of Dante, with its sterne, indignant
moral, is folloAved by the light love-rhymes of
Petrarch, the Troubadour of Italy, when this
class was extinct elsewhere : the master minds
of that country, peculiar in its social and
moral condition, still more in its relations to
classical Antiquity, pursue a course of their
own. But only the master minds ; for Italy too
has its Dialecticians, and projectors, and reform-
ers; nay, after Petrarch, these take the lead; and
there, as elsewhere, in their discords and loud
assiduous toil, the voice of Poetry dies away.
To search out the causes of this great revo-
lution, which lie not in Politics nor Statistics,
would lead us far beyond our depth. Mean-
while let us remark that the change is nowise
to be considered as a relapse, or fall from a
higher state of spiritual culture to a lower;
but rather, so far as we have objects to com-
pare it with, as a quite natural progress and
higher development of culture. In the history
of the universal mind, there is a certain ana-
logy to that of the individual. Our first self-
consciousness is the first revelation to us of a
whole universe, wondrous and altogether good :
it is a feeling of joy and new-found strength,
of mysterious infinite hope and capability;
and in all men, either by word or act, ex
presses itself poetically. The world without
us and within us, beshone by the young light
of Love, and all instinct with a divinity, is
beautiful and great: it seems for us a bound-
less happiness that we ate privileged to live.
This is the season of generous deeds and
feelings ; which also, on the lips of the gifted,
form themselves into musical utterance, and
give spoken poetry as well as acted. Nothing
is calculated and measured, but all is loved,
believed, appropriated. All action is sponta-
neous ; high sentiment, a sure, imperishable
good: and thus the youth stands, like the First
Man, in his fair Garden, giving Names to the
bright Appearances of this Universe which he
has inherited, and rejoicing in it as glorious
and divine. Ere long, however, comes a
harsher time. Under the first beauty of man's
life appears an infinite, earnest rigour; high
sentiment will not avail, unless it can con-
tinue to be translated into noble action ; which
problem, in the destiny appointed for man
born to toil, is difficult, interminable, capable
of only approximate solution. What flowed
softly in melodious coherence when seen and
sung from a distance, proves rugged and un-
marageable when practically handled. The
fervid, lyrical gladness of past years gives
place to a collected thoughtfulness and energy;
ray often — so painful, so unexpected are the
contradictions everywhere met with — to gloom,
sadness, and anger; and not till after long
34

struggles and hard-contest.*d v.'ctories is the
youth changed into a man.

Without pushing the ccmparison too far,
we may say that in the culture of the Euro-
pean mind, or in Literature, which is the sym-
bol and product of this, a certain similarity
of progress is manifested. That tuneful Chi-
valry, that high cheerful devotion to the God-
like in heaven, and to Women, its emblems
on earth; those Crusades and vernal Love-
songs were the heroic doings of the world's
youth ; to which also a corresponding man-
hood succeeded. Poetic recognition is fol-
lowed by scientific examination : the reign of
Fancy, with its gay images, and graceful, ca-
pricious sports, has ended; and now Under-
standing, which, when reunited to Poetry, will
one day become Reason and a nobler Poetry,
has to do its part. Meantime, while there is
no such union, but a more and more widening
controversy, prosaic discord and the unmusi-
cal sounds of labour and effort are alone au-
dible.

The era of the Troubadours, who in Ger-
many are the Minnesingers, gave place in
that country, as in all others, to a period which
we might name the Didactic ; for Literature
now ceased to be a festal melody, and address
ing itself rather to the intellect than to the
heart, became as it were a school lesson. In-
stead of that cheerful, warbling Song of Love
and Devotion, wherein nothing was taught,
but all was believed and M'orshipped, we have
henceforth only wise Apologues, Fables, Sa-
tires, Exhortations, and all manner of edifying
Moralities. Poetry, indeed, continued still to
be the form of composition for all that can be
named Literature, except Chroniclers, and
others of that genus, valuable not as doers of
the work, but as witnesses of the work done,
these Teachers all wrote in verse : neverthe-
less, in general there are few elements of
Poetry in their performances: the internal
structure has nothing poetical, it is a mere
business-like prose: in the rhyme alone, at
most in the occasional graces of expression,
could we discover that it reckoned itself po-
etical. In fact we may say that Poetry, in the
old sense, had now altogether gone out of
sight: instead of her heavenly vesture and
Ariel-harp, she had put on earthly weeds, and
walked abroad with ferula and horn-book. It
was long before this new guise would sit well
on her; only in late centuries that she could
fashion it into beauty, and learn to move with
if, and mount with it gracefully as of old.

Looking now more specially to our histori-
cal task, if we inquire how far into the subse-
quent time this Didactic Period extended, no
precise answer can well be given. On this
side there seem no positive limits to it; with
many superficial modifications, the same fun-
damental element pervades all spiritual efforts
of mankind through the following centuries.
We may say that it is felt even in the Poetry
of our own time; nay, must be felt through
all time ; inasmuch as Inquiry once awakened
cannot fall asleep, or exhaust itself; thus
Literature must continue to have a didactic
character; and the Poet of these days is he
who, not indeed by mechanical but by pocticai

S66

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

methods, can instruct us, can more and more
evolve for iis the mystery of our Life. How-
ever, after a certain space, this Didactic Spirit
in Literature cannot, as an liistorical partition
and landmark, be available here. At the era
of the Rt'formation, it reaches its acme ; and,
in singular shapes, steps forth on the high
places of Public Business, and amid storms
and thunder, not without brightness and true fire
from Heaven, conclusively renovates the world.
This is, as it were, the apotheosis of the Didac-
tic Spirit, where it first attains a really poetical
concentration, and stimulates mankind into he-
roism of word and of action also. Of the lat-
ter, indeed, still more than of the former; for
not till a much more recent time, almost till our
own time, has Inquiry in some measure again
reconciled itself to Belief; and Poetry, though
in detached tones, arisen on us, as a true mu-
sical Wisdom. Thus is the deed, in certaii
circumstances, readier and greater than the
woi-d : Action strikes fiery light from the
rocks it has to hew thi-ough ; Poetry reposes
in the skyey splendour which that rough pas-
sage has led to. But after Luther's day, this
Didactic Tendency again sinks to a lower
level; mingles with manifold other tenden-
cies ; among which, admitting that it still
forms the main stream, it is no longer so pre-
eminent, positive, and universal, as properly
to characterize the whole. For minor Periods
and subdivisions in Literary History, other
more superficial characteristics must, from
time to time, be fixed on.

Neither, examining the other limit of this
Period, can we say specially where it begins;
for, as usual in these things, it begins not at
once, but by degrees; Kings' reigns and
changes in the form of Government have their
day and dale; not so changes in the spiritual
condition of a people. The Minnesinger Pe-
riod and the Didactic may be said to commin-
gle, as it were, to overlap each other, for above
a century: some writers partially belonging
to the latter class occur even prior to the
times of Friedrich II.; and a ce'"tain echo of
the Minne-Spng had continued down to Ma-
nesse's day, under Ludwig the Bavarian.

Thus from the Minnesingers to the Church
Reformers, we have a wide space of between
two and three centuries ; in which, of course,
it is impossible for us to do more than point
out one or two of the leading appearances ; a
minute survey and exposition being foreign
from our object.

Among the Minnesingers themselves, as al-
ready hinted, there are not wanting some with
an occasionally didactic character; Gottfried
of Strashurg, known also as a translator of
Sir Tristroii, and two other Singers, Reinmar
von ZvvfitiT, and Walter von der Vogehveide, are
noted in this respect ; the last two especially,
for their oblique glances at the Pope and his
Monks, the unsound condition of which body
could not escape even a Love-minstrel's eye.*

* Reinmar Von Zweter, for example, says once :
flar und bart nach Klostersittcn gesnitten
Des vind ich gennog,

Jen vinde abcr der nit vil dies rehte irageni
Halb visch lialb man ist viscli noch man.
Gar visch ist visch, gar man ist man, ■
Ala JAh erkennen Kan :

But perhaps the special step of transition may

be still better marked in the works of a rhymer
named the Sirukcr, whose province \Vas the
epic, or narrative; into which he seems to
have introduced this new character in unusual
measure. As the Strieker still retains some
shadow of a place in Literary History, the
following notice of him maybe borrowed here.
Of his personal history, it may be premised,
nothing whatever is known ; not even why he
bears this title; unless it be, as some have
fancied, that Shirker, which now signifies
Knitter, \n those days meant Schrilier, (Writer:)
"In truth," says Bouterwek, "this pains-
taking man was more a writer than a Poet, yet
not altogether without talent in that latter v;ay.
Voluminous enough, at least, is his redaction
of an older epic work on the War of Cliarle-
niagne ai h the Saracens inSpain, the idd German
original of which is perhaps nothing more
than a translation from the Latin or French.
Of a Poet in ine Strieker's day, when the ro-
mantic Epos had attained such polish among
the Germans, one might have expected that
this ancient Fiction, since he was pleased to
remodel it, would have served as the material
to a new poetic creation ; or at least, that he
would have breathed into it some new and more
poetic spirit. But such a development of these
Charlemagne Fables was reserved for the
Ituliaii Poets. The Strieker has not only left
the matter of the old Tale almost unaltered,
but has even brought out its unpoetical linea-
ments in stronger light. The ianatical piety
with which it is overloaded probably appeared
to him its chief merit. To convert these cast-
away Heathens, or failing this, to annihilate
them, Charlemagne takes the field. Next to
him, the hero Roland plays a main part there.
Consultations are held, ambassadors negotiate ;
war breaks out with all its terrors : the Hea-
then fought stoutly: at length comes the well
known defeat of the Franks at Ronceval, or
Roncevaux ; where, however, the Saracens
also lose so many men, that their King Mar-
silies dies of grief. The Narrative is divided
into chapters, each chapter again into sections,

Vnn hofnivncken und von Ktosterrittern

Knn ich niht gesagen t

Hiifinunchen, Ktosterrittern, diesen beiden

IVolt ich relit le rehte wol beschciden,

Ob sie sick wolten lassen vinden,

Da sie ze rehte solten itesen ;

In Klostcr mvnche solten genesen.

So suln des hofs sich ritter unteririnden.

Hair and beard cut in tlie cloister fashion

Of this find 1 enough.

But of those that wear it well I find not many ;

Half-fish half-man is neither fish nor man,

Whole fish is fish, whole man is man.

As I discover can :

Of court-monUs and of cloister-Knights

Can 1 not speak :

Cnurt-monks, cloister-knights, tliese both

Would I rightly put to rights,

Whether they would let themselves be found

Where they iiy right should he ;

In their cloister monks should flourish.

And knights obey at court.

See also in Fidget, (Oeschichte der Romischen Liltetu
r7/r, h. iii. s. II.) immediately following this Extract, a
formidable dinner course of Lies, — boiled lies, roasted
lies, lies with saflron, forced-meat lies, and other va-
rieties, arranged by this same artist ;— farther, (in page
9,) a rather gallant onslaught from Walter von der Vo-
gehveide, on the Babest (Pope Papst) himself All
this was before the middle of tht thirteenth century.

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

267

an epitome of which is always given at the
outset. Miracles occur in the stor3s but for
most part only such as tend to evince how God
himself inspirited the Christians against the
Heathen. Of any thing like free, hold liights
of imagination there is little to be met with:
the higher features of the genuine romantic
<;pos are altogether wanting. In return, it has
a certain didactic temper, which, indeed, an-
nounces itself even in the Introduction. The
latter, it should be added, prepossesses us in
the Poet's favour; testifying with what warm
interest the noble and great in man's life aftect-
od him."*

The Wulsche GasI (Italian Guest) of Zirkler
cr Tirkeler, who professes, truly or not, to be
froai Friuli, and, as a benevolent stranger, or
GiiesI, tells the Germans hard truths somewhat
in the spirit of Juvenal; even the famous
Mei&tcr Frcidank, (Master Freethought,) with
his wise Book of rhymed Maxims, entitled
Die Ecs(-hci(knheil, (Modesty ;) still more the
sagacious Tyro, Kiti'j; of Scots, quite omitted in
nistory, but who teaches Fricdebrand, his Son,
with some discrimination, how to choose a
good pnest ; — all these, with others of still
thinner substance, rise before us only as faint
shadows, and must not linger in our field of
visi( n. Greatly the most important figure in
the earlier part of this era is Hugo von Trim-
berj'', to whom we must now turn ; author of
various poetico-preceptorial works, one of
which, named the Ilenner, (Runner,) has long
been known not only to antiquarians, but, in
some small degree, even to the general reader.
Of Hugo's Biography he has himself inciden-
tally communicated somewhat. His surname
he derives from Trimberg, his birth-place, a
village on the Saale, not far from Wiirzburg,
in Franconia. By profession he appears to
have been a Schoolmaster : in the conclusion
of his Renncr, he announces that "he kept
school for forty years at Thiirstadt, near Bam-
berg ;" farther, that his Book was finished in
1300, which date he confirms by other local
circumstances.

Ver dies Euch gediclitet hat,

Der pfiag der schlen za Thiirstat.

Vieriig jar vor Babenberg,

Und lieiss Hugo von Tnjviberff.

Ks ward follenbracht das ist wahr,

Da tausent vnd drey/iuiidert jar

J^ucli Christus Geburt vrrgavgen Tcaren,

Drithalbs jar gleich vor den jaren

Da die Juden in Franken wurden erschlagen.

Bey der leit uvd in den tagen.

Da bischoff Leopolt bischnff was

Zu Babenberg.

Some have supposed that the Schoolmaster
dignity, claimed here, refers not to actual
wielding of the birch, but to a Mastership and
practice of instructing in the art of Poetry,
which about this time began to have its scho-
lars and even guild-brethren, as the feeble rem-
nants of Minne-Song gradually took the new

• Boiiterwek, ix. 945. Other versified Narratives by
this worthy Strir.ker s\\\\ exist, liiit for the most part only
in niamiscrlpt. Of tliese the History of ll'ilhelm von
Blnmethal, a Roiind-taljle adventurer, appears to be Ihe
prinripal. The Poem on Charlemagne stands printed in
SchiUi-r's Thesaurus ; its exact date is matter only of
eonjecture.

shape, in which we afterwards see it, of Meislev
gesaiig, (Master-song:) but for this hypothesiSf
so plain are Hugo's own words, there seems
little foundation. It is uncertain whether he
was a clerical personage, certain enough that
he was not a monk : at all events, he must
have been a man of reading and knowledge;
industrious in study, and superior in literary
acquirement to most in that time. By a col-
lateral account, we find that he had gathered a
library of two hundred Books ; among which
were a whole dozen by himself, five in Latin,
seven in German, hoping that by means of
these, and the furtherance they would yield in
the pedagogic craft, he might live at ease in
his old days ; in which hope, however, he had
been disappointed : seeing, as himself rather
feelingly complains," no one now cares to study
knowledge, (Kmift,) which, nevertheless, de-
serves honour and favour." What these twelve
Books of Hugo's own writing were, can, for
most part, only be conjectured. Of one, en-
titled the Saiinider, (Collector,) he himself
makes mention in the Remicr : he had begun it
about thirty years before this latter: but hav-
ing by ill accident lost great part of his manu-
script, abandoned it in anger. Of another
work Flogel has discovered the following notice
in Joliann Wolf:

"About this time (1599) did that virtuous
and learned nobleman, Conrad von Liebenstein,
present to me a manuscript of Hugo von Trim-
berg, who flourished about the year 1300. It
sets forth the short-comings of all ranks, and
especially complains of the clerg)\ It is en-
titled Ecu i7is Land, (Repentance to the Land ;)
and now lies with the Lord of Zillhart."*

The other ten appear to have vanished even
to the last vestige.

Such is the whole sum-total of information
which the assiduity of commentators has col-
lected touching worthy Hugo's life and for-
tunes. Pleasant it were to see him face to
face ; gladly would we penetrate through that
Ions vista of five hundred years, and peep into
his book-presses, his frugal fireside, his noisy
mansion with its disobedient urchins, now that
it has all grown so silent; but the distance is
loo far, the intervening medium intercepts our
light ; only in uncertain, fluctuating dusk, will
Hugo and his environment appear to us. Ne-
vertheless Hugo, as he had in Nature, has in
History, an immortal part; as to his inward
man, we can still see that he was no mere book-
worm, or simple Parson Adams; but of most
observant eye; shrewd, inquiring, considerate,
who from his Thiirstadt school-chair, as from
his scdes cxploratorio, had looked abroad into the
world's business, and formed his own theory
about many things. A cheerful, gentle heart
had been given him; a quiet, sly hum'ur;
light to see beyond the garments and outer
hulls of Life into Life itself: the fong-necked
purse, the threadbare gabardine, the languidly-
simmering pot of his pedagogic household
establishment were a small matter to him : he
was a man to look on these things with a
meek smile ; to nestle down quietly, as the

* Flocel, (iii. 15,) who quotes for it, Wo'Jii L$xui*^
Mimorab. t. ii. p. 1061.

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

lark, in the lowesv furrow; nay, to mount 1
therefrom singing, and soar above all mere |
earthly heights. How many potentates, and
principalities, and proud belligerents have
evaporated into utter oblivion, while the poor
Thurstadt Schoolmaster still holds together!

This Rcnncr, which seems to be his final
work, probably comprises the essence of all
those lost Volumes : and indeed a synopsis of
Hugo's whole Philosophy of Life, such as his
two hundred books at^d long decades of quiet
observation and reflection had taught him.
Why it has been named the Rcnncr, whether
by Hugo himself, or by some witty editor and
Transcriber, there are two guesses forthcom-
ing, and no certain reason. One guess is that
this Book was to run after the lost Tomes, and
make good to mankind the deficiency occa-
sioned by want of them ; which happy thought,
hidebound though it be, might have seemed
sprightly enough to Hugo and that age. The se-
cond guess is that our author, in the same style
of easy wit, meant to say this book must
hasten and run out into the world, and do him
a good turn quickly, while it was yet time, he
being so very old. But leaving this, we may
remark, with certainty enough, that what we
have left of Hugo was first printed under this
title of Rcnncr, ^i Frankfort on the Mayn, in
1549 ; and quite incorrectly, being modernized
to all lengths, and often without understanding
of the sense; the Edition moreover is now
rare, and Lessing's project of a new one did
not take effect; so that, except in Manuscripts,
of which there are many, and in printed Ex-
tracts, which also are numerous, the Rcnncr
is to most readers a sealed book.

In regard to its literary merit opinions seem
to be nearly unanimous. The highest merit,
that of poetical unity, or even the lower merit
of logical unity, is not ascribed to it by the
warmest panegyrist. Apparently this work
had been a kind of store-chest, wherein the
good Hugo had, from time to time, deposited
the fruits of his meditation as they chanced
to ripen for him ; here a little, and there a little,
in all varieties of kind; till the chest being
filled, or the fruits nearly exhausted, it was
sent forth and published to the world, by the
easy process of turning up the bottom.

" No theme," says Bouterwek, " leads with
certainty to the other; satirical descriptions,
proverbs, fables, jests, and other narratives all
huddled together at random, to teach us in a
poetical way a series of moral lessons. A
strained and frosty Allegory opens the work:
then follows the chapter of Mcyden, (Maids ;)
of Wicked Masters ; of Pages ; of Priests,
Monks, and Friars, with great minuteness :
then of a young Minx with an Old Man ; then
of Bad Landlords, and of Robbers. Next come
divers Virtues and Vices, all painted out, and
judged of Towards the end, there follows a
sort of Moral Natural History ; Considerations
on the dispositions of various Animals ; a little
Botany and Physiology ; then again all manner
of didactic Narratives; and finally a Medita-
tion on the Last Day."

Whereby it would appear clearly, as hinted,
that Hugo's ixM)?)if/- pursues no straight course;
and oniv through the most labyrintliic mazes,

here wandering in deep thickets, or ever.
sinking in moist bogs, there panting ovei
mountain-tops by narrow sheep tracks ; bu^
for most part jigging lightly on sunny greens,
accomplishes his wonderful journey.

Nevertheless, as we ourselves can testify
there is a certain charm in the worthy man ;
his work, such as it is, seems to flow direct
from the heart, in natural, spontaneous abun-
dance; is at once cheerful and earnest; his
own simple, honest, mildly-decided character
is everywhere visible. Besides, Hugo, as we
said, is a person of understanding; has looked
over many provinces of Life, not without in-
sight ; in his quiet, sly way, can speak forth a
shrewd word on occasion. There is a genuine
though slender vein of Humour in him; nor
in his satire does he ever lose temper, but re-
bukes sportfully; not indeed laughing aloud,
scarcely even sardonically smiling, yet with a
certain subdued roguery, and patriarchal know-
ingness. His fancy too, if not brilliant, is
copious almost beyond measure ; no end to his
crotchets, suppositions, minute specifications.
Withal he is original; his maxims, even when
professedly borrowed, have passed through the
test of his own experience; all carries in it
some stamp of his personality. Thus the
Rcnncr, though in its whole extent perhaps too
boundless and planless for ordinary nerves,
makes, in the fragmentary state, no unpleasant
reading: that old doggerel is not without sig-
nificance ; often in its straggling, broken, en-
tangled strokes some vivid antique picture is
strangely brought out for us.

As a specimen of Hugo's general manner,
we select a small portion of his Chapter on
The Maidens; that passage where he treats of
the highest enterprise a maiden can engage in,
the choosing of a husband. It will be seen at
once that Hugo is no Minnesinger, glozing his
fair audience with madrigals and hypocritical
gallanUy ; but a quiet Natural Historian, re-
porting such facts as he finds, in perfect good
nature, it is true, yet not without an under-cur-
rent of satirical humour. His quaint style of
thought, his garrulous minuteness of detail, are
partly apparent here. The first few lines we
may give in the original also; not as they
stand in the Frankfort edition, but as professing
to derive themselves from a genuine ancient
source :

Kortiyn mut uvd laiige haar

han die meyde sunderbar

dy lu yren jaren kommen synt

dy wal machen yn dai liertie hlynt

dy anchgn wyren yn den weg

von den auchgn get eyn steg

till dem hcrtzen nit gar lang

tiff deme stege ist vyl mannig gedang

wen sy woln memen oder nit*

Short of sense and long of hair.
Strange enough the iiinidens are ;
Once they to their teens have got,
Such a cliODsinp, this or that :
Eyes they have that ever spy.
From the Eyes a Path doth lie
To the Heart, and is not long.
Hereon travel thoughts a throng,
Whoniso they will have or not.

* Horn, Qeschichte, und Kritik der dtutschen Poeste,
8.44.

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

269

" Wo's me," conlimies Hngn, "how often
this same is repeated; till they grow all con-
fused how to choose, from so many, whom
ihfy have brought in without number. First
they betiiiiik them so: This one is short, that
one is long; he is courtly and old, the other
young and ill-favoured : this is lean, that is
bald, here is one fat, there one thin; this is
noble, that is weak ; he never yet broke a
sjear: one is white, another black; that other is
named Master Hack, {kio-iz .) this is pale, that
again is red; he seldom eateth cheerful bread;"
and so on, through endless other varieties, in
new streams of sofi-nmrmuring doggerel,
whereon, as on the Path it would represent, do
travel thoughts a throng, whomso these fair
irresolutes will have or not.

Thus, (or Hugo, the age of Minstrelsy is
pone: not soft Love-ditties, and Hymns of
Lady-worship, but a skeptical criticism, im-
portunate animadversion, not without a shade
of mockery, will he indite. The age of Chivalry
is gone also. To a Schoolmaster, with empty
larder, ihe pomp of tournaments could never
liave been specially interesting; but now such
passages of arms, how free and gallant soever,
appear to him no other than the probable pro-
duct of delirium. "God might well laugh,
could it be," says he, " to see his mannikins
live so wondrously on this Earth: two of
them will lake to fighting, and nowise let it
alone ; nothing serves but with two long spears
they must ride and stick at bne another
greatly to their hurt; when one is by the other
skewered through the bowels or through the
weasand, he hath small profit thereby. But
who forced them to such straits V The an-
swer is too plain: some modification of In-
sanity. Nay, so contemptuous is Hugo of all
chivalrous things, that he openly grudges
any time spent in reading of them. In Don
Quixote's Library he would have made short
work :

How Master Dietrich fouplit witli Ecken,
And Imw of old 111!; Stalwart llecken
Were all by women's craft betrayed :
Such tiling-! you ofi hear sung and said,
And wept at, like a case of sorrow ; —
Of our own sins we'll think to-morrow.

This last is one of Hugo's darker strokes;
for commonly, though moral perfection is
ever the one thing needful with him, he
preaches in a quite cheerful tone ; nay, ever
and anon, enlivens us with some timely joke.
Considerable part, and apparently much the
best part, of his worlc is occupied with satirical
Fables, and Sc/uccuyA-f (jests, comic tales;) of
which latter classes we have seen some pos-
sessing true humour, and the simplicity which
is their next merit. These, however, we must
wholly omit; and indeed, without farther par-
leying, here part company with Hugo. We
b-ave him, not without esteem, and a touch of
afiectioii due to one so true-hearted, and, under
tlv,atold humble guise, so gifted with intellectual
talent. Safely enough may be conceded him
the dignity of chief moral Poet of his time;
na}', perhaps, for his solid character, and
modest manly ways, a much higher dignity.
I'hi/iigh his Book can no longer be considered,

what the Frankfort Editor describes ii in his
interminable title-page, as a universal vade-
r)tei:iim for mankind, it is still so adorned with
many fine sayings, and in itself of so curiouj
a texture, that it seems well worth preserving
A proper Edition of the Ecmcr will one day
doubtless make its appearance among the
Germans. Hugo is further remarkable as the
precursor and prototype of Sebastian Brandt,
whose N(irre7isiliiff (Ship of Fools) has, with
perhaps less merit, had infinitely better fortune
than the licnner.

Some half century later in date, and no less
didactic in character than Hugo's Remier,
another work, still rising visible above the
level of those times, demands some notice
from us. This is the Eclehtcin (Gem) of Bone-
rius, or Boner, which at one time, to judge
by the number of Manuscripts, whereof four-
teen are still in existence, must have enjoyed
great popularity; and indeed, after long years
of oblivion, it has, by recent critics and redac-
tors, been again brought into some circulation.
Boner's Gem is a collection of a HundicJ
Fables done into German rhyme; and derives
its proud designation not more perhaps from
the supposed excellence of the work, than
from a witty allusion to the title of Fable First,
which, in the chief Manuscript, chances to be
that well-known one of the Cock scraping lor
Barleycorns, and finding instead there a pre-
cious stone (Edclstciii) or Gem: Von einem
Haven und dent EdeJcn stcine , whereupon the
author, or some kind friend, remarks in a sori
of Prologue:

Dies Bilclihin mag der Edelstein

Wol heiszen wand es in treit {in sich triin-t)

Bischaft. (Bcitpiel) manner kluogheit.

"This Bookling may well be called the
Gem, sith it includes examples of many a pru-
dence:"— which name, accordingly, as we see,
it bears even to this day.

Boner and his Fables have given rise to
much discussion among the Germans: scat-
tered at short distances throughout the last
hundred years, there is a series of Selections,
Editions, Translations, Critical Disquisitions,
some of them in the shape of Academic Pro-
gram ; among the labourers in which enter-
prise we find such men as Gellert and Les-
sing. A ronerii Gcmnm, or Latin version of the
work, was published by Oberlin, in 1782; Es-
chenburg sent forth an Edition in modern
German, in 1810; Benecke a reprint of the
antique original, in 1816. So that now a
faithful duty has been done to Boner; and
what with Bibliographical Inquiries, what
with vocabularies and learned collations of
Texts, he that runs may read whatever stands
written in the GV;//.

Of these diligent lucubrations, with which
we strangers are only in a remote degree con-
cerned, it will be sufficient here to report in
few words the main results, — not indeed very
difKcull to report. First then, with regard to
Boner himself, we have to say that nothing
whatever has been discovered: who, when, or
what that worthy moralist was, remains, and
may always remain, entirely uncertain. It is
z 2

270

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

merely conjectured, from the dialect, and other
tnore minute indications, that his place of
abode was the north-west quarter of Switzer-
land ; with still higher probability that he
lived about the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury; from his learning and devout pacific
temper, some have ii^ferred that he was a
monk or priest; however, in one Manuscript
of his Gem, he is designated, apparently by
some ignorant Transcriber, a knight, ein Ritter
golz alsi'.s : from all which, as above said, our
only conclusion is, that iiothiDg can be con-
cluded.

Johann Scherz, about the yfar 171(^, in
what he called Pldlosopliite morali: Ge'-man-
vrum mcdii (Fvi Specimen, sent forth '•ert?in of
these Fables, with expositions, but appa-
rently without naming the Author; to which
Spciiinen Gellert in his Dhscrtallo ric pncsi apolo---
gonnn had again, some forty years afterwards,
invited attention. Nevertheless, so total was
the obscurity which Boner had fallen into, that
Bodmer, already known as the resuscitalor of
the Nibelungen Lied, in printing the Edehtcin
from an old Manuscript, in 1752, mistook its
probable date by about a century, and gave
his work the title of Fables from the Minne-
singer Period,* without naming the Fabulist, or
guessing whether there were one or many.
fn this condition stood the matter, when se-
veral years afterwards, Lessing, pursuing an-
other inquiry, came across the track of this
Boner; was allured into it; proceeded to clear
it; and moving briskly forward with a sure
eye, and sharp critical axe, hewed away innu-
merable entanglements; and so opened out a
free avenue and vista, where strangely, in re-
mote depth of antiquarian woods, the whole
ancien! Fable-manufactory, with Boner and
many others working in it, becomes visible,
in all the light which probably will ever be
admitted to it. He who has perplexed him-
self with Romulus and Riniidus, and Nevelet's
Anonym%(s, and .3vianns, and still more, with
the false guidance of their many commenta-
tors, will find help and deliverance in this
light, thorough-going Inquiry of Lessing's.j-

Now, therefore, it became apparent: first,
that those supposed Fables from the Minnesinger
Period, of Bodmer, were in truth written by
one Boner, in quite another Period; secondly,
/lat Boner was not properly the author of
them, but the borrower and free versifier from
certain Latin originals ; farther, that the real
title was Edelstein : and strangest of all, that
the work had been printed three centuries be-
fore Bodmer's time, namely, at Bamberg, in
1461 ; of which Edition, indeed, a tattered
copy, typographically curious, lay, and pro-
bably lies, in the Wolfenbiittel Library, where
Lessing then waited and wrote. The other
discoveries, touching Boner's personality, and
locality, are but conjectures, due also to Les-
sing, and have been stated already.

As to the CVm itself, about which there has
peen such scrambling, we may say, now when

♦Koch also, with a stiansp ripvinlion froin his usual
Brniriicy, dates Boner, in one place. 1220; and in an-
other, " town rrls the latter half of the fourteenth cen-
tury." .^ee iiis CnmpemUiim, p. 28, and p. 200, vol. i.

\ Sammtiichi Schrifttn, U. 8.

it is cleaned and laid out before us, that
though but a small seed-pearl, it has a genu-
ine value. To us Boner is interesting by his
antiquity, as the speaking witness of many
long-past things ; to his contemporaries again
he must have been still more interesting as
the reporter of so many new things. These
Fables of his, then for the first time rendered
out of inaccessible Latin* into German metre,
contain no little edifying matter, had we not
known it before : our old friends, the For
with the musical Raven ; the Man and Boj'
taking their Ass to market, and so inadequat*
to please the public in their method of trans
porting him : the Bishop that gave his Ne
phew a Cure of Souls, but durst not trust hir>
with a Basket of Pears; all these and man}
more figure here. But apart from the mate
rial of his Fables, Boner's style and manne!
has aa ab'ding merit. He is not so much a
Translato." as a free Imitator : he tells the
story in his own v:?y; ^ope-^ds bis own moral,
and except that in the latt?>* department he is
apt to be a little prolix, acquits hime^lf to high
satisfaction. His narrative, in those old limp
ing rhymes, is cunningly enough brought oi't-
artless, lively, graphic, with a spicing of inno
cent humour, a certain childlike archness,
which is the chief merit of a Fable. Such ia
the German ^sop; a character whom, in the
North-west district of Switzerland, at that
time of day, we should hardly have looked
for.

Could we hope that to many of our read ts
the old rough dialect of Boner would be intel-
ligible, it were easy to vindicate these praises.
As matters stand, we can only venture on one
translated specimen, which in this shape
claims much allowance; the Fable, also, is
nowise the best, or perhaps the worst, but
simply one of the shortest. For the rest, we
have rendered the old doggerel into new, with
all possible fidelity :

THE FnOG AXD THE STEEIt.

Of him 'that striveth after more honour than he
should.

A FroK with Frogling by his side
Came hopping through the plain, one tide:
There he an Ox at grass did spy.
Much anger'd was the Frog thereby ;
He said : " Lord God, what was my sin
Thou martest nie so small and thin ?
Likewise I have no handsome feature,
And all dishonoured is my nature.

*The two originals to whom Lessing has traced all
his Fables are JIvianus and Nevelet's ^ininvnnis ; con-
cerning wliich personages the following brief notice by
•lurden (f.rricort, i. Ifil) may he inserted here: "Fla-
vins Avianus (who must not be confounded with an-
other Latin Poet, JIvieiins) lived, as is believed, under
the two Antoniiies in the second century : he has left ua
forty-two Fables in elegiac measure, the best Editions
of which are that by Knnnegiesser, (Ainsterdam, 1731.)
that by," &c., &c. With respect to the Anonvmns
again : "under this designation is understood the half-
barbarous Latin Poet, whose sixty Fables, in elegiac
measure, stand in the collection, which Nevelet. under
the title Mijtluilotria JEanpica, published at Frankfort in
1610, and whiiii directly follow those of Avianus in that
work. They are nothing else than versified transla-
tions of the Fables written in prose by Rnintthis, a noted
Fabuli.-it, whose era cannot he tixed. nor even liis name
made out to complete satisfaction." — The reader wliu
wants deeper insight into these matters may consult
Lessing, as cited above.

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

271

To other creatures far and near,

For instance, this same grazing Steer."

The Frog would fain with Bullock cope,

" Gan brisk outblow himself in hope.

Then spake his Frogling : " Father o' me,

It boots not, let thy blowing be ;

Thy nature liath forbid this battle.

Thou canst not vie with the black-cattle."

Nathless let be the Frog would not,

Such prideful notion had he got ;

Again to blow right sore 'gan he,

And said : " Like Ox could I but be

In size, within this world there were

No Frog so glad, to thee I swear."

The Son spake : "Father, me is wo

Thou should'st torment thy body so,

I fear thou art to lose thy life,

Come follow me and leave this strife ;

Good father, take advice of me

And let thy boastful blowing be."

Frog said : " Thou need's! not beck and nod,

I will not do 't, so help uie God ;

Big as this Ox is, I must turn,

Mine honour now it doth concern."

He blew himself, and burst in twain,

Such of that blowing was his gain.

The like hath oft been seen of such
Who grasp at honour overmuch ;
They must with none at all be doing,
But sink full soon and come to ruin.
He that, with wind of Pride accursed.
Much puffs himself, will surely burst;
He men miswishes and misjudges,
Inferiors scorns, superiors grudges,
Of all his equals is a hater,
Much grieved he is at any better;
Wherefore it were a sentence wise
Were his whole body set wiih e.yes,
Who envy hath, to see so well
What lucky hap each man hefel.
That so he filled were with fury.
And burst asunder in a hurry ;
And so full soon betid him this
Which to the Frog belided is.

Readers to whom .such stinted twanging of
the true Poetic I^yre, such cheerful fingering,
though only of one and its lowest string, has
any melody, may find enough of it in Benecke's
Boner, a reproduction, as above stated, of the
original Edchtcin; which Edition we are au-
thorized to recommend as furnished with all
helps for such a study: less adventurous
readers may still, from Eschenburg's half-
modernized Edition, derive some contentment
and insight.

Hugo von Trimberg and Boner, who stand
out here as our chief Literary representatives
of the Fourteenth Century, could play no such
part in their own day, when the gi-eat men,
who shone in the world's eye, wereTheologians
and .lurisls. Politicians at the Imperial Diet;
at best, Professors in the new Universities ; of
whom all memory has long since perished.
So different is universal from temporary im-
portance, and worth belonging to our manhood
from that merely of our station or calling.
Nevertheless, as every writer, of any true gifts,
is "citizen both of his time and of his country,"
and the more completely the greater his gifts ;
so in the works of these two secluded in-
dividuals, the characteristic tendencies and
spirit of their age may best be discerned.

Accordingly, in studying their commentators,
one fact, that cannot but strike us, is the great
prevalence and currency which this species

I of Literature, cultivated by them, had obtained
in that era. Of Fable Literature, especially,,
this was the summer tide and highest efllores
cence. The Latin originals which Boner partly
drew from, descending, with manifold trans-
iormations and additions, out of classical times,
were in the hands of the learned; in the living
niemories of the people, were numerous frag-
ments of primeval Oriental Fable, derived
perhaps through Palestine; from which two
soui>.:es, curiously intermingled, a whole stream
of Fables evolved itself; whereat the morally
athirst, such was the genius of that time, were
not slow to drink. Boner, as we have seen,
worked in a field then zealously cultivated:
nay was not .-Esop himself, what we have for
iEsop, a contemporary of his; the Greek Monk
Planudes and the vSwiss Monk Boner might be
chanting their Psalter at one and the same
hour!

Fable, indeed, may be regarded as the earli-
est and simplest product of Didactic Poetry,
the first attempt of Instruction clothing itself
in Fancy: hence the antiquity of Fables, their
universal diffusion in the childhood of nations,
so that they have become a common property
of all : hence also their acceptance and diligent
culture among the Germans, among ihe Eu-
ropeans, in this the first stage of an era when
the whole bent of Literature was Didactic. But
the Fourteenth Century was the age of Fable
in a still wider sense : it was the age when
whatever Poetry there remained took the shape
of Apniosue and moral Fiction: the higher
spirit of Imagination had died away, or with-
drawn itself into Religion; the lower and
feebler not only took continual counsel of Un-
derstanding, but was content to walk in its
leading-strings. Now >vas the time M'hen hu-
man life and its relations were looked at with
an earnest practical eye ; and the moral per-
plexities that occur there, when man, hemmed
in between the Would and the Should, or the
Must, painfully hesitates, or altogether sink's
in that collision, were not only set forth in the
way of precept, but imbodied, for still clearer
instruction, in Examples and edifying Ficiions.
The Monks themselves, such of them as had
any talent, meditated and taughtin this fashion:
witness that strange Ges'td Roni'morum, still
extant, and once familiar over all Europe; — a
Collection of Moral Tales, expressly dcvis(!d
for the use of Preachers, though only the
Shakspeares, and in subsequent times, turned
it to right purpose.* These and the like old
Gestf, with most of which the Bommm had so
little to do, were the staple Literature of that
period : cultivated ■with great assiduity, and so
far as mere invention, or compilation, of in-
cident goes, with no little merit; for already
almost all the grand destinies, and funda-
mental, ever-recurring entanglements of hu-
man life, are laid hold of and depicted here;
so that, from the first, our modern Novelists
and Dramatists could find nothing new under
the sun, but everywhere, in contrivance of their
Story, saw themselves forestalled. The bound-
less abundance of Narratives then current,
the singular derivations and transmigiations

* See an account of this curious liook in IJouce'
learned and ingenious niustrations vf Shakspeare

272

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of these, surprise antiquarian commentators:
but, indeed, it was in this same century that
Boccaccio, refining the gold from that so copi-
ous dross, produced his Decamerone, which still
indicates the same fact in more pleasant fash-
ion, to all readers. That in these universal
tendencies of the time the Germans participated
and co-operated, Boner's Fables, and Hugo's
many Narrations, serious and comic, may,
like two specimens from a great multitude,
point out to us. The Madrigal had passed into
the Apologue; the Heroic Poem, with its super-
natural machinery and sentiment, into the Fic-
tioii of practical Life : in which latter species
a prophetic eye might have discerned the
coming Tnm Joneses and Wilhchn Mcistcrs : and
with still more astonishment, the Minerva Presses
of all nalions, and this their huge transit-trade
in Rags, all lifted from the dunghill, printed on,
and returned thither, to the comfort of parties
interested.

The Drama, as is well known, had an equally
Didactic origin ; namely, in those Mysteries
connived by the clergy for bringing home
religious truth, with new force, to the univer-
sal comprehension. That this cunning device
liad already found its way into Germany, we
have proof in a document loo curious to be
omitted here :

" In the year 1322, there was a play shown
at Eisenach, which had a tragical enough
effect. Markgraf Friedrich of Misnia, Land-
graf also of Thuringia, having brought his
tedious warfares to a conclusion, and the
country beginning now to revive under peace,
his subjccis were busy repaying themselves
for the past distresses by all manner of diver-
sions; to which end, apparently by the Sove-
reign's order, a dramatic representation of the
Ten Virgins was schemed, and at Eisenach, in
his presence, duly executed. This happened
fil'teen days after Easter, by indulgence of the
Preacliing Friars. In the Chronicoti Sampelrinum,
stands recorded that the play was enacted in
the Bear-garden, (in Iwr.'oferariun,) by the Clergy
and their Scholars. But now, when it came to
pass that the Wise Virgins would give the
Foolish no oil, and these latter were shut out
from the Bridegroom, they began to weep bit-
terly, and called on the Saints to intercede for
them; who, r.Dwever, even with Mary at their
head, could effect nothing from God; but the
Foolish Virgins were all sentenced to damna-
tion. Which things the Landgraf seeing and
hearing, he fell into a doubt, and was very
angry; and said, 'What then is the Christian
Faith, if God will not lake pity on us, for in-
tercession of Mary and all the Saints'!' In
this anger he conlinued five days; and the
learned men could hardly enlighten him to un-
derstand the Gospel. Thereupon he was struck
with apoplexy, and became speechless and
powerless; in which sad state he continued,
bedrid, two years and seven months, and so
died, being then fifiy-five."*

Ciureiy a serious warning, would they but
take it, to Dramafic Critics, not to venture be-
yond their depth ! Had this fiery old Land-

• Fliisrel, {Ge.tchichie dcr Uomischen Litcrntur, iv. 287,)
Aflio founds on lh:it old Chronienn Sainpetrinum Erfur-
'^nse, contaiticd in Menke's Collection.

graf given up the reins of his imagination into
his author's hands, he might have been pleased
he Icnew not why; whereas the meshes of
Theology, in which he kicks and struggles,
here strangle the life out of him; and the Ten
Virgins at Eisenach are more fatal to warlike
men, than .(Eschylus' Furies at Athens were to
weak women.

Neither were the unlearned People without
their Literature, their Narrative Poetry; though
how, in an age without printing and bookstalls,
it was circulated among them ; whether by
strolling Ficdelers, (Minstrels,) who might re-
cite as well as fiddle, or by other methods, we
have not learned. However, its existence and
abundance in this era is sufficiently evinced
by the multitude of VolksbiicJier (People's-
Books) which issued from the Press, next
century, almost as soon as there was a Press.
Several of these, which still languidly survive
among the people, or at least the children, of
all countries, were of German composition; of
most, so strangely had they been sifted and
winnowed to and fro, it was impossible to fix
the origin. But borrowed or domestic, they
nowhere wanted admirers in Germany : the
Patient Helena, the Fair Magelonc, Blue-Beard,
Forlnnatus; these, and afterwards the Seven
Wise Masters, with other more directly ^sopic
ware, to which the introduction of the old In-
dian Stock, or Book of Wisdom, translated from
John of Capua's Latin,* one day formed a
rich accession, were in all memories, and on
all tongues.

Beautiful traits of Imagination and a pure
genuine feeling, though under the rudest forms,
shine forth in some of these old Tales: for in-
stance, in Magelone and Fortunatus ; which two,
indeed, with others of a different stamp, Lud-
wig Tieck has, with singular talent, ventured,
not unsuccessfully, to reproduce in our own
time and dialect. A second class distinguish
themselves by a homely, honest-hearted Wis-
dom, full of character and quaint devices; of
which class the Seven Wise Masters, extracted
chiefly from that Gesla Romanorum above men-
tioned, and containing "proverb-philosophy,
anecdotes, fables, and jests, the seeds of which,
on the fertile German soil, spread luxuriantly
through several generations," is perhaps the
best example. Lastly, in a third class, we find
in full play that spirit of broad drollery, of
rough, saturnine Humour, which the Germans
claim as a special characteristic ; among these,
we must not omit to mention the Schiltburger,
correspondent to our own Wise Men of Gotham;
still less, the far-famed Tytl Eulenspiegcl, (Tyll
Owlglass,) whose rogueries and waggeries
belong, in the fullest sense, to this era.

This last is a true German work; for both
the man Tyll Eulenspiegel, and the Book
which is his history, were produced there.
Nevertheless, Tyll's fame has gone abroad
into all lands: this, the narrative of his ex-
ploits, has been published in innumerable
editions, even with all manner of learned
glosses, and translated into Latin, English,
French, Dutch, Polish; nay, in several lan-

* In 1483, by con)mand of a cnrtnin Ehprhard, I)iil<o of
Wiirteinbi'rjr. Wliat relation this old Book <if IVisdom
bears to our actual Pilpaij, we have not learned.

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

273

guages, as in his own, an Eulenspicgckrei, an
Ei'jiiciilcnc, or clog's trick, so named after him,
still, by consent of lexicographers, keeps his
memory alive. We may say, that to few mor-
tals has it been granted to earn such a place
in Universal History as Tyll : for now after
five centuries, when Wallace's birth-place is
unknown even to the Scots ; and the admirable
CrichKm still more rapidly is grown a shadow;
and Edward liongshanks sleeps unregarded
save by a few Antiquarian English, — Tyll's
native village is pointed out with pride to the
traveller, and his tombstone, with a sculptured
pun on his name, an Owl, namely, and a Glass,
still stands, or pretends to • stand, " at Mullen,
near Lubeck," where, since 1350, his once
nimble bones have been at rest. Tyll, in the
calling he had chosen, naturally led a wan-
dering life, as place after place became too
hot lor him; by which means he saw into
many things with his own eyes: having been
not only over all Westphalia and Saxony, but
even in Poland, and as far as Rome. That in
his old days, like other great men, he became
an Autobiographer, and in trustful winter
evening, not on paper, but on air, and to the
laughter-lovers of Mullen, composed this work
himself, is purely an hypothesis; certain only
that it came forth originally in the dialect of
this region, namely, the Platt-DeiUarh: and was
therefrom translated, probably about a century
afterwards, into its present High German, as
Lessing conjectures, by one Thomas Miirner,
who on other grounds is not unknown to anti-
quarians. For the rest, write it who might,
the Book is here, "abounding," as a wise
Critic remarks, " in inventive humour, in
rough merriment and broad drollery, not with-
out a keen rugged shrewdness of insight;
which properties must have made it irresistibly
captivating to the popular sense; and, with
all its fantastic extravagancies and roguish
crotchets, in many points instructive."

From Tyll's so captivating achievements,
Ave shall here select one to insert some account
of; the rather as the tale is soon told, and by
means of it, we catch a little trait of manners,
and, through Tyll's spectacles, may peep into
ihe interior of a Household, even of a Parson-
age, in those old days.

" It chanced after so many adventures, that
Eulenspicgel came to a Parson, who promoted
him to be his Sacristan, or as we now say.
Sexton. Of this Parson it is recorded that he
kept a Concubine, who had but one eye; she
also had a spile at Tyll, and was \vont to speak
evil of him to his master, and report his
rogueries. Now while Eulenspiegel held this
Sextoncy, the Easter-season came, and there
was to be a play set forth of the Resurrection
of Our Lord. And as the people were not
learned, and could not read, the Parson took
his Concubine and stationed her in the holy
Sepulchre by way of Angel. Which thing
Eulensjiiegcl seeing, he took to him three of
the simplest persons that could be found there,
to enact the Three Marys; and the Parson
himself, with a flag in his hand, represented
Christ. Thereupon spake Eulenspiegel to the
simple persons : 'When tfie An2;el asks you,
whom ye seek, ye must answer, The Parson's
35

one-eyed Concubine.' Now it came to pass
that the time arrived when they were to act,
and the Angel asked them: 'Whom seek ye
here?' and they answered, as Eulenspiegel
had taught and bidden them, and said : ' We
seek the Parson's one-eyed Concubine.'
Whereby did the Parson observe that he was
made a mock of. And when the Parson's
Concubine heard the same, she started out of
the Grave, and aimed a box at Eulenspiegel's
face, but missed him, and hit one of the simple
persons, who were representing the Three
Marys. This latter then returned her a slap
on the mouth, whereupon she caught him by
the hair. But his wife seeing this, came run-
ning thither, and fell upon the Parson's Harlot.
Which thing the Parson discerning, he threw
down his flag, and sprang forward to his Har-
lot's assistance. Thus gave they one another
hearty thwacking and basting, and there was
great uproar in the Church. But when Eulen-
spiegel perceived that they all had one another
by the ears in the Church, he went his ways,
and came no more back."*

These and the like pleasant narratives were
the People's Comedy in those days. Neither
was their Tragedy wanting; as indeed both
spring up spontaneously in all regions of hu-
man Life ; however, their chief work of this
latter class, the wild, deep, and now world-re-
nowned. Legend of Faust, belongs tc a somewhat
later date.f

Thus, though the Poetry which spoke ia
rhyme was feeble enough, the spirit of Poetry
could nowise be regarded as extinct ; while
Fancy, Imagination, and all the intellectual
faculties necessary for that art, weie in active
exercise. Neither had the Enthusiasm of

* Flogel, iv. 290. For more of Eulenspiegel, se»
Gorres's Ueber die Volkshucher,

t To the fiftecntti century, say some wtio fix it on
•lotiann Faust, the Goldsniilli and partial Inventor of
Printiufr: tothesixteenthcentiiry,sayotherii,referrin!;itto
Johann Faust, Doctor in Philnsophy; which individual
did actually, as the Tradition also hears, study first at
Vv'ittenherfr (where he niicht he one of Luther's pupils,)
then at Ingolstadt, where also he taught, and had a Famu-
lus named Wafrner, son of a deraryman at Wasserberg.
Melancthon, Tritheim, and other credible witnesses,
some of whom had seen the man, vouch sufficiently for
these facts. The rest of the Doctor's history is much more
obscure. lie seems to have been of a vehement, unquiet
temper ; skilled in Natural Philosophy, and perhaps in
the occult science of Conjuring, by aid of which two
gifts, a much shallower man, wandering in Need and
Pride over the world in those days, might, without any
Mephistopheles, have worked wonders enough. Never-
theless, that he rode off through the air on a wine-cask,
from Auerbach's Keller at Leipzig, in 152.'?, seems ques-
tionable ; though an old carving, in that venerable Ta-
vern, still mutely asserts it to the toper of this day.
About 1560, his term of Thaumatnrgy being over, be
disappeared : whether, under feigned name, bythero[)e
of some hangman ; or " friirhtfully torn in pieces by the
Devil, near the village of Rimlich, between Twelve
and One in the morning," let each reader judge for
himself The latter was clearly George Kudolf
Weidman's opinion, whose Veritahle History of the
abominable. Sins of Dr. Joliavn Faust came out at Ham-
burg in 1509; and is no less circumstantially announced
in the old " People's-Book, That eveniwhere-infainous
Arrh-Black-^i-tist avd Conjurer. Dr. Faust's Compact
with the DeriU ll'oiideiful-lt'nik and Conversation, and
terrible End, printed, seemingly without date, at Koin
(Cologne) and Nuruberg ; read by every one; written
by we know not whom." See again, for farther Insight,
Gurres's ['eber die deutschen yolk.ibi'icher. Another
Work, (Liopzig, 1824,) expressly "On Faust and the
Wandering Jew," which latter, in those times, wander-
ed much in Germany, is also referred to. — Conv. Ltxi
con, i Faust.

S74

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

neart, on which it still more intimately de-
pends, died out ; but only taken another form.
In lower degrees it expressed itself as an ardent
zeal for Knowledge, and Improvement; for spiri-
tual excellence such as the time held out and
prescribed. This was no languid, low-minded
age, but of earnest busy effort; in all pro-
vinces of culture, resolutely struggling for-
ward. Classical Literature, after long hin-
drances, had now found its way into Germany
also: old Rome was open, with all its wealth,
to the intelligent eye; scholars of Chrysoloras
were fast unfolding the treasures of Greece.
School Philosophy, which had never obtained
firm footing among the Germans, was in all
countries drawing to a close; but the subtile,
piercing vision, which it had fostered and
called into activity, was henceforth to employ
itself with new profit on more substantial in-
terests. In such manifold praiseworthy en-
deavours the most ardent mind had ample
arena.

A higher, purer enthusiasm, again, which no
longer found its place in chivalrous Minstrel-
sy, might still retire to meditate and worship
in religious Cloisters, where, amid all the cor-
ruption of monkish manners, there were not
wanting men who aimed at, and accomplish-
ed, the highest problem of manhood, a life of
spiritual Truth. Among the Germans, espe-
cially, that deep-feeling, deep-thinking, devout
temper, now degenerating into abstruse theoso-
phy, now purifying itself into holy eloquence,
and clear apostolic light, was awake in this
era; a temper which had long dwelt, and still
dwells there ; which ere long was to render
that people worthy the honour of giving Eu-
rope a new Reformation, a new Religion. As
an example of monkish diligence "and zeal, if
of nothing more, we here mention the German
Bible of Mathias von Behaim, which, in his
Hermitage at Halle, he rendered fi'om the Vul-
gate, in 1343; the Manuscript of which is still
to be seen in Leipzig. Much more conspicu-
ous stand two other German Priests of this
Period ; to whom, as connected with Literature
also, a few words must now be devoted.

Johann Tauler is a name which fails in no
liiterary History of Germany: he was a man
famous in his own day as the most eloquent of
jireachers; is still noted by critics for his in-
tellectual deserts ; by pious persons, especially
cif the class called Mystics, is still studied as a
practical instructor; and by all true inquirers
prized as a person of high talent and moral
worth. Tauler was a Dominican Monk ;
seems to have lived and preached at Stras-
Imrg; where, as his grave-stone still testifies,
lie died in 1361. His devotional works have
been often edited : one of his modern admirers
lias written his biography; wherein perhaps
this is the strangest fact, if it be one, that once
in the pulpit "he grew suddenly dumb, and
did nothing but weep; in which despondent
state he continued for two whole years." Then,
however, he again lifted up his voice, with
new energy and new potency. We learn far-
ther, that he "renounced the dialect of Philo-
sophy, and spoke direct to the heart in language
of the heart." His Sermons, composed in
Latin and delivered in German, in which lan-

guage, after repeated renovations and changes
of dialect, they are still read, have, with
his other writings, been characterized, by
a native critic worthy of confidence, in these
terms :

" They contain a treasure of meditations,
hints, indications full of heartfelt piety, which
still speak to the inmost longings and noblest
wants of man's Mind. His style is abrupt,
compressed, significant in its conciseness ; the
nameless depth of feelings struggles with the
phraseology. He was the first that wrested
from our German speech the fit expression for
ideas of moral Reason and Emotion, and has
left us riches in th'&t kind, such as the zeal for
purity and fulness of language in our own
days cannot leave unheeded." — Tauler, it is
added, " was a man who, imbued with genu-
ine Devotedness, as it springs from the depths
of a soul strengthened in self-contemplation,
and, free and all-powerful, rules over Life and
Effort, — attempted to train and win the people
for a duty which had hitherto been considered
as that of the learned class alone: to raise the
Lay-world into moral study of Religion for
themselves, that so, enfranchised from the
bonds of unreflecting custom, they might regu-
late Creed and Conduct by strength self-ac-
quired. He taught men to look within; by
spiritual contemplation to feel the secret of
their higher Destiny; to seek in their own
souls what from without is never, or too scan-
tily afforded; self-believing, to create what, by
the dead letter of foreign Tradition, can never
be brought forth."*

Known to all Europe, as Tauler is to Germany,
and of a class with him, as a man of antique
Christian walk, ofwarm, devoutly-feeling, poetic
spirit, and insight and experience in the deepest
regions of man's heart and life, follows, in the
next generation, Thomas Hamerken, or Ham-
merlein, (Malleolus .) usually named Thomas d
Kcmpis, that is, lliomus of Kettrpcn, a village
near Cologne, where he was born in 1388.
Others contend that Kampen in Overyssel was
his birthplace ; however, in either case, at that
era, more especially, considering what he did,
we can here regard him as a Dculsrher, a Ger-
man. For his spiritual and intellectual cha-
racter we may refer to his works, written in
the Latin tongue, and still known ; above all,
to his far-famed work De Iiiiitatione Christi,
which has been praised by such men as
Luther, Leibnitz, Haller; and, what is more,
has been read, and continues to be read, with
moral profit, in all Christian languages and
communions, having passed through upwards
of a thousand editiuns, which number is yet
daily increasing. A new English Thomas d
Kempis was published only the other year.
But the venerable man deserves a word from
us, not only as a high, spotless Priest, and
father of the Church, at a time when such
were rare, bnt as a zealous promotor of learn-
ing, which, in his own country, he accomplished
much to ft)rward. Hammerlein, the son of
poor parents, had been educated at the famous
school of Deventer; he himself instituted a

♦ Wachler, VorUsuvgen iiber die Oesthichte der deut-
schen JVational-literalur (],ec\.\ires onthe History of Ger-
man Nationul Literature,) b. i. s. 131.

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

S75

simikr one at Zwoll, which long; continued the
grand classical seminary of the North. Among
his own pupils we find enumerated Moritz von
Spiegelberg, Rudolf von Lange, Rudolf Agri-
cola, Antonius Liber, Ludwig Dringenberg,
Alexander Hegius; of whom Agricola, with
other two, by advice of their teacher, visited
Italy to study Greek; the whole six, united
through manhood and life, as they had been in
youth and at school, are regarded as the found-
ers of true classical literature among the
Germans. Their scholastico-monastic estab-
lishments at Dervenier, with Zwoll and its
other numerous offspring, which rapidly ex-
tended themselves over the Northwest of
Europe from Artois to Silesia, and operated
powerfully both in a moral and intellectual
view, are among the characteristic redeeming
features of that time; but the details of them
fall not within our present limits.*

If no\v, quitting the Cloister and Library, we
look abroad over active Life, and the general
state of culture and spiritual endeavour as
manifested there, we have on all hands the
cheering prospect of a society in full progress.
The Praciical Spirit, which had pressed for-
ward into Poetry itself, could not but be busy
and successful in those provinces where its
home specially lies. Among 'h- ->• .ms, it
is true, so far as political condition was con-
cerned, the aspect of affairs had not changed
for the better. The Imperial Constitution was
weakened and loosened into the mere sem-
blance of a Government; the head of which
had still the title, but no longer the reality of
sovereign power ; so that Germany, ever since
the times of Rudolf, had, as it were, ceased to
be one great nation, and become a disunited,
often conflicting aggregate of small nations.
Nay, we may almost say, of petty districts, or
even of households : for now, when every
pitiful Baron claimed to be an independent po-
tentate, and exercised his divine right of peace
and war, too often in plundering the industrious
Burgher, public Law could no longer vindicate
the weak against the strong: except the vene-
rable unwritten code of Fuuslrerht, {C]uh-haw,)
there was no other valid. On every steep rock,
or difiicult fastness, these dread sovereigns
perched themselves ; studding the country with
innumerable Rantisilild.-iscr, (Robber-Towers,)
which now in the eye of the picturesque
tourist look interesting enough, but in those
days were interesting on far other grounds.
Herein dwelt a race of persons, proud, igno-
rant, hungry; who, boasting of an endless
pedigree, talked familiarly of living on the
produce of their "Saddles," ■(vo7n Sallel zu
hi:ci},) that is to say, by the profession of high-
waymen, for which, unluckily, as mentioned,
there was then no effectual gallows. Some,
indeed, might plunder as the eagle, others as
the vulture and crow; but, in general, from
' men cultivating that walk of life, no profit in
any other was to be looked for. Vain was it,
however, for ihe Kaiser to publish edict on
edict against them; nay, if he destroyed their
Robber-Towers, new ones were built; was the
old wolf hunted down, the cub had escaped,

• See Eicbhorn's Oeschichle der Literatur, b. ii. s. 134.

who re-appeared when his teeth were grown.
Not till industry and social cultivation had
everywhere spread, and risen supreme, could
that brood, in detail, be extirpated or tamed.

Neither was this miserable defect of police
the only misery in such a state of things. For
the Saddle-eating Baron, even in pacific cir-
cumstances, naturally looked down on the
fruit-producing Burgher; who, again, feeling
himself a wiser, wealthier, better, and, in time,
a stronger man, ill brooked this procedure, and
retaliated, or, by quite declining such commu-
nications, avoided it. Thus, throughout long
centuries, and after that old code of Club-Law
had been well-nigh abolished, the effort of the
nation was still divided into two courses; the
Noble and the Citizen would not work together,
freely imparting and receiving their several
gifts; but the culture of the polite arti, and
that of the useful arts, had to proceed with
mutual disadvantage, each on its separate
footing. Indeed that supercilious and too
marked distinction of ranks, which so ridicu-
lously characterized the Germans, has only in
very recent times disappeared.

Nevertheless here, as it ever dqes, the
strength of the country lay in the middle
classes; which* were sound and active, and, in
spite of all these hindrances, daily advancing.
The Free towns, which, in Germany as else-
where, the sovereign favoured, held within their
walls a race of men as brave as they of the
Robber-Tower, but exercising their bravery on
fitter objects ; who, by degrees, too, ventured
into the field against even the greatest of these
kinglets, and in many a stout fight taught them
a juristic doctrine, which no head, with all its
helmets, was too thick for taking in. The F- ur
Forest Cantons had already testified in tliis
way ; their Tells and Stauffachers preaching,
with apostolic blows and knocks, like so many
Luthers ; whereby, from their remote Alpine
glens, all lands and all times have heard them,
and believed them. By dint of such logic it
began to be understood everywhere, that a
Man, whether clothed in purple cloaks or in
tanned sheep-skins, wielding the sceptre or the
ox-goad, is neither Deity nor Beast, but simply
a Man, and must comport himself accordingly.

But commerce of itself was pouring new
strength into every peaceable community; the
Ilanse League, now in full vigour, secured the
fruits of industry over all the North. The
havens of the Netherlands, thronged with
ships from every sea, transmitted or collected
their wide-borne freight over Germany; where,
far inland, flourished market-cities, with their
cunning workmen, their spacious warehouses,
and merchants who in opulence vied with the
richest. Except perhaps in the close vicinity
of Robber-Towers, and even there not always
nor altogether. Diligence, good Order, peaceful
abundance were everywhere conspicuous in
Germany. Petrarch has celebrated, in warm
terms, the beauties of the Rhine, as he wit
nessed them; the rich, embellished, cultivated
aspect of land and people : ^Eneas Sylvius,
afterwards Pope Pius the Second, expresses
himself, in the next century, with still greater
emphasis; he says, and he could judge, having
seen both, " that the King of Scotland did not

276

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEl»u» WRITINGS.

live so handsomely as a moderate Citizen of
Niirnberg:" indeed Conrad Celtes, another
contemporary witness, informs us, touching
these same citizens, that their wives went
abroad loaded with the richest jewels, that
"most of their household utensils were of
silver and gold." For, as ^neas Sylvius adds,
"their mercantile activity is astonishing; the
greater part of the German nation consists of
merchants." Thus, too, in Augsburg, the Fug-
ger family, which sprang, like that of the
Medici, from smallest beginnings, were fast
rising into that height of commercial great-
ness, such that Charles V., in viewing the
Royal Treasury at Paris, could say, "I have a
weaver in Augsburg able to buy it all with his
own gold."* With less satisfaction, the same
haughty Monarch had to see his own Nephew
wedded to the fair Philippine Welser,daughler
of another merchant in that city, and for
wisdom and beauty the paragon of her time.f
In this state of economical prosperity. Litera-
ture and Art, such kinds of them at least as
had a practical application, could not want
encouragement. It is mentioned as one of the
furtherances to Classical l.iearning among the

*Cl>;irles hiid l)is reasons for siuti a speech. This
same Autoii Vus'-icr, to whom he allinleii here, had
often stood liy him in straits, showing; a munificence and
even generosity worthy of the proudest primes. Dur-
ing' the celebrated DiiU of Au^isburs, in 1530, the Em-
peror lodged for a whole year in Auton's lioiise ; and
AiJton was a man to warm liis Emperor "at a fire of cin-
namon wood,'' and to burn therein "tlie bonds f.ir large
sums owim; him by liis majesty." For all which, Auton
and his kindred had countstiips and princeships in
abundance ; also the ri.'ht to coin money, but no solid
bullion to exercise such riL'ht on ; which, liowever, they
repeatedly did on bullion of their own. This Auton left
si.'j millions of gold-crowns in cash : "besides precio\is
articles, jewels, properties in all countries of Europe,
and both the Indies." The Fuggers had ships on every
sea, wagons on every highway; they worked the Ca-
rinthian Mines ; even Albrecht Diirer's Pictures musi
pass through their warehouses to the Italian market.
However, tliis family had other merits than their moun-
tains of metal, their kindness to needy sovereigns, and
even their all-embracing spirit of commercial enter-
prise. They were famed for acts of general beneficence,
and did much charity where no imperial thanks were to
be looked for. To found Hospitals and Schools, on the
most liberal scale, was a common thing with them. In
the sixt'iuith century, three benevolent brothers of the
House purchased a suburb of Augsburg; rebuilt it with
smill commodious houses, to be let to indigent indus-
trious burghers for a triding rent: this is the well-
known Fugserei, which, still existing, with its nwn walls
and gate, iiriintains their name in daily currency there.
— The founder of this remarkable family did actually
drive the shuttle in the village of tJiiggingen, near Augs-
burg, about the middle of the Fourteenth centnrv ; "but
in lfil9,"says the Spiegel der Kliren, (Mirror of llonour,)
"the noble stem had so branched out that there were
fo.ty-seven Counts and Count(tsses belonging to it, and
of yoting descendants as many as there are days in the
year." Four stout boughs of' the same noble stem, in
the ranh of Princes, still subsist and flourish. " Thus in
the generous Fuggers," says that above-named Mirror,
'■was fulfilled our Saviour's promise: 'Give, and it
Ehall he given you.' "—Conv. Lexicon, $ Fugger-Oe-
tchUcht.

1 The Welsers were of patrician descent, and had for
many centuries followed commerce at Augsburg, where,
next only to the Fuggers, they played a high part. It
WIS they, for example that, at their own charges, first
colonized Venezuela; that equipped the first German
ship to India, " the .lournal of which still exists ;" they
unit.'d with the Fuggers to lend Charles V. twelve
7'«;i«en 0"/rf, 1,200,000 Florins. The fair Philippine, by
her pure charms and honest wiles, worked out a recon-
ciliation with Kaiser Ferdinand the First, her Father-in
law; lived thirty happy years with her husband ; and
had medals struck by him, Divw PhilippintB, in honour of
her, when (at Innsptuck in 15S0) he became a widower.
~Conv. Lexicon, { if else >:

Germans, that these Free Towns, as well as
numerous petty Courts of Princes, exercising
a sovereign power, required individuals of
some culture to conduct their Diplomacy; one
man able at least to write a handsome Latin
style was an indispensable requisite. For a
long while even this small accomplishment
was not to be acquired in Germany; where,
such had been the troublous condition of the
Governments, there were yet, in the beginning
of the fourteenth century, no Universities:
however, a better temper and better fortune
began at length to prevail among the German
Sovereigns ; the demands of the time insisted
on fulfilment. The University of Prague was
founded in 1348, that of Vienna in 1384;* and
now, as if to make up for the delay, princes
and communities on all hands made haste to
establish similar Institulions; so that before
the end of the century we find three others,
Heidelberg, Cologne, Erfurt; in the course of
the next no fewer than eight more, of which
Leipzig (in 1404) is the most remarkable.
Neither did this honourable zeal grow cool in
the sixteenth century, or even down to our
own, when Germany, boasting of some forty
great Schools and twenty-two Universities,
four of which date within the last thirty years,
may fairly reckon itself the best school-pro-
vided country in Europe; as, indeed, those
who in any measure know it are aware that it
is also indisputably the best educated.

Still more decisive are the proofs of national
activity, of progressive culture among the
Germans, if we glance at what concerns the
practical Arts. Apart from Universities and
learned show, there has dwelt, in those same
Niirnbergs and Augsburgs, a solid, quietly-
persevei-ant spirit, full of old Teutonic charac-
ter and old Teutonic sense; whereby, ever
and anon, from under the bonnet of some
rusged German artisan or staid Burgher, this
and the other World's Invention has been
starling forth, where such was least of all
looked for. Indeed with regard to practical
Kno^vledge in General, if we consider the pre-
sent history and daily life of mankind, it must
be owned that while each nation has contri-
buted a share, — the largest share, at least of
such shares as can be appropriated and fixed
on any special contributor, belongs to Ger-
many. Copernic, Hevel, Kepler, Otto Guericke,
are of other times ; but in this era also the
spirit of Inquiry, of Invention, was especially
busy. Gunpowder, (of the thirteenth century,)
though Milton gives the credit of it to Satan
has helped mightily to lessen the horrors ol
war: thus much at least must be admitted ii
its favour, that it secures the dominion of

* There seems to be some controversy about the pre-
cedence here : Bouterwek gives Vienna, with a date
I.S;)3, as tlie earliest; Koch again puts Heidelberg, 1346,
in front ; the dates in the Te.xt profess to be taken from
Meiner's Oescliichte der Enstehuvg u'nd EntwickeUivg
(ler Holten Schiileii unsers Erdtheils, (History of the
Origin and Development of High Schools in Eutope,)
Gottingen, 1802 The last established University is that
of Miinchen, (Munich.) in 182ti. Prussia alone has
21.000 Public Schoolmasters, specially trained to their
profession, sometimes even sent to travel for improve-
ment at the cost of Government. What says "the
most eidightened nation in the world" to this i — Eata
its pudding, and says little or nothing.

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

27V

civilized over savage man: nay, hereby, in
personal contests, not brute Strength, but
Courage and Ingenuity, can avail; for the
Dwnrf and the Giant are alike strong with
pistols between them. Neither can Valour
now find its best arena in War, in Battle,
which is henceforth a matter of calculation
and strategy, and the soldier a chess-pawn to
shoot and be shot at: whereby that noble
quality may at length come to reserve itself
for other more legitimate occasions, of which,
in this our Life-Battle with Destiny, there are
enough. And thus Gunpowder, if it spread the
havoc of War, mitigates it in a still higher
degree ; like some Inoculation, — to which may
an extirpating Vaccination one day succeed !
It ought to be stated, however, that the claim
of Schwartz to the original invention is du-
bious; to the sole invention altogether un-
founded: the recipe stands under disguise in
the writings of Roger Bacon ; the article itself
was previously known in the East.

Far more indisputable are the advantages
of Printing : and if the story of Brother
Schwartz's murtar giving fire and driving his
pestle through the ceiling:, in the city of Mentz,
as the painful Monk and Alchymist was acci-
dentally pounding the ingredients of our first
Gunpowder, is but a fable, — that of our first
Book being printed there is much better ascer-
tained. Johann Gutenberg was a native of
Mentz; and there, in company with Faust and
Schoffer, appears to have completed his inven-
tion, between the years 1440 and 1449 : the
famous "Forty-two line Bible" was printed
there in 1455.* Of this noble art, which is
like an infinitely intensated organ of Speech,
whereby the Voice of a small transitory man
may reach not only through all earthly Space,
but through all earthly Time, it were needless
to repeat the often-repeated praises ; or specu-
late on the practical effects, the most moment-
ous of which are, perhaps, but now becoming
visible. On this subject of the Press, and its
German origin, a far humbler remark may be
in place here ; namely, that Rag-paper, the
material on which Printing works and lives,
was also invented in Germany some hundred
and fifty years before. "The oldest specimens
of this article yet known to exist," says Eich-
horn, "are some Documents, of the year 1318,
in the Archives of the Hospital at Kaufbeuern.
Breitkopf ( Fom Ursprun^ dc?' Spiclkin'ten, On the
Origin of Cards) has demonstrated our claim
to the invention ; and that France and Eng-
land borrowed it from Germany, and Spain
from Italy." -j-

On the invention of Printing there followed
naturally a multiplication of Books, and a new
activity, which has ever since proceeded at an
accelerating rate, in the business of Literature;
but for the present, no change in its character
or objects. Those Universities, and other
Establishments and Improvements, were so
many tools which the spirit of the time had

* As lo the Dutch claim, it rests only on vasiie local
traditiotiR, which were never heard of piihlicly till tlicir
Lorenz Coster had been dead almost a hundred and fifty
j'ears ; so that, out of Holland, it finds few partisans.

t B ii. s. 01.— "The tirst German Paper-mill we have
Bure account of," sajs Koch, " worked at Niirnberg in
13yO."— Vol. L p. 35.

devised, not for working out new paths, which
was their ulterior issue, but, in the mean while,
for proceeding more commodiously on the old
path. In the Prague University, it is true,
whither Wickliflfe's writings had found their
way, a teacher of more earnest tone had risen,
in the person of John Huss, Rector there;
whose Books, Of the Six Errors and Of the
Church, still more his energetic, zealously
polemical Discourses to the people, were yet
unexampled on the Continent. The shameful
murder of this man, who lived and died as be-
seemed a Martyr; and the stern vengeance
which his countrymen took for it, unhappily
not on the Constance Cardinals, but on less
offensive Bohemian Catholics, kept up during
twenty years, on the Eastern Border of Ger-
many, an agitating tumult, not only of opinion,
but of action: however, the fierce, indomitable
Zisca being called away, and the pusillanimous
Emperor offering terms, which, indeed, he did
not keep, this uproar subsided, and the national
activity proceeded in its former course.

In German Literature, during those years,
nothing presents itself as worthy of notice
here. Chronicles were written; Class-books
for the studious, edifying Homilies, in varied
guise, for the busy, were compiled: a few-
Books of Travels made their appearance,
among which Translations from our too fabu-
lous countryman, Mandeville, are perhaps the
most remarkable. For the rest. Life continued
to be looked at less with poetic admiration,
than in a spirit of observation and comparison:
not without many a protest against clerical
and secular error ; such, however, seldom
rising into the style of grave hate and hostility,
but playfully expressing themselves in satire.
The old effort towards the Useful ; in Litera-
ture, the old prevalence of the Didactic, espe-
cially of the J?sopic, is everywhere manifest.
Of this ^sopic spirit, what phases it succes-
sively assumed, and its significance in these,
there were much to be said. However, ia
place of multiplying smaller instances and
aspects, let us now take up the highest; and
with the best of all Apologues, Reynard the Fox,
terminates our survey of that Fable-loving
time.

The story of Reinecke Fuchu, or, to givo it the
original Low-German name, Reituke de tos, is,
more than any other, a truly European per-
formance : for some centuries, a universal
household possession and secular Bible, read
everywhere, in the palace and the hut; it sti.l
interests us, moreover, by its intrinsic worth,
being on the whole the most poetical and me-
ritorious production of our Western World in
that kind; or perhaps of the whole World,
though in such matters, the West has gene-
rally yielded to, and learned from, the East.

Touching the origin of this Book, as ofteii
happens in like cases, there is a controversy,
perplexed not only by inevitable ignorance,
but also by anger and false patriotism. Into
this vexed sea we have happily no call to ven-
ture; and shall merely glance for a moment,
from the firm land, where all that can specially
concern us in the matter stands secured and
safe. The oldest printed Edition of our ac'ual
2A

278

CARLYLE'S MISC^BLLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Reynard is that of Lubcck, in 1498 ; of which
there is a copy, understood to be the only one,
still extant in the Wolfenbiittel Library. This
oldest Edition is in the Low-German or Saxon
tongue, and appears to have been produced by
Hinrek van Alkmer, who in the Preface calls
himself " Schoolmaster and Tutor of that noble
virtuous Prince and Lord, the Duke of Lor-
raine ;" and says farther, that by order of this
same worthy sovereign, he "sought out and
rendered the present Book from the Walloon and
French tongue into German, to the praise and
honour of God, and wholesome edification of
whoso readeth therein." Which candid and
business-like statement would doubtless have
continued to yield entire satisfaction; had it
not been that, in modern days, and while this
first LiJbeck Edition was still lying in its dusty
recess unknown to Bibliomaniacs, another
account, dated some hundred years later, and
supported by a little subsequent hearsay, had
been raked up: how the real Author was
Nicholas Baumann, Professor at Rostock ;
how he had been Secretary to the Duke of
Juliers, but was driven from his service by
wicked cabals ; and so in revenge composed
this satirical adumbration of the Juliers Court;
putting on the title-page, to avoid conse-
quences, the feigned tale of its being rendered
from the French and Walloon tongue, and the
feigned name of Hinrek van Alkmer, who, for
the rest, was never Schoolmaster and Tutor at
Lorraine, or anywhere else, but a mere man
of straw, created for the nonce, out of so many
Letters of the Alphabet. Hereupon excessive
debate, and a learned sharp-shooting, with vic-
tory-shouts on both sides ; into which Ave
nowise enter. Some touch of human sym-
pathy does draw us towards Hinrek, whom, if
he was once a real man, with bones and
sinews, stomach and provender-scrip, it is
mournful to see evaporated away into mere
vowels and consonants: however, beyond a
kind wish, we can give him no help. In Lite-
rary History, except on this one occasion, as
seems indisputable enough, he is nowhere men-
.ioned or hinted at.

Leaving Hinrek and Nicolaus, then, to fight
out their quarrel as they may, we remark that
the clearest issue of it would throw little light
on the origin of Reinerke. The victor could at
most claim to be the first German redactor of
this Fable, and the happiest; whose work had
superseded and obliterated all preceding ones
whatsoever ; but nowise to be the inventor
thereof, who must be sought for in a much re-
moter period. There are even two printed
versions of the Tale, prior in date to this of
Liibeck: a Dutch one, at Delft in 1484; and
one by Caxton in English, in 1481, which
seems to be the earliest of all.* These two

* Carton's Edition, a copy of which is In the British
Museum, bears title: Hystorye of Reyvart the Foxe: and
begins thus :— " It was nboute the tvnie of Pentecoste or
Whylsontyde that the wodes coinynly be lusty and
gladsome, and the trees clad with levys and blossoms,
and the grounds with herbes and flowers sweete smell-
yng ;"— where, as in many other passasjes, the fact that
Caxton and Alkmer had the same orisinal before tlieni
is manifest enough. Our venerable Printer says in con-
clusion : "I have not added ne mynnsshed but have
followed as nyghe as I can my copye whych was in
dutche ; and by me Willui Caxton translated in to this

differ essentially from Hinrek's; still more so
does the French Roman da nnuveau Renard,
composed " by Jacquemars Gielee at Lisle,
about the year 1290," which yet exists in
manuscript: however, they sufficiently verify
that statement, by some supposed to be feigned,
of the German redactor's having "sought and
rendered" his work from the Walloon and
French; in which latter tongue, as we shall
soon see, some shadow of it had been known
and popular, long centuries before that time.
For besides Gielee's work, we have a Renard
Couronne of still earlier, a Renard Conirefait of
somewhat later date: and Chroniclers inform
us that, at the noted Festival given by Philip
the Fair, in the beginning of the fourteenth
century, atnong the dramatic entertainments,
was a whole Life of Reynard ; wherein it must
not surprise us that he " ended by becoming
Pope, and still, under the Tiara, continued to
eat poultry." Nay, curious inquirers have
discovered on the French and German borders,
some vestige of the Story even in Carlovingian
times, which, indeed, again makes it a German
original : they will have it that a certain Rein-
hard, or Reinecke, Duke of Lorraine, who, in
the ninth century, by his craft and exhaustless
stratagems worked strange mischief in that
region, many times overreaching King Zwenti-
bald himself, and at last, in his stronghold of
Durfos, proving impregnable to hira, — had in
satirical songs of that period been celebrated
as a fox, as Rcinhard the Fox, and so given rise
afar off to this Apologue, at least to the title of
it. The name Ises:rim, as applied to the Woli^
these same speculators deduce from an Aus-
trian Count Isengrin, who, in those old days,
had revolted against Kaiser Arnulph, and
otherwise exhibited too wolfish a disposition.
Certain it is, at least, that both designations
were in universal use during the twelfth cen-
tury; they occur, for example, in one of the
two sirvcn/es which our Cceur-de-Lion has left
us : " ye have promised me fidelity," says he,
"but ye have kept it as the Wolf did to the
Fox," as Isangrin did to Reinhart* Nay, per-
haps the ancient circulation of some such
Song, or Tale, among the French, is best of all
evinced by the fact that this same Rcinhart, or
Renard, is still the only word in their language
for Fox; and thus, strangely enough, the Pro-
per may have become an Appellative ; and sly
Duke Reinhart, at an era when the French
tongue was first evolving itself from the rub-
bish of Latin and German, have insinuated
his name into Natural as well as Political
History.

From all which, so much at least would ap-
pear : That the Fable of Reynard the Fox, whicij
in the German version we behold completed,
nowise derived its completeness from the indi-
vidual there named Hinrek van Alkmer, or
from any other individual, or people : but
rather, that being in old times universally cur-
rent, it was taken up by poets and satirists of
all countries; from each received some acces-

rude and symple englyssh in thabhey of Westminster,
and fynnyshed the vi daye of Juyn the yere of our lord
MSI, the 21 yere of the regne of Kynge Edward the
iiijih."

* Flijgel, (iii. 31,) who quotes tlie Histoirei Litterairt
des Troubadours, \. i. p. 63

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

279

sion or improxemertt; and properly has no
single author. We must observe, however,
that as }'et it had attained no fixation or con-
sistency; no version was decidedly preferred
to every other. Caxton's and the Dutch ap-
pear, at best, but as the- skeleton of what after-
wards became a body; of the old Walloon
version, said to have been discovered lately,
we are taught to entertain a similar opinion :*
in the existing French versions, which are all
older, cither in Gielee's, or in the others, there
is even less analogy. Loosely conjoined, there-
fore, and only in the state of dry bones, was it
that Hinrek, or Nicolaus, or some Lower-Saxon
whoever he might be, found the story; and
blowing on it with the breath of genius, raised
it up into a consistent Fable. Many additions
and some exclusions he must have made ; was
probably enough assisted by personal experi-
ence of a Court, whether that of Juliers or
some other; perhaps also he admitted personal
allusions, and doubtless many an oblique
glance at existing things: and thus was pro-
duced the Low-German Rcincke de Fos, which
version, shortly after its appearance, had ex-
tinguished all the rest, and come to be, what it
still is, tiie sole veritable representative of
Reynard, inasmuch as all subsequent transla-
tions and editions have derived themselves
from it.

The farther history of Reinecke is easily
traced. In this new guise, it spread abroad
over all the world, with a scarcel}'^ exampled
rapidity; fixing itself also as a firm possession
in most countries, where, indeed, in this cha-
racter, we still find it. It was printed and
rendered, innumerable times: in the original
dialect alone, the last Editor has reckoned up
more than twenty Editions; on one of which,
for example, we find such a name as that of
Heinrich Voss. It was first translated into
High-German in 1545; into Latin in 1567, by
Hartmann Schopper, whose smooth style and
rough fortune keep him in memory with
Scholars :-j- a new version into short German
verse appeared next century; in our own
times, Goethe has not disdained to re-produce
it, by moans of his own, in a third shape: Of
Soltau's version, into literal doggerel, we have
already testified. Long generations before, it
had been manufactured into Prose, for the use
cf the people, and was Sold on stalls ; where
still, with the needful changes in spelling, and
printed on grayest paper, it tempts the specu-
lative eye.

* Sec Scheller ; (Reinehe de Fos, To Brunswyk, 1825 ;)
forreile.

+ Wliile encaeed in this Triinslation, at Freilmrg in
Baden, he was impressed as a soldier, and carried, ap-
parently in fetters, to Vienna, tiavliijL' given liis worl< to
another to finish. At Vienna he stood not long in the
ranks; havinc fallen violently sick, and beinir thrown
out into llie streets to recover there. He says, "he was
without hed, and had to seek quarters on the muddy
pavement, in a Barrel." Here too, in the night, some
excessively straitened individual stole from hiui his
cloak and sabre. However, men were not all hyenas ;
one Josias Hufnasel. unknown to him, liut to whom by
his writincs he was known, took him under roof, pro-
cured medical assistance, equipped him anew ; so that
" in the harvest season, being half-cured, he could re-
turn or rather re-crawl to Frankfort on the Mayn."
There too "a Maiiister Johann Ciiipius, Christian Egen-
olph's sffn-in-law, kindly received him," and encourased
*»;ni lo finisl' his Translation ; as accordingly he did,

Thus has our old Fable, rising like some
River in the remote distance, from obscure
rivulets, gathered strength out of every valley,
out of every country, as it rolled on. It is Eu-
ropean in two senses; for as all Eurojie con-
tributed to it, so all Europe has enjoyed it.
Among the Germans, Reinecke Fuchs was long
a House-book and universal Best-companion:
it has been lectured on in Universities, quoted
in Imperial Council-halls; it lay on the toilette
of Pi-incesses, and was thumbed to pieces on
the bench of the Artisan ; we hear of grave
men ranking it only next to the Bible. Neither,
as we said, was its popularity confined to
home; Translations ere long appeared in
French, Italian, Danish, Swedi-sh, Dutch, Eng-
lish :* nor was that same stall-honour, which
has been reckoned the truest literary celebrity,
refused it here ; perhaps many a reader of
these pages may, like the writer of them, re-
collect the hours, when, hidden from unfeeling
gaze of pedagogue, he swallowed The most
pleasant and delightful History of Renard the Fox,
like stolen waters, with a timorous joy.

So much for the outward fortunes of this
remarkable Book. It comes before us with
a character such as can belong only to a very
{e\v ; that of being a true world's-Book, which
through centuries was everywhere at home,
the spirit of which diffused itself into all lan-
guages and all minds. These quaint .^sopic
figures have painted themselves in innumera-
ble heads; that rough, deep-lying humour has
been the laughter of many generations. So
that, at worst, we must regard this Reinecke as
an ancient Idol, onee worshipped, and still in-
teresting for that circumstance, were the sculp-
ture never so rude. We can love it, moreover,
as being indigenous, wholly of our own crea-
tion : it sprang up from European sense and
character, and was a faithful type and organ
of these.

But independently of all extrinsic consilera-
tions, this Fable of Reinecke may challenge a
judgment on its own merits. Cunningly con-
structed, and not without a true poetic life, we
must admit it to be: great power of concep-
tion and invention, great pictorial fidelity, a
warm, sunny tone of colouring, are manifest
enough. It is full of broad, rustic mirth; in-
exhaustible in comic devices ; a World-Satur-
nalia, where Wolves tonsured into Monks, and

dedicating it to the Emperor, with doleful complaints,
fruitless or not is unknown. For now poor Hartmann,
no longer an Autobiographer, quite vanishes, and we
can understand only that he laid his wearied back one
day in a most still bed, where the blanket of the Night

softly enwrapped him and all his woes. His Boo.t is

entitled Opus poeticum de admirabili Fallaciu et AstvtiA
yiilpeoilw, Reivekes, &c. &c. ; and in the Dedication and
Preface contains all these details.

* Besides Caxton's original, of which little is known
among \is but the name, we have two versions ; one in
1CG7, "with excellent Morals and Expositions," whicll
was reprinted in 1681, and followed in 1681 by a con-
tinuation, called the Shifts of Reynardine. the Son of Key-
nar((, of English growtii ; another in 1708, slightly alter-
ed from the former, explaining what appears doubtful ot
allegorical; "it being originally written," says this
brave editor elsewhere, "by an eminent Statesman of
the Oernian Empire, to show some Men their Follies,
and correct the Vices of the Times he lived in." Not
only Reijnardine but a second Appendix, Cawood the Rook,
appears here ; also there are "curious Devices, or Pic-
tures."—Of editions "printed for the Flying-S'fttion-
ors," we say nothing.

S80

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

nigh starved by short commons, Foxes pilgrim-
ing to Rome for absolution, Cocks pleading
at the judgment-bar, make strange mummery.
Nor is this wild Parody of Human Life with-
out its meaning and moral: it is an Air-pa-
geant from Fancy's Dream-grotto, yet Wis-
dom lurks in it; as we gaze, the vision be-
comes poetic and prophetic. A true Irony
must have dwelt in the Poet's heart and head ;
here, under grotesque shadows, he gives us
the saddest picture of Reality; yet for us with-
out sadness; his figures mask themselves in
uncouth, bestial vizards, and enact, gambol-
ing: Iheir Tragedy dissolves into sardonic
grins. He has a deep, heartfelt Humour,
sporting with the world and its evils in kind
mockery : this is the poetic soitl, round which
the outward material has fashioned itself into
living coherence. And so, in that rude old
Apologue, we have still a mirror, though now
tarnished and time-worn, of true magic reality ;
and can discern there, in cunning reflex, some
image both of our destiny and of our duty:
for now, as then, " Prudence is the only virtue
sure of its reward," and cunning triumphs
■where Honesty is worsted; and now, as then,
it is the wise man's part to know this, and
cheerfully look for it, and cheerfully defy it:

Vt vulpis adulatio

Here through his own world movetli,
Sic hoininis et ratio

Must like to Reynard's proveth.*

If Eeinecke is nowise a perfect Comic Epos, it
has various features of such, and, above all, a
genuine Epic spirit, which is the rarest fea-
ture.

Of the Fable, and its incidents and struc-
ture, it is perhaps superfluous to offer any
sketch ; to most readers the whole may be al-
ready familiar. How Noble, King of the
Beasts, holding a solemn Court, one Whitsun-
tide, is deafened on all hands with complaints
against Reinecke ; Hinze the Cat, Lampe the
Hare, Isegrira the Wolf, ^with innumerable
others, having suffered from his villany, Ise-
grim especially, in a point which most keenly
touches honour; nay, Chanticleer the Cock,
{Henningde Hane,) amid bitterest wail, appear-
ing even with the corpus delicti, the body of one
of his children, whom that arch-knave has fe-
loniously murdered with intent to eat. How
his indignant Majesty thereupon despatches
Bruin the Bear to cite the delinquent in the
King's name ; how Bruin, inveigled into a Ho-
ney-Expedition, returns without his errand,
without his ears, almost without his life ; Hinze
the Cat, in a subsequent expedition, faring no
better. How at last Reinecke, that he may
not have to stand actual siege in his fortress
of Malapertus, does appear for trial, and is
about to be hanged, but on the gallows-ladder
makes a speech unrivalled in forensic elo-
quence, and saves his life; nay, having inci-
dentally hinted at some Treasures, the hiding-
place of which is well known to him, rises
into high favour; is permitted to depart on
(hat pious pilgrimage to Rome he has so much

* Vt vulpis adulatio

JV« in de werlde blikket :
Sic hoininis et ratio

Oelyk dem Fos sik shikket.—Uollo to Reinecke.

at heart, and furnished even with shoes, cut
from the living hides of Isegrim and Isegrim's
much-injured spouse, his worst enemies. How,
the Treasures not making their appearance,
but only new misdeeds, he is again haled to
judgment; again glozes the general ear with
sweetest speeches; at length, beinp; challenged
to it, fights Isegrim in knightly tourney, and by
the cunningest, though the most unchivalrous
method, not to be farther specified in polite
writing, carries off" a complete victory; and
having thus, by wager of battle, manifested his
innocence, is overloaded with royal favour;
created Chancellor, and Pilot to weather the
Storm ; and so, in universal honour and au-
thority, reaps the fair fruit of his gifts and la-
bours.

Whereby shall each to wisdom turn,
Evil eschew, and virtue learn,
Therefore was this same story wrote,
That is its aim, and other not.
This Book for little price is sold,
But image clear of world dnth hold ;
Whoso into the world would look,
My counsel is, — he Iniy this book.
So endeth Reynard's Fox's story :
God help us all to heavenly glory!

It has been objected that the animals in Ric'
necke are not Animals, but Men disguised; to
which objection, except in so far as grounded
on the necessary indubitable fact that this is
an Apologue or emblematic Fable, and no
('hapter of Natural History, we cannot in any
considerable degree accede. Nay, that very
contrast between Object and Effort, where the
Passions of men develope themselves on the
Interests of animals, and the whole is hud-
dled together in chaotic mockery, is a main
charm of the picture. For the rest, we should
rather say, these bestial characters were mo-
derately well sustained : the vehement, futile
vociferation of Chanticleer ; the hysterical
promptitude, and earnes*t profession and pro-
testation of poor Lampe the Hare; the thick-
headed ferocity of Isegrim ; the sluggish, glut-
tonous opacity of Bruin ; above all, the craft,
the tact, and inexhaustible knavish adroitness
of Reinecke himself, are in strict accuracy of
costume. Often also their situations and oc-
cupations are bestial enough. What quan-
tities of bacon and other provant do Isegrim
and Reinecke forage; Reinecke contributing
the scheme, — for the two were then in partner-
ship,— and Isegrim paying the shot in broken
bones ! What more characteristic than the
fate of Bruin, when, ill-counselled, he intro-
duces his stupid head into Rustefill's half-split
log, has the wedges whisked away, and stands
clutched there, as in a vice, and uselessly
roaring, disappointed of honey, sure only of a
beating without parallel! Not to forget the
Mare, whom, addressing her by the title of
Good-wife, with all politeness, Isegrim, sore-
pinched with hunger, asks whether she will
sell her foal : she answers, that the price is
written on her hinder hoof; which document
the intending purchaser, being " an Erfurt
graduate," declares his full ability to read;
but finds there no writing, or print, save only
the print of six horsenails on his own fiiauled
visage. And abundance of the like ; sufficien<

EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.

281

lo excuse our old Epos on this head, or altoge-
ther justify it. Another objection, that, namel)',
which points to the great, and excessive coarse-
ness of the work, here and there, it cannot so
readily turn aside ; being indeed rude, old-
fashioned, and homespun, apt even to draggle
in the mire : neither are its occasional dulness
and tediousness to be denied ; but only to be
set against its frequent terseness and strength,
and pardoned as the product of poor huma-
nity, from whose hands nothing, not even a
Riineke dc Foa, comes perfect.

He who would read, and still understand
this old Apologue, must apply to Goethe,
whose version, for poetical use, we have
found infinitely the best ; like some copy of
an ancient, bedimmed, half-obliterated wood-
cut, but new-done on steel, on India-paper,
and with all manner of graceful, yet appro-
priate appendages. Nevertheless, the old
Low-German original has also a certain
charm, and, simply as the original, would
claim some notice. It is reckoned greatly the
bejt performance that was ever brought out
in that dialect ; interesting, moreover, in a
philological point of view, especially to us
English; being properly the language of our
old Saxon Fatherland ; and still curiously like
our own, though the two, for some twelve cen-
turies, have had no brotherly communication.
One short specimen, with the most verbal
translation, we shall here insert, and then
have done with Reinecke :

" l)e Greving was Reiiiken broder's sone,
The Badger was Reinke's brother's son,
De sprak do, un was sdr kone.
i/e spake there, and was (sore) very (keen) bold.
He forantworde in derii Hove den Fos,
He (for-answered) defended in the Court the fox,
De dog was ser falsli un 16s.
That (though) yet was very false and loose.
He sprak to deme Wulve also ford:
JHe spake to the IVoIf so forth :
Here Isegriiii, it is ein didspraken w6rd,
Master Tsegrim, it is an old-spoken word,
Des fyeiides mund shaffe, selden frdm !
The (fiends) enemy's mouth (shapeth) bringeth sel-
dom advantage !
So do ji flk by Reiiiken, niimen 6m.
So do ye (eke) too by Reinke, mine (erne) uncle.
Were he so wol alse ji hyre to Hove,
Were he as well as ye here at Court,
Un stiinde lie also in des Knninge's love,
,^nd stood he so in the King's favour.
Here Isegriiii, alse ji d6t,
Muster Isegrim, as ye do.
It sliolde jii nigi diinken g6d.
It shctild you not (think) seem good,
Dat ji en liyr alsus forspriiken
That ye him here so forspake
Vn de olden siiikke hyr r6rraken.
,^nd the old tricks here forth-raked.
Men dat kwerde, dat ji Reinken havven geddn.
But the ill that ye Reinke have done,
Dat late ji al agter stan.
That let ye all (after stand) stand by.
It is nog etiikeii lieren wol kiind,
ft is yet to some gentlemen well known,
Wo ji mid Reinken niaken den ferbnnd,
How ye with Rienke made (bond) alliance,
Un wolden wiiren twe like geselleii ;
j?nrf woitld be two (like) equal partners ;
Dat niok ik dirren lieren fortSllen.
That mote f these gentlemen forth-tell.
Wenic Reinke, niyn 6ni, in winlersiifid,
Since Heinke, mine uncle, in winter' s-needf
36

Umme Tspgrini's willen, fylna was dOd.

For Isegrim's (will) sake, full-nigh was dead,

Wente it geshang dat ein kwani gefaren.

For it chanced that one came (faring) driving,

De hadde grotte fishe up ener karen :

IVho had many fishes upon a car:

Isegrim hadde gereii der fishe gehaled,

Isegrim had fain the fishes (have haled) have got,

Me#he hadde nigt, darmid se worden betaled.

But he had not whereieith they should be (betold) paid.'

Hp bragte minpti 6iii in de grofe ii6d.

He brought mine uncle into great (need) straits,

Uni sinen willen giim he lisgen for riSd,

For his sake went he to (lig) lie for dead,

Rf'gt ill den wii?, un sttind iivenliir.

Right in the way, and Mood (adventure) chance.

Market, worden em ok de fishe surl

Mark, were him eke the fishes (soar) dear-bought 7

Do jeniie riiid der kare cefiren kwam

When (yonder) he with the car driving came

TTn ir.inen 6m darsiilvest furnem,

.^nd mine uncle (there-self) even there perceived,

Hastisen toL' he syn swgrd un snel.

Hastily (took) drew he his sword and (snell) quick,

Un wolde miiieme ome torriiken en fel.

.^nd would my uncle (tatter in fell) tear in pieces.

IMcn he ro'jede sik nigt klfin nog grot:

But he stirred himself not (little nor great) mart of

less ;
T>n nifende he dat he were dfld ;
Then (meaned) thought he that he was dead ;
He liidn on up de kar, und dayte on to fillen,
He laid him upon the car, and thought him to skin,
Dat wagede he all dnrg Isegrim's willen !
That risked he all through Isegrim's will !
Do he fordan begunde to faren,
JVhen he forth-on began to fare,
WUrp Reinke etlike fishe fan der karen,
Cast Reinke some fishes from the car.
Isegrim fan feme agteona kwam
Isegrim from afar after came
Un derre fishe al to sik nam.
,^nd these fishes all to himself took.
Reinke sprang wedder fan der karen ;
Reinke sprang again from the car ;
Em liistede to nigt liinger to faren.
Him listed not longer to fare.
He hadde 6k gferne der fishe beggrd,
He (had) would haise also fain of the fishes required.
Men Isegrim hadde se alle fortferd.
Bat Isegrim had them all consumed.
He hadde getan dat he wolde tarsten,
He had eaten so that he would burst,
Un moste daruaime gen torn arsten.
And must thereby go to the doctor.
Do Isegrim der graden niut en mogte,
.4s Isegrim the fish-bones not liked,
Der sUlven he em ein weinig brogte.
Of these same he him a little brought.

Whereby it would appear, if we are to be-
lieve Grimbart the Badger, that Reinecke was
not only the cheater in this case, but also the
cheatee ; however, he makes matters straight
again in that other noted fish expedition, where
Isegrim minded not to steal but to catch fish,
and having no fishing-tackle, by Reinecke's
advice, inserts his tail into the lake, in winter-
season ; but before the promised string of
trouts, all hooked to one another, and to him,
will bite, is frozen in, and left there to his own
bitter meditations.

We here take leave of Rcineke de Fos, and
of the whole --Esopic genus, of which it is al-
most the last, and by far the most remarkable
example. The Age of Apologue, like that of
Chivalry and Love-singing, is gone; for no
thing in this Earth has continuance. If we
2 a2

2SS

CARL VLB'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ask, whpie are now our People's Books? the
answer iTiip:ht ^ive room for rellections. Hiii-
rek van Alknier has passed away, and Di'.
Birkbeck has risen in his room. What good
and evil lie in ihat little sentence ! — But doubt-
less the day is coming when what is wanting
here will be supplied ; when as the Logical,
so likewise the Poetical susceptibility and fa-
culty of the people, — their Fancy, 'Humour,
Imagination, wherein lie the main elements
of spiritual life, — will no longer be left uncul-
tivated, barren, or bearing only spontaneous
thistles, but in new and finer harmony, with
au improved Understanding, will flourish in
new vigour; and in our inward world there

will again be a sunny Firmament and verdant
Earth, as well as a Pantry and culinary Fire;
and men will learn not only to recapitulate
and compute, but to worship, to love ; in tears
or in laughter, hold mystical as well as logical
communion with the high and the low of this
wondrous Universe; and read, as they should
live, with their whole being. Of M'hich glorious
consummation there is at all times, seeing
these endowments are indestructible, nay, es-
sentially supreme, in man, the firmest ulterior
certainty, but, for the present, only faint pros-
pects and far-off indications. Time brings
Koses !

TAYLORS S HISTOllIC SURVEY OF GERMAN

POETRY.*

[Edinburgh Review, 1831.]

Germax Literature has now for upwards
of half a century been making some way in
England; yet by no means at a constant rate,
rather in capricious flux and reflux, — deluge
alternating with desiccation : never would it
assume such moderate, reasonable currency,
is promised to be useful and lasting. The
history of its progress here would illustrate
the progress of more important things ; would
again exemf lify what obstacles a new spiritual
Dbject, with its mixture of truth and of false-
hood, has to encounter from unwise enemies,
still more from unwise friends ; how dross is
mistaken for metal, and common ashes are so-
lemnly labelled as fell poison ; how long, in
such cases, blind Passion must vociferate he-
fore she can awaken Judgment ; in short, with
wha'. tumult, vicissitude, and protracted diffi-
culty, a foreign doctrine adjusts and locales
i'.self among the homeborn. Perfect ignorance
is quiet, perfect knowledge is quiet; not so the
transition from the former to the latter. In a
vague, all-exaggerating twilight of wonder,
the new has to fight its battle with the old;
Hope has to settle accounts with Fear: thus
the scales strangely waver; public opinion,
which is as yet baseless, fluctuates without
limit ; periods of foolish admiration and fool-
ish execration must elapse, before that of true
inquiry and zeal according to knowledge can
begin.

Thirty years ago, for example, a person of
influence and understanding thought good to
emit such a proclamation as the following :
"Those ladies, who take the lead in society,
are loudly called upon to act as guardians of
the public taste as well as of the public virtue.
Tney are called upon, therefore, to oppose,
with the whole weight of their influence, the

• Historic Survey of German Poetry, interspersed
with various Translations. By W. Taylor, of Norwich.
S vols.'Svo. London, 1830.

irruption of those swarms of Publications
now daily issuing from the banks of the Da-
nube, which, like their ravaging predecessors
of the darker ages, though with far other and
more fatal arms, are overrunning civilized so-
ciety. Those readers, whose purer taste has
been formed on the correct models of the old
classic school, see with indignation and asto-
nishment the Huns and Vandals once more
overpowering the Greeks and Romans. They
behold our minds, with a retrograde but rapid
motion, hurried back to the reign of Chaos
and old Night, by distorted and unprincipled
Compositions, which, in spite of strong flashes
of genius, unite the taste of the Goths with
the morals of Bagshot." — "The newspapers
announce that Schiller's Tnigedy of the Robbers,
which inflamed the young nobility of Ger-
many to enlist themselves into a band of high-
waymen, to rob in the forests of Bohemia, is
now acting in England by persons of qua-
lity!"*

Whether our fair Amazons, at sound of this
alarm-trumpet, drew up in array of war to dis-
comfit those invading Compositions, and snuff
out the lights of that questionable private
theatre, we have not learned; and see only
that, if so, their campaign was fruitless and
needless. Like the old Northern Immigrators,
those new Paper Goths marched on resistless
whither they were bound ; some to honour,
some to dishonour, the most to oblivion and
the impalpable inane; and no weapon or
artillery, not even the glances of bright eyes,
but only the omnipotence of Time, could tam.e
and assort them. Thus, Kotzebue's truculent
armaments, once so threatening, all turned
out to be mere Fantasms and Night appari-
tions; and so rushed onwards, like some
Spectre Hunt, with loud howls indeed, yet

* Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education,
By Hannah More. The Eighth Edition, p. 41.

TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY.

283

hurrying nothing into chaos but themselves.
While again, Schiller's Tragedy of the llobbcrs,
which did not inflame either the young or the
old nobility of Germany to rob in the forests of
I^ohemia, or indeed to do any thing, except per-
haps yawn a little less, proved equally innocu-
ous in England, and might still be acted without
offence, could living individuals, idle enough
for that end, be met with here. Nay, this same
Sciiiller, not indeed by Jiobbcrs, yet by IVallcn-
steiiis, by 31aids of Orleans, and Wilhelm Tells,
has actually conquered for himself a fixed
dominion among us, which is yearly widening;
round which other German kings, of less in-
trinsic prowess, and of greater, are likewise
erecting thrones. And yet, as we perceive,
civilized society still stands in its place ; and
the public taste, as well as the public virtue,
live on, though languidly, as before. For, in
fine, it has become manifest that the old Cim-
merian forest is now quite felled and tilled;
that the true Children of Night, whom we have
to dread, dwell not on the banks of the Danube,
but nearer hand.

Could we take our progress in knowledge
of German Literature since that diatribe was
written, as any measure of our progress in the
science of Criticism, above all in the grand
science of national Tolerance, there were some
reason for satisfaction. With regard to Ger-
many itself, whether we yet stand on the right
fooling, and know at last how we are to live
in profitable neighbourhood and intercourse
with that country ; or whether the present is
but one of those capricious tides, which also
will have its reflux, may seem doubtful:
meanwhile, clearly enough, a rapidly growing
favour for German Literature comes to light;
which favour too is the more hopeful, as it
now grounds itself on better knowledge, on
direct study and judgment. Our knowledge is
better, if only because more general. Within
the last ten years, independent readers of Ger-
man have multiplied perhaps a hundred fold;
so that now this acquirement is almost ex-
pected as a natural item in liberal education.
Hence, in a great number of minds, some im-
mediate personal insight into the deeper sig-
nificance of German Intellect and Art; —
everywhere, at least a feeling that it has some
such significance. With independent readers,
moreover, the writer ceases to be independent,
which of itself is a considerable step. Our
British Translators, for instance, have long
been unparalleled in modern literature, and,
.ike their country, "the envy of surrounding
nations:" but now there are symptoms that,
even in the remote German province, they
must no longer range quite at will; that the
butchering of a Fnitsl will henceforth be
accounted literary homicide, and practitioners
of that qualiiy must operate on the dead sub-
ject only. While there are Klingemanns and
Claurens in such abundance, let no merely
ambitious, or merely hungry Interpreter, fasten
on Goethes and Schillers. Remark, too, with
satisfaction, how the old established British
(Critic now feels that it has become unsafe
to speak delirium on this subject; wherefore
he prudently restricts himself to one of two
covses : either to acquire some understanding

of it, or, which is the still surer course, alto-
gether to hold his peace. Hence freedom from
much babble that was wont to be oppressive:
probably no watchhom with such a note as
that of Mrs. More's can again be sounded, by
male or female Dogberry, in these Islands.
Again, there is no one of our younger, more
vigorous Periodicals, but has its German
craftsman, gleaning what he can : we have
seen Jean Paul quoted in English Newspapers.
Nor, among the signs of improvement, at least
of extended curiosity, let us omit our British
Foreign Reviews, a sort of merchantmen that
regularly visit the Continental, especially the
German ports, and bring back such ware as
luck yields them, with the hope of better.
Last, not least among our evidences of Philo-
Germanism, here is a whole Historic Survey of
German Poetry, in three sufiTicient octavos; and
this not merely in the eulogistic and recom-
mendatory vein, but proceeding in the way of
criticism, and indifierent, impartial narrative:
a man of known character, of talent, experience,
penetration, judges that the English public is
prepared for such a service, and likely to re-
ward it.

These are appearances, which, as advocates
for the friendly approximation of all men and
all peoples, and the readiest possible inter-
change of whatever each produces of advan-
tage to the others, we must witness gladly.
Free Literary intercourse with other nations,
what is it but an extended Freedom of the
Press ; a liberty to read (in spite of Ignorance,
of Prejudice, which is the worst of Censors)
what our foreign teachers also have printed for
us 1 — ultimately, therefore, a liberty to speak
and to hear, were it with men of all countries
and of all times ; to use, in utmost compass,
those precious natural organs, by which not
Knowledge only bat mutual AflTection is chiefly
generated among mankind! It is a natural
wish in man to know his fellow-passengers la
this Strange Ship, or Planet, on this strange
Life-voyage : neither need his curiosity re-
strict itself to the cabin where he himself
chances to lodge ; but may extend to all acces-
sible departments of the vessel. In all he
will find mysterious beings, of Wants and
Endeavours like his own ; in all he will find
Men ; with these let him comfort and mani-
foldly instruct himself. As to German Litera-
ture, in particular, which professes to be not
only new, but original, and rich in curious in-
formation for us ; which claims, moreover,
nothing that we have not granted to the French,
Italian, Spanish, and in a less degree to far
meaner literatures, we are gratified to see that
such claims can no longer be resisted. In the
present fallow slate of our English Literature,
when no Poet cultivates his own poetic field,
but all are harnessed into Editorial teams, and
ploughing in concert, for Useful Knowledge,
or Bibliopolic Profit, we regard this renewal
of our intercourse with poetic Germany, after
twenty years of languor or suspension, as
among the most remarkable and even promis-
ing features of our recent intellectual history.
In the absence of better tendencies, I^l thia,
which is no idle, but, in some points of view,
a deep and earnest one, be encouraged. For

284

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ourselves, in ihe midst of so many louder and
more exciting interests, we feel it a kind of
duty to cast some glances now and then on
tliis little stiller interest; since the matter is
once for all to be inquired into, sound notions
on it should be furthered, unsound ones can-
not be too speedily corrected. It is on such
grounds that we have taken up this Historic
Surrey,

Mr. Taylor is so considerable a person, that
no Book deliberately published by him, on any
subject, can be without weight. On German
Poetry, such is the actual state of public in-
formation and curiosity, his guidance will be
sure to lead or mislead a numerous class of
inquirers. We are therefore called on to ex-
amine him with more than usual strictness
and minuteness. The Press, in these times,
has become so active; Literature — what is still
called Literature — has so dilated in volume,
and diminished in density, that the very Re-
viewer feels at a nonplus, and has ceased to
review. Why thoughtfully examine what was
written without thought; or note faults and
merits, where there is neither fault nor merit"!
From a Nonentity, imbodied, with innocent
deception, into foolscap and printer's ink, and
named Book; from the common wind of Talk,
even when it is conserved by such mechanism,
for days, in the shape of Froth, — how shall
the hapless Reviewer filter aught in that once
so profitable colander of his 1 He has ceased,
as we said, to attempt the impossible, — cannot
review, but only discourse ; he dismisses his
too unproductive Author, generally with civil
words, not to quarrel needlessly with a fellow-
creature ; and must try, as he best may, to grind
from his own poor garner. Authors long
looked with an evil, envious eye on the Re-
viewer, strove often to blow out his light,
which only burnt the clearer for such blasts;
but now, cunningly altering their tactics, they
have extinguished it by want of oil. Unless
for some unforeseen change of affaii-s, or some
new-contrived machinery, of which there is
yet no trace, the trade of Reviewer is well nigh
done.

The happier are we that Mr. Taylor's Book
is of the old stamp, and has substance in it for
our uses. If no honour, there will be no dis-
grace, in having: carefully examined it; which
service, indeed, is due to our readers, not with-
out curiosity in this matter, as well as to the
Author. In so far as he seems a safe guide,
and brings true tidings from the promised land,
let us proclaim that fact, and recommend him
to all pilgrims : if, on the other hand, his tidings
are false, let us hasten to make this also known ;
that the German Canaan suffer not, in the eyes
of the fainthearted, by spurious samples of its
produce and reports of bloodthirsty sons of
Anak dwelling there, which this harbinger and
spy brings out of it. In either case, we may
hope, our Author, who loves the Germans in
his way, and would have his countrymen
•jrought into closer acquaintance with them,
will feel that, in purpose at least, we are co-
operating with him.

First, then, be it admitted without hesitation,
•-hat Mr. Taylor, in respect of general talent
and acquirement, takes his place above all our

expositors of German things ; that his book is
greatly the most important we yet have on this
subject. Here are upwards of fourteen hun-
dred solid pages of commentary, narrative, and
translation, submitted to the English reader;
numerous statements and personages, hitherto
unheard of, or vaguely heard of, stand here in
fixed shape; there is, if no map of intellectual
Germany, some first attempt at such. Farther,
we are to state that our author is a zealous,
earnest man; no hollow dilettante hunting
after shadows, and prating he knows not what;
but a substantial, distinct, remarkably decisive
man; has his own opinion on many subjects,
andean express it adequately. We should say,
precision of idea was a striking quality of his :
no vague transcendentalism, or mysticism of
any kind ; nothing but what is measurable and
tangible, and has a meaning which he that
runs may read, is to be apprehended here. He
is a man of much classical and other reading;
of much singular reflection ; stands on his own
basis, quiescent yet immovable : a certain
rugged vigour of natural power, interesting
even in its distortions, is everywhere manifest.
Lastly, we venture to assign him the rare merit
of honesty: he speaks out in plain English
what is in him ; seems heartily convinced of
his own doctrines, and preaches them because
they are his own ; not for the sake of sale, but
of truth ; at worst, for the sake of making
proselytes.

On the strength of which properties, we
reckon that this Historic Survey may, under
certain conditions, be useful and acceptable to
two classes. First, to incipient students of
German Literature in the original ; who in any
History of their subject, even in a bare cata-
logue, will find help; though for that class,
unfortunately, Mr. Taylor's help is much di-
minished in value by several circumstances;
by this one, were there no other, that he no-
where cites any authority : the path he has
opened may be the true or the false one ; for
farther researches and lateral surveys there is
no direction or indication. But, secondly, we
reckon that this Book may be welcome to many
of the much larger miscellaneous class, who
read less for any specific object than for the
sake of reading ; to whom any book, that will,
either in the way of contradiction or of con-
firmation, by new wisdom, or new perversion
of wisdom, stir up the stagnant inner man, is
a windfall ; the rather if it bring some historic
tidings also, fit for remembering, and repeat-
ing; above all, if, as in this case, the style,
with many singularities, have some striking
merits, and so the book be a light exercise,
even an entertainment.

To such praise and utility the work is just-
ly entitled ; but this is not all it pretends to ; and
more cannot without many limitations be con-
ceded it. Unluckily the Historic Survey is not
what it should be, but only what it would be.
Our Author hastens to correct in his Preface
any false hopes his Titlepage may have ex-
cited: "A complete History of German Poe-
try," it seems, "is hardly within reach of his
local command of libr.ary: so comprehensive
an undertaking would require another resi-
dence in a country from which he has now been

TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY.

285

•separated more than forty years ;" and which
various considerations render it unadvisable
to revisit. Nevertheless, "having long been
in the practice of importing the productions
of its fine lilerature," and of working in that
material, as critic, biographer, and translator,
lor more than one "periodic publication of this
country," he has now composed "introductory
and connective sections," filled up deficiencies,
retrenched superfluities; and so, collecting and
remodelling those "successive contributions,"
cements them together into the " new and entire
itfork" here ofi'ered to the public. " With frag-
ments," he concludes, " long since hewn, as it
'were, and sculptured, I attempt to construct an
English Temple of Fame to the memory of
those German Poets."

There is no doubt out a Complete History
of German Pt>etry exceeds any local or uni-
versal command of books which a British
man can at this day enjoy; and, farther, pre-
sents obstacles of an infinitely more serious
character than this. A History of German, or
of any national Poetry, would form, taken in
its complete sense, one of the most arduous
enterprises any writer could engage in. Poetry,
were it the rudest, so it be sincere, is the at-
tempt which man makes to render his exist-
ence harmonious, the utmost he can do for that
end : it springs therefore from his whole feel-
ings, opinions, activity, and takes its character
from these. It may be called the music of his
whole ma'iner of being; and, historically con-
sidered, is the test how far Music, or Freedom,
existed therein; how far the feeling of Love,
of Beauty, and Dignity, could be elicited from
that peculiar situation of his, and from the
views he there had of Life and Nature, of the
Universe, internal and external. Hence, in
any measure to understand the Poetry, to esti-
mate its worth, and historical meaning, we
ask as a quite fundamental inquiry: What
that situation was 1 Thus the History of a
nation's Poetry is the essence of its History,
political, economic, scientific, religious. With
all these the complete Historian of a national
Poetry will be familiar; the national physiog-
nomy, in its finest traits, and through its suc-
cessive stages of growth, will be clear to him :
he will discern the grand spiritual Tendency
of each period, what was the highest Aim and
Enthusiasm of mankind in each, and how one
epoch naturally evolved itself from the other.
He has to record this liighest Aim of a nation,
in its successive directions and developments ;
for by this the Poetry of the nation modulates
itself, this is the Poetry of the nation.

Such were the primary essence of a true
History of Poetry ; the living principle round
which all detached facts and phenomena, all
separate characters of Poems and Poets,
would fashion themselves into a coherent
whole, if they are by any means to cohere.
To accomplish such a work for any Literature
would require not only all outward aids, but an
excellent inward faculty: all telescopes and
observatories were of no avail, without the
seeing eye and the understanding heart.

Doubtless, as matters stand, such models re-
main in great part ideal; the stinted result of
actual practice must not be too rigidly tried by

them. In our language, we hare yet no ex-
ample of such a performance. Nuther else-
where, except perhaps in the well-meant, but
altogether inefi'ectual, attempt of Denina,
among the Italians, and in some detached,
though far more successful, sketches by Ger-
man writers, is there any that we know of.
To expect an English History of German Li
terature m this style were especially unrea
sonable ; where not only the man to write
it, but the people to read and enjoy it, are
wanting. Some Hislonc Survey, wherein such
an ideal standard, if not attained, if not ap-
proached, might be faithfully kept in view, and
endeavoured after, would suffice us. Neither
need such a Survey, even as a British Survey-
or might execute it, be deficient in striking ob-
jects, and views of a general interest. There
is the spectacle of a great people, closely re-
lated to us in blood, language, character, ad-
vancing through fifteen centuries of culture ;
with the eras and changes that have distin-
guished the like career in other nations. Nay,
perhaps, the intellectual history of the Ger-
mans is not without peculiar attraction, on two
grounds : first, that they are a separate unmix-
ed people; that in them one of the two grand
stem-tribes, from which all modern European
countries derive their population and speech,
is seen growing up distinct, and in several
particulars following its own course; second-
ly, that by accident and by desert, the Ger-
mans have inore than once been found playing
the highest part in European culture ; at more
than one era the grand Tendencies of Europe
have first imbodied themselves into action in
Germany, the main battle between the New
and the Old has been fought and gained there.
We mention only the Swiss Revolt, and Lu-
ther's Reformation. The Germans have not
indeed so many classical works to exhibit as
some other nations ; a Shakspeare, a Dante,
has not yet -been recognised among them;
nevertheless, they too have had their Teachers
and inspired Singers ; and in regard to popu-
lar Mythology, traditionary possessions and
spirit, what we may call the inarliculate Poetry
of a nation, and what is the element of its
spoken or written Poetry, they will be found
superior to any other modern people.

The Historic Survejair of German Poetry
will observe a remarkable nation struggling
out of Paganism; fragments of that stern
Superstition, saved from the general wreck,
and still, amid the new order of things, carry-
ing back our view, in faint reflexes, into the
dim primeval time. By slow degrees the chaos
of the Northern Immigrations settles into a
new and fairer world; arts advance; little by
little, a fund of Knowledge, of Power over Na-
ture, is accumulated for man; feeble glimmer-
ings, even of a higher knowledge, of a poetic,
break forth; till at length in the Swabian Era,
as it is named, a blaze of true though simple
Poetry bursts over Germany, more splendid,
we might say, than the Troubadour Period of
any other nation ; for that famous Nibelungen
Sons:, produced, at least ultimately fashioned in
those times, and still so significant in these, is
altogether without parallel elsewhere.

To this period, the essence of which wa«

386

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

younj? Wonder, and an enthusiasm for which
Chivalry was still the fit exponent, there suc-
ceeds, as was natural, a period of Inquiry, a
Didactic period ; wherein, among; the Germans,
as elsewhere, many a Hugo von Trimberg de-
livers wise saws, and moral apothegms, to the
general edification : later, a Town-clerk of
Strasburg sees his Ship of fools translated into
all living languages, twice into Latin, and read
by Kings; the Apologue of Ret/ nurd ike Fox
gathering itself together, from sources remote
and near, assumes its Low-German vesture;
and becomes the darling of high and low, nay
still lives with us, in rude genial vigour, as
one of the most remarkable indigenous pro-
ductions of the Middle Ages. Nor is acted
poetry of this kind wanting; the Spirit of In-
quiry translates itself into Deeds which are
poetical, as well as into words : already at the
opening of the fourteenth century, Germany
witnesses the first assertion of political right,
the first vindic jtion of Man against Nobleman ;
in the early history of the German Swiss.
And again, two centuries later, the first asser-
tion of intellectual right, the first vindication
of Man against Clergyman; in the history of
Luther's Reformation. Meanwhile the Press
has begun its incalculable task ; the indige-
nous Fiction of the Germans, what we have
called their inarticulate Poetry, issues in in-
numerable Fott-.s-'Mr/tc;-, (People's-Books.) the
progeny and kindred of which still live in
all European countries: the People have their
Tragedy and their Comedy ; TyU Eiikmpic^sd
shakes every diaphragm with laughter; the
rudest heart quails with awe atnhe wild my-
th us of Fdust.

W:ih Luiher, however, the Didactic Tenden-
cy has reached its poetic acme; and now we
must see it assume a prosaic character, and
Poetry for a long while decline. The Spirit
of Inquiry, of Criticism, is pushed beyond the
limits, or two exclusively cultivated : what had
done so much, is capable of doing all; Under-
standing is alone listened to, while Fancy and
Imagination languish inactive, or are forcibly
stifled; and all poetic culture gradually dies
away. As if with the high resolute genius,
and noble achievements, of its Lathers and
Huttens, the genius of the country had ex-
hausted itself, we behold generation after ge-
neration of mere Prosaists succeed these high
Psalmists. Science indeed advances, practi-
cal manipulation in all kinds improves; Ger-
many has its Copernics, Hevels, Guerickes,
Keplers; later, a Leibnitz opens the path of
true Lfgic, and teaches the mysteries of Fi-
gure and Number: but the finer Education of
manlcind seems at a stand. Instead of Poetic
recognition and worship, we have stolid Theo-
logic controversy, or still shallower Freelhink-
ing; pedantry, servilitv, mode-hunting, every
species of Idolatry and Affectation holds sway.
The Wo'id has lost its beauty. Life its infinite
majpst), as if the Author of it were no longer
div'.,e: instead of admiration and creation of
the True, there is at best criticism and denial
of the False; to Luther there has succeeded
The masius. In this era, so nnpoetical for all
Europe, Germany torn in pieces by a Thirty
Vear's War, and its consequences, is pre-emi-

nently prosaic ; its few Singers are feeblo
echoes of foreign models little better thaa
themselves. No Shakspeare, no Milton ap-
pears there ; such, indeed, would have appeared
earlier, if at all, in the current of German his-
tory ; but instead, they have only at best Opit-
zes, Flemmings, Logans, as we had our Queen
Anne Wits ; or, in their Lohensteines, Gryphs,
Hoffman nswaldaus, though in inverse order,
an unintentional parody of our Drydens and
Lees.

Nevertheless from every moral death there
is a new birth; in this wondrous course of
his, man may indeed linger but cannot retro-
grade or stand still. In the middle of last
centur3% from among the Parisian Erotics,
ricket}' Sentimentalism, Cuurt aperies, and
hollow Dulness, striving in all hopeless
courses, we behold the giant spirit of Ger-
many awaken as from long slumber; shake
away these worthless fetters, and by its Les-
sings and Klopstocks, announce, in true Ger-
man dialect, that the Germans also are men.
Singular enough in its circumstances was
this rescuscitation ; the work as of a " spirit
on the waters," — a movement agitating the
great popular mass; for it was favoured by
no court or king: all sovereignties, even the
pettiest, had abandoned their native Litera-
ture, their native language, as if to irreclaim-
able barbarism. The greatest King produced
in Germany since Barbarossa's time, Frede-
rick the Second, looked coldly on the native
endeavour, and saw no hope but in aid from
France. However, the native endeavour pros-
pered without aid : Lessing's announcement
did not die away with him, but took clearer
utterance, and more inspired modulation from
his followers ; in whose works it now speaks,
not to Germany alone, but to the whole world.
The results of this last Period of German
Literature are of deep significance, the depth
of which is perhaps but now becoming visi-
ble. Here, too, it may be, as in other cases,
the Want of the Age has first taken voice and
shape in Germany; that change from Nega-
tion to Aflirmation, from Destruction to Re-
construction, for which all thinkers in every
country are now prepared, is perhaps already
in action there. In the nobler Literature of
the Germans, say some, lie the rudiments of a
new spiritual era, which it is for this, and for
succeeding generations to work out and realize.
The ancient creative Inspiration, it would
seem, is still possible in these ages; at a time
when Skepticism, Frivolity, Sensuality, had
withered Life into a sand desert, and our gay-
est prospect was but ihe fil^-e mirage, and even
our Byrons could utter but a death-song or de-
spairing howl, the Moses'-wand has again
smote from that Horeb refreshing streams, to-
wards which the better spirits of all nations
are hastening, if not to drink, yet wistfully and
hopefully to examine. If the older Literary
History of Germany has the common attrac-
tions, which in a greater or a less degree be-
long to the successive epochs of other such
Histories; its newer Literature, and the histo-
rical delineation of this, has an interest such
as belongs to no other.

It is somewhat in this way, as appears to

TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY.

28r

US, that the growth of German Poetry must be
construed and represented by the historian :
these are the general phenomena and vicissi-
tudes, which, if elucidated by proper indivi-
dual instances, by specimens fitly chosen, pre-
sented in natural sequence, and worked by
philosophy into union, would make a valuable
book ; on any and all of which the observa-
tions and researches of so able an inquirer as
Mr. Taylor would have been welcome. Sorry
are we to declare that of all this, which con-
stitutes the essence of any thing calling itself
Historic Survey, there is scarcely a vestige in
the book before us. The question. What is
the German mind; Avhat is the culture of the
German mind ; what course has Germany fol-
lowed in that matter; what are its national
characteristics as manifested therein 1 appears
not to have presented itself to the author's
thought. No theorem of Germany and its in-
tellectual progress, not even a false one, has
he been at pains to construct for himself. We
believe, it is impossible for the most assidu-
ous reader to gather from these three Volumes
any portraiture of the national mind of Ger-
man}',— not to say in its successive phases
and the historical sequence of these, but in
any one phase or condition. The \vork is
made up of critical, biographical, bibliogra-
phical dissertations, and notices concerning
this and the other individual poet; inter-
spersed with large masses of translation : and
except that all these are strung together in the
order of lime, has no historical feature what-
ever. Many literary lives as we read, the na-
ture of literary life in Germany, — what sort
of moral, economical, intellectual element it
is that a German writer lives in and works
in, — will nowhere manifest itself. Indeed, far
from depicting Germany, scarcely on more
than one or two occasions does our author
even look at it, or so much as remind us that
it were capable of being depicted. On these
rare occasions, too, we were treated with such
philosophic insight as the following: "The
Germans are not an imitative, but they are a
listening people: they can do nothing without
directions, and any thing with them. As soon
as Gottsched's rules for writing German cor-
rectly had made their appearance, everybody
began to write German." Or we have theo-
retic hints, resting on no basis, about some
new tribunal of taste which at one time had
formed itself " in the mess-rooms of the Prus-
sian officers !"

In a word, the "connecting sections," or in-
deed by what alchymy such a congeries could
be connected into an Historic Sm-vcy, have not
become plain to us. Considerable part of it
consists of quite detached little Notices, mostly
of altogether insignificant men; heaped to-
gether as separate fragments ; fit, had they
been unexceptionable in other respects, for a
Biographical Dictionary, but nowise for an Hi^-
iorir Sit7-rcy. Then we have dense masses of
Translation, sometimes good, but seldom of
the characteristic pieces ; an entire Jphi^cuia,
an entire Nutlian the ]Vise : nay worse, a Sc(]ncl
to Ni:th(i7i, which when we have conscien-
tiously struggled to pursue, the Author turns
round, without any apparent smile and tells

us that it is by a nameless writer, and worth
nothing. Not only Mr. Taylor's own Transla-
tions, which are generally good, but contrihu
tions from a whole body of labourers in that
department, are given : for example, near
sixty pages, very ill rendered by a Miss Plum-
tre, of a Life nf Kotzcbue, concerning whom, or
whose life, death, or burial, there is now no
curiosity extant among men. If in that "Eng-
lish Temple of Fame," with its hewn and
sculptured stones, those Biographical-Diction-
ary fragments and fractions are so much dry
ruhbk-icork of whinstone, is not this quite des-
picable Jliitobiop-njihy of Kotzcbue a rood or
two of mere tnrf, which, as ready-cut, our ar-
chitect, to make up measure, has packed in
among his marble ashlar, whereby the whole
wall will the sooner bulge? But indeed, ge-
nerally speaking, symmetry is not one of his
architectural rules. Thus, in volume First,
we have a long story translated from a Ger-
man Magazine, about certain antique Hyper-
borean I'nrc^arkit, amusing enough, but with
no more reference to Germany than to Eng-
land; while, in return, the Nibelungen Lied is
despatched in something less than one line,
and comes no more to light. Tyll Eulenspie-
gel, who was not an " anonymous Satire, enti-
tled the Mirror of Owh" but a real flesh-and-
blood hero of that name, whose tombstone is
standing to this day near Lubeck, has some
four lines for his share; Reiucke de Fos about
as many, which also are inaccurate. Again,
if Wieland have his half-volume, and poor
Ernest Schulze, poor Zacharias Werner, and
numerous other poor men, each his chapter;
Luther also has his two sentences, and is in
these weighed against — Dr. Isaac Watts. Ul-
rich Hutten does not occur here ; Hans Sachs
and his Master-singers escape notice, or even
do worse ; the poetry of the Reformation is
not alluded to. The name of Jean Paul
Friedrich Richter appears not to be known to
Mr. Taylor; or if want of Rhyme was to be
the test of a Prosaist, how comes Salomon
Gesner here? Stranger still, Ludwi? Tieck
is not once mentioned; neither is Novalis ;
neither is Maler Miiller. But why dwell on
these emissions and commissions? is not all
included in this one well-nigh incredible fact,
that one of the largest articles in the Book, a
tenth part of the whole Historic Survey of Ger-
man Poetry, treats of that delectable genius,
Aus:ust von Kotzebue?

The truth is, this Historic Survey has not
anything historical in it; but is a mere aggie
gate of Dissertations, Translations, Noticcr.
and Notes, bound together indeed by the cir
cumstance that they are all about German
Poetry, " about it and about it;" also by the
sequence of time, and still more strongly by
the Bookbinder's packthread; but by no other
sufficient tie whatever. The authentic title
were not some mercantile varnish all'nvable in
such cases, might be: " General .lail-ilclivery
of all Pulilicatinns and Manuscripts, original
or translated, composed or borrowed, on the
subject of German Poetry ; by," &c.

To such Jail-delivery, at least when it is
from the prison of Mr. Taylor's Desk at Nor
wich, and relates to a subject in the actual

888

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

predicament of German Poetry among us, we
have no fundamental objection : and for the
name, now that it is exphiined, there is nothing
in a name; a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet. However, even in this lower
and lowest point of view, the Historic Survey is
liable to grave objections : its worth is of no
unmixed character. We mentioned that Mr.
Taylor did not often cite authorities: for which
doubtless he may have his reasons. If it be
not from French Prefaces, and the Eicgraphic
Universdlc, and other the like sources, we con-
fess ourselves altogether at a loss to divine
whence any reasonable individual gathered
such notices as these. Books indeed are
scarce; but the most untoward situation may
command Wachler's Vorlesungen, Horn's Pocsie
und lieredsavikcit, Meister's Characfcrislikcn,
Koch's Compendium, or some of the thousand
and one compilations of that sort, numerous
and accurate in German, more than in any
other literature : at all events, JOrden's Lexicon
Deulschcr und Prosaislen, and the world-renown-
ed Leipsic Conversations- Lexicon. No one of
these appears to have been in Mr. Taylor's
possession; — Bouterwek alone, and him he
seems to have consulted perfunctorily. Acer-
tain proportion of errors in such a work is
pardonable and unavoidable: scarcely so the
propcirtion observed here. The Historic Survey
abounds with errors, perhaps beyond any book
it has ever been our lot to review. Of these,
many, indeed, are harmless enough : as, for
instance, where we learn that Gorres was born
in 1804, (not in 1776;) though in that case he
must have published his Shuh-Namch at the age
of three years ; or where it is said that Wer-
ner'h epitaph " begs Mary Magdalene to pray
for his soul," which it does not do, if indeed
any one cared what it did. Some are of a
quite mysterious nature; either impregnated
with a wit which continues obstinatelv latent,
or indicating that, in spite of Railways and
Newspapers, some portions of this Island are
still impermeable. For example, ''It (Goct:
von I'erlichmgen) was admirably translated into
English, in 1799, at Edinburgh, by Willuun
Scott, Advocate; no doubt, the same person
who, under the poetical but assumed name of
Wdlier, has since become the most extensively
popular of the British writers." — Others again
are the fruit of a more culpable ignorance; as
when we hear that Goethe's Dichluvg imd
Wahrheit is literally meant to be a fictitious
narrative, and no genuine Biography; that his
Slclla ends quietly in Bigamy, (to Mr. Taylor's
satisfaction,) which, however the French
Translation may run, in the original it cer-
tainly does not. Mr. Taylor likewise com-
plains that his copy of Faust is incomplete:
so, we grieve to state, is ours. Still worse is
it when speaking of distinguished men, who
probably have been at pains to veil their sen-
timents on certain subjects, our author takes it
upon hira to lift such veil, and with perfect
composure pronounces this to be a Deist, that
a Pantheist, that other an Atheist, often with-
out any due foundation. It is quite erroneous,
for example, to describe Schiller by any such
unhappy term as that of Deist: it is very par-
ticalarly erroneous to say that Goethe any-

where " avows himself an Atheist," that he "is
a Pantheist;" — indeed, that he is, was, or is
like to be any ist to which Mr. Taylor would
attach just meaning.

But on the whole, what struck us most in
these errors, is their surprising number. In
the way of our calling, we at first took pencil,
with intent to mark such transgressions; but
soon found it too appalling a task, and so laid
aside our black-lead and our art (ccestus arteni'
que.) Happily, however, a little natural in-
vention, assisted by some tincture of arithme-
tic, came to our aid. Six pages, studied for
that end, we did mark ; finding therein thirteen
errors: the pages are 167 — 173 of Volume
Third, and still in our copy, have their mar-
ginal stigmas, which can be vindicated before
a jury of Authors. Now if 6 give 13, who
sees not that 1455, the entire number of pages,
will give 3152, and a fraction ? Or, allowing
for translations, which are freer from errors,
and for philosophical Discussions, wherein the
errors are of another sort; nay, granting with
a perhaps unwarranted liberality, that these
six pages may yield too high an average,
which we know not that they do, — may not, in
round numbers. Fifteen Hundred be given as
the approximate amount, not of Errors, indeed,
yet of Mistakes and Misstatements, in these
three octavos 1

Of errors in doctrine, false critical judg-
ments, and all sorts of philosophical hallucina-
tion, the number, more difficult to ascertain, is
also unfortunately great. Considered, indeed,
as in any measure a picture of what is re-
markable in German Poetry, this Historic Survey
is one great Error. We have to object to Mr.
Taylor on all grounds ; that his views are
often partial and inadequate, sometimes quite
false and imaginary ; that the highest produc-
tions of German Literature, those works in
which properly its characteristic and chief
worth lie, are still as a sealed book to him ; or,
what is worse, an open book that he will not
read, but pronounces to be filled with blank
paper. From a man of such intellectual
vigour, who has studied his subject so long,
we should not have expected such a failure.

Perhaps the main principle of it may be
stated, if not accounted for, in this one circum-
stance, that the Historic Survey, like its Author,
stands separated from Germany by " more
than forty years." During this time Germany
has been making unexampled progress ; while
our author has either advanced in the other
direction, or continued quite stationary. Fcrty
years, it is true, make no difference in a classi-
cal Poem : yet much in the readers of that
Poem, and its position towards these. Forty
years are but a small period in some Histories,
but in the history of German Literature, the
most rapidly extending, incessantly fluctuating
object even in the spiritual world, they make
a great period. In German}', within these forty
years, how much has been united, how much
has fallen asunder! Kant has superseded
Wolfe; Fichtc, Kant; Schelling, Fichte ; and
now, it seems, Hegel is bent on superseding
Schelling. Baumgarten has given place to
Schlegel; the Deutsche PAbliothek to the Berlin
Hermes : Lessing still towers in the distance

TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY

989

like an Earthbom Atlas ; but in the poetical
Heaven, Wieiand and Klopstock burn fainter,
as new and more radiant luminaries have
arisen. Within the last forty years, German
Literature has become national, idiomatic,
distinct from all others; by its productions
during that period, it is either something or
nothing.

Nevertheless it is still at the distance of
forty years, sometimes we think it must be
fifty, that Mr. Taylor stands. "The fine Lite-
rature of Germany," no doubt, he has " im-
ported;" yet only with the eyes of 1780 does
he read it. Thus Sulzer's Universal Theory
continues still to be his roadbook to the temple
of German taste ; almost as if the German
critic should undertake to measure ll'uverley and
Manfred by the scale of Blair's Lectures. Sulzer
■was an estimable man, who did good service
in his day; but about forty years ago sunk
into a repose, from which it would now be im-
possible to rouse him. The superannuation
of Sulzer appears not once to be suspected by
our Author; as indeed little of all the great
work that has been done or undone, in Literary
Germany within that period, has become clear
to him. The far-famed Xenien of Schiller's
Mitsenuhnanach are once mentioned, in some
half-dozen lines, wherein also there are more
than half-a-dozen inaccuracies, and one rather
egregious error. Of the results that followed
from these Xenien; of Tieck, Wackenroder.
the two Schlegels, and Novalis, whose critical
Union, and its works, filled all Germany with
tumul discussion, and at length with new
convic.ion, no whisper transpires here. The
Neiv School, with all that it taught, untaught, and
mistaught, is not so much as alluded to.
Schiller and Goethe, with all the poetic world
they created, remain invisible, or dimly seen :
Kant is a sort of Political Reformer. It must
be stated with all distinctness, that of the
newer and higher German Literature, no reader
will obtain the smallest understanding from
these Volumes.

Indeed, quite apart from his inacquaintance
with actual German}', there is that in the struc-
ture or habit of Mr. Taylor's mind, which sin-
gularly unfits him for judging of such matters
well. We must complain that he reads Ger-
man Poetry, from first to last, with English
eyes; will not accommodate himself to the
spirit of the Literature he is investigating, and
do his utmost, by loving endeavour, to win its
secret from it; but plunges in headlong, and
silently assuming that all this was written for
him and for his objects, makes short work with
it, and innumerable false conclusions. It is
sad to see an honest traveller confidently gaug-
ing all foreign objects with a measure that will
not mete them; trying German Sacred Oaks
by their fitness for British shipbuilding; walk-
ing from Dan to Beersheba, and finding so
little that he did not bring with him. This, we
are too well aware, is the commonest of all
errors, both with vulgar readers, and with
vulgar critics; but from Mr. Taylor we had
expected something better; nay, let us confess,
he himself now and then seems to attempt
something better, but too imperfectly succeeds
ia iu

37

The truth is, Mr. Taylor, though a man of
talent, as we have often admitted, and as the
world well knows, though a downright, inde-
pendent, and to all appearance most praise-
worthy man, is one of the most peculiar
critics to be found in our times. As we con-
sU'ue him from these volumes, the tasis of his
nature seems to be polemical; his whole
view of the world, of its Poetry, and whatever
else it holds, has a militant character. Ac-
cording to this philosophy, the whole duty of
man, it would almost appear, is to lay aside
the opinion of his grandfather. Doubtless, it
is natural, it is indispensable, for a man to lay
aside the opinion of his grandfather, when it
will no longer hold together on him; but we
had imagined that the great and infinitely
harder duty was — To turn the opinion that
does hold together, to some account. How-
ever, it is not in receiving the New, and
creating good with it, but solely in pulling to
pieces the Old, that Mr. Taylor will have us
employed. Often, in the course of these pages,
might the British reader sorrowfully exclaim;
" Alas ! is this the year of grace 1831, and are
we still here? Armed with the hatchet and
tinder-box ; still no symptom of the sower's-
sheet and plough ?" These latter, for our
Author, are implements of the dark ages ; the
ground is full of thistles and jungle; cut down
and spare not. A singular aversion to Priests,
something like a natural horror and hydropho-
bia, gives him no rest night nor day: the gist
of all his speculations is to drive down more
or less effectual palisades against that class
of persons ; nothing that he does but they
interfere with or threaten ; the first question
he asks of every passer-by, be it German
Poet, Philosopher, Farce-writer, is, " Arian or
Trinitarian 1 Wilt thou help me or not 1"
Long as he has now laboured, and though call-
ing himself Philosopher, Mr. Taylor has not
yet succeeded in sweeping this arena clear ; but
still painfully struggles in the questions of
Naturalism and Supernaturalism, Liberalism
and Servilism. ■

Agitated by this zeal, with its fitful hope and
fear, it is that he goes through Germany;
scenting out Infidelity with the nose of an an-
cient Heresy-hunter, though for opposite pur-
poses ; and, like a recruiting sergeant, beating
aloud for recruits ; nay, where in any corner
he can spy a tall man, clutching at him, to
crimp him or impress him. Goethe's and
Schiller s creed we saw specified above ; those
of Lessing and Herder are scarcely less edify-
ing ; but take rather this sagacious exposition
of Kant's Philosophy:

" The Alexandrian writings do not differ so
widely as is commonly apprehended from those
of the Kcinigsberg School, for they abound
with passages, which, while they seem to flattei
the popular credulity, resolve into allegory the
stories of the gods, and into an illustrative
personification the soul of the world ; thus in
sinuating to the more alert and penetrating, the
speculative rejection of opinions with which
they are encouraged and commanded in action
to comply. With analogous spirit, Professor
Kant studiously introduces a distinction be
I tween Practical and Theoretical Reason ; am'
2 B

890

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

while lie teaches that rational conduct will in-
dulge the hypothesis of a God, a revelation, and
a future state, (this, we presume is meant by
calling them inferences of Prudical Reason,') he
pretends that Theoretical Reason can adduce
no one satisfactory argument in their behalf:
so that his morality amounts to a defence of
the old adage, 'Think with the wise, and act
with the vulgar;' a plan of behaviour which
secures to the vulgar an ultimate victory over
the wise. * * Philosophy is to be withdrawn
within a narrower circle of the initiated ; and
these must be induced to conspire in favouring
a vulgar superstition. This can best be ac-
complished by enveloping with enigmatic
jargon the topics of discussion ; b}'^ employing
a cloudy phraseology, which may intercept
from below the ■\var-whoop of impiety, and
from above the evulgation of infidelity; by
contriving a kind of ' cipher of illuminism,' in
which public discussions of the most critical
nature can be carried on from the press, with-
out alarming the prejudices of the people, or
exciting the precautions of the magistrate.
Such a cipher, in the hands of an adept, is the
dialect of Kant. Add to this, the notorious
Gallicanism of his opinions, which must endear
him to the patriotism of the philosophers of
the Lyceum ; and it will appear probable that
the reception of his forms of syllogising should
extend from Germany to France; should com-
pletely and exclusively establish itself on the
Continent; entomb Avith the Reasonings the
Reason of the modern world; and fonn the
tasteless fretwork which seems about to con-
vert the halls of liberal Philosophy into
churches of mystical Supernaturalism."

These are, indeed, fearful symptoms, and
enough to quicken the diligence of any recruit-
ing officer that has the good cause at heart.
Reasonably may such officer, beleagured with
" witchcraft and demonology,trinitarianism, in-
tolerance," and a considerable list of e/-ccleras,
and, still seeing no hearty followers of his flag,
but a mere Falstaff regiment, smite upon his
thigh, and, in moments of despondency, lament
that Christianity had ever entered, or, as we
here have it, " intruded" into Europe at all;
that, at least, some small slip of heathendom,
" Scandinavia, for instance," had not been
"left to its natural course, unmisguided by
ecclesiastical missionaries and monastic in-
stitutions. Many superstitions, which have
fatigued the credulity, clouded the intellect,
and impaired the security of man, and which,
alas ! but too naturally followed in the train of
the sacred books, would there, perhaps, never
have struck root; and in one corner of the
world, the inquiries of reason might have
found an earlier asylum, and asserted a less
circumscribed range." Nevertheless, there is
still hope, preponderating hope. " The general
tendency of the German school," it would ap-
pear, could we but believe such tidings, " is to
teach French opinions in English forms."
Philosophy can now look down with some ap-
proving glances on Socinianism. Nay, the
literature of Germany, " very liberal and tole-
rant," is grao-ially overflowing even into the
Slavonian nations, "and will found, in new
languages and climates, those latest inferences

of a corrupt but instructed refinement, which
are likely to rebuild the morality of the An-
cients on the ruins of Christian Puritanism."
Such retrospections and prospections bring
to mind an absurd rumour which, confound-
ing our author with his namesake, the cele-
brated translator of Plato and Aristotle, repre-
sented him as being engaged in the repair and
re-establishment of the Pagan religion. For
such rumour, we are happy to state, there is
not, and was not, the slightest foundation.
Wieland may, indeed, at one time, have put
some whims into his disciple's head; but Mr.
Taylor is too solid a man to embark in specu-
lations of that nature. Prophetic day-dreams
are not practical projects; at all events, as we
here see, it is not the old Pagan gods that we
are to bring back, but only the ancient Pagan
morality, a refined and reformed Paganism ; —
as some middle-aged householder, if distressed
by tax-gatherers and duns, might resolve on
becoming thirteen again, and a bird-nesting
schoolboy. Let no timid Layman apprehend
any overflow of Priests from Mr. Taylor, or
even of Gods. Is not this commentary on the
hitherto so inexplicable conversion of Friedrich
Leopold, Count Stolberg, enough to quiet every
alarmist?

" On the Continent of Europe, the gentle-
man, and Frederic Leopold was emphatically
so, is seldom brought up with much solicitude
for any positive doctrine : among the Catholics,
the moralist insists on the duty of conforming
to the religion of one's ancestors ; among the
Protestants, on the duty of conforming to the
religion of the magistrate ; but Frederic Leo-
pold seems to have invented a new point of
honour, and a most rational one, the duty of
conforming to the religion of one's father-in-
law.

"A young man is the happier, while single,
for being unencumbered with any religious re-
straints; but when the time comes for sub-
mitting to matrimony, he will find the pre-
cedent of Frederic Leopold well entitled to
consideration. A predisjiosition to conform
to the religion of the father-in-law facilitates
advantageous matrimonial connections ; it pro-
duces in a family the desirable harmony of
religious profession ; it secures the sincere
education of the daughters in the faith of their
mother; and it leaves the young men at liberty
to apostatize in their turn, to exert their right
of private judgment, and to choose a worship
for themselves. Religion, if a blemish in the
male, is surely a grace in the female sex :
courage of mind may tend to acknowledge
nothing above itself; but timidity is ever dis-
posed to look upwards for protection, for con-
solation, and for happiness."

With regard to this latter point, whether Re-
ligion is " a blemish in the male, and surely a
grace in the female sex," it is possible judg-
ments may remain suspended. Courage of
mind, indeed, will prompt the squirrel to set
itself in posture against an armed horseman ,
yet whether for men and women, who seem to
stand, not onl}' under the Galaxy and Stellar
system, and under Immensity and Eternity,
but even under any bare bodkin or drop of
prussic acid, "such courage of mind as may

TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY.

291

tend to acknowledge nothing above itself,"
were ornamental or the contrary ; whether,
lastly, religion is grounded on Fear, or on
something infinitely higher and inconsistent
with Fear, — may be questions. But they are
of a kind we are not at present called to med-
dle with.

Mr. Taylor promulgates many other strange
articles of faith, for he is a positive man, and
has a certain quiet wilfulness ; these, however,
cannot henceforth much surprise us. He still
calls the Middle Ages, during which nearly all
the inventions and social institutions, whereby
we yet live as civilized men, were originated
or perfected, " a Millennium of Darkness ;" on
the faith chiefly of certain long-past Pedants,
who reckoned everything barren, because Ch'ry-
solaras had not yet come, and no Greek Roots
grew there. Again, turning in the other direc-
tion, he criticizes Luiher's Reformation, and
repeats that old, and indeed quite foolish, story
of the Augustine Monk's having a merely com-
mercial grudge against the Dominican ; com-
putes the quantity of blood shed for Protest-
antism ; and, forgetting that men shed blood,
in all ages, for any cause, and for no cause,
for Sansculotlism, for Bonapartism, thinks that,
on the whole, the Reformation was an error
and failure. Pity that Providence (as King
Alphonso wished in the Astronomical case)
had not created its man three centuries sooner,
and taken a little counsel from him ! On the
other hand, " Voltaire's Refori«ation" was suc-
cessful; and here, for once. Providence was
right. Will Mr. Taylor mention what it was
that Voltaire reformed? Many things he de-
formed, deservedly and undeservedly, but the
thing that he/o!?7icrf or re-formed is still un-
known to the world.

It is perhaps unnecessary to add, that Mr.
Taylor's whole Philosophy is sensual ; that is,
he recognises nothing that cannot be weighed,
measured, and, with one or the other organ,
eaten and digested. Logic is his only lamp of
life ; where this fails, the region of Creation
terminates. For him there is no Invisible, In-
comprehensible ; whosoever, under any name,
believes in an invisible, he treats, with leniency
and the loftiest tolerance, as a mystic and luna-
tic; and if the unhappy crackbrain has any
handicraft, literary or other, allows him to go
at large, and work at it. Withal he is a great-
hearted, strong-minded, and, in many points,
interesting man. There is a majestic com-
posure in the attitude he has assumed ; mas-
sive, immovable, uncomplaining, he sits in a
world of Delirium; and for his Future looks
with sure faith, — only in the direction of the
Past. We take him to be a man of sociable
turn, not without kindness; at all events of
the most perfect courtesy. He despises the
entire Universe, yet speaks respectfully of
Translators from the German, and always says
that they "English beautifully." A certain mild
Dogmatism sits well on him ; peaceable, in-
controvertible, uttering the palpably absurd, as
if it were a mere truism. On the other hand,
there are touches of a grave, scientific ob-
scenity, which are questionable. This word
Obscenity we use with reference to our readers,
and mi.oht also add Profanitv, but not with re-

ference to Mr. Taylor; he, as we said, is
scientific merely ; and where there is no canutn
and no fanurn, there can be no obscenity and
no profanity.

To a German we might have compressed all
this long description into a single word: Mr.
Taylor is simply what they call a Philister ;
every fibre of him is Philistine. With us such,
men usually take into Politics, and become
Code-makers and Utilitarians : it was only in
Germany that they ever meddled much with
Literature; and there worthy Nicolai has long
since terminated his Jesuit-hunt; no Adelung
now writes books, Ueberdie NulzUchkcit der Emp-
findung, (On the Utility of Feeling.) Singu-
lar enough, now, when that old species had been
quite extinct for almost half a century in their
own land, appears a native-born English Philis-
tine, made in all points as they were. With
wondering welcome we hail the Strongboned ;
almost as we might a resuscitated Mammoth.
Let no David choose smooth stones from the
brook to sling at him: is he not our own
Goliath, whose limbs were made in England,
whose thews and sinews any soil might be
proud of! Is he not, as we said, a man that
can stand on his own legs without collapsing
when left by himself! in these days one of the
greatest rarities, almost prodigies.

We cheerfully acquitted Mr. Taylor of Re-
ligion; but must expect less gratitude when
we farther deny him any feeling for true Po-
etry, as indeed the feelings for Religion and
for Poetry of this sort are one and the same.
Of Poetry, Mr. Taylor knows well what will
make a grand, especially a large, pirtvre in the
imagination: he has even a creative gift of
this kind himself, as his style will often tes-
tify; but much more he does not know. How
indeed should he? Nicolai, too, "judged of
Poetry as he did of Brunswick Mum, simply
by tasting it." Mr. Taylor assumes, as a fact
known to all thinking creatures, that Poetry is
neither more nor less than "a stimulant."
Perhaps above five hundred times in the His-
toric Sinvey we see this doctrine expressly acted
on. Whether the piece to be judged of is a
Poetical Whole, and has what Ihe critics have
named a genial life, and what that life is, he
inquires not; but, at best, whether it is a lo
gical Whole, and for most part, simply, whether
it is stimulant. The praise is, that it has fine
situations, striking scenes, agonizing scenes,
harrows his feelings, and the like. Schiller's
Robbers he finds to be stimulant; his Maid of
Orleans is not stimulant, but " among thf weak-
est of his tragedies, and composed apparently
in ill health." The author of Pizarr: is su-
premely stimulant; he of Torqtinto Tasso is
" too quotidian lo be stimulant." We bad un-
derstood that alcohol was stimulant in all its
shapes; opium also, tobacco, and indeed the
whole class of narcotics ; but hei~etofore found
Poetry in none of the Phai-macopGEias. Ne-
vertheless, it is edifying to observe with what
fearless consistency Mr. Taylor, who is no
half man, carries through this theory .>f stimu
lation. It lies privily in the heart of many a
reader and reviewer; nay, Schiller, at one
time, said that " Moliere's old woman seemed
lo have become sole Editress of all Reviews;"

39S

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITmCS.

but seldom, in the history of Literature, has
she had the hoi.esty to unveil, and ride trium-
phant as ill these volumes. Mr. Taylor dis-
covers that the only Poet to be classed with
Homer is Tasso ; that Shakspeare's Tragedies
are cousins-german to those of Otway ; that
poor, moaning, monotonous Macpherson is
an epic poet. Lastly, he runs a laboured
parallel between Schiller, Goethe, and Kotze-
bue ; one is more this, the other more that ;
one strives hither, the other thither, through
the whole string of critical predicables ; al-
most as if we should compare scientifically
Milton's Paradise Lost, the Prophecies of Isaiah,
and Mat Lewis's Tales of Terror.

Such is Mr. Taylor; a strong-hearted oak,
but in an unkindly soil, and beat upon from
infancy by Trinitarian and Tory Southwest-
ers : such is the result which native vigour,
wind-storms, and thirsty mould have made
out among them ; grim boughs dishevelled in
multangular complexity, and of the stiffness
of brass ; a tree crooked every way, un wedge-
able and gnarled. What bandages or cord-
ages of ours, or of man's, could straighten- it,
now that it has grown there for half a cen-
tury ] We simply point out that there is
excellent tough knce-timbcr in it, and of straight
timber little or none.

In fact, taking Mr. Taylor as he is and must
be, and keeping a perpetual account and pro-
test with him on these peculiarities of his,
we find that on various parts of his subject
he has profitable things to say. The Gbttingen
group of Poets, "Burger and his set," such
as they were, are pleasantly delineated. The
like may be said of the somewhat earlier
Swiss brotherhood, whereof Bodmer and Brei-
tinger are the central figures; though worthy,
wonderful Lavater, the wandering Physiogno-
mist and Evangelist, and Protestant Pope,
should not have been first forgotten, and then
pramined into an insignificant paragraph.
Lessing, again, is but poorly managed ; his
main performance, as was natural, reckoned
to be the writing of Na'hin Ihe Wise ; we have
no original portrait here, but a pantagraphical
reduced copy of some foreign sketches or
scratches, quite unworthy of such a man, in
such an historical position, standing on the con-
fines of Light and Darkness, like Day on the
misty mountain tops. Of Herder also there
is much omitted; the Gesckiihie dcr Menscheit
scarcely alluded to; yet some features are
given, accurately and even beautifully. A
slow-rolling grandiloquence is in Mr. Taylor's
best passages, of which this is one : if no po-
etic light, he has occasinnally a glow of true
rhetorical heat. Wieland is lovingly painted,
yet on the whole faithfully, as he looked some
fifty years ago, if not as he now looks: this is
the longest article in the Hisioric Survey, and
much too long; those Paganizing Dinloi^ucs in
particular had never much worth, and at pre-
sent have scarcely any.

Perhaps the best of all these Essays is that
on Klopstock. The sphere of Klopstock's ge-
nius does not transcend Mr. Taylor's scale of
poetic altitudes; though it perhaps reaches
the highest grade there; the "stimulant" the-
ory recedes into the back-ground; indeed there

is a rhetorical amplitude and brilliancy in th«
Messias which elicits in our critic an instinct
truer than his philosophy is. He has honestly
studied the Messias, and presents a clear out-
line of it ; neither has the still purer spirit of
Klopstock's Odes escaped him. We have
English Biographies of Klopstock, and a mi-
serable Version of his great Work; but per-
haps there is no writing in our language that
offers so correct an emblem of him as this
analysis. Of the Odes we shall here present
one, in Mr. Taylor's translation, which, though
in prose, the reader will not fail to approve of.
It is perhaps, the finest passage in his whole
Hisioric Survey.

"the two muses.

" I saw — tell me, was I beholding what now
happens, or was I beholding futurity 1 — I sivr
with the Muse of Britain the Muse of Ger-
many engaged in competitory race — flying
warm to the goal of coronation.

"Two goals, where the prospect terminates,
bordered the career: Oaks of the forest shaded
the one ; near to the other waved Palms ia
the evening shadow.

"Accustomed to contest, stepped she from
Albion proudly into the arena; as she stepped,
when, with the Grecian Muse and with her
from the Capitol, she entered the lists.

"She beheld the young trembling rival, who
trembled yet with dignity ; glowing roses wor-
thy of victory streamed flaming over her cheek,
and her golden hair flew abroad.

" Already she retained with pain in her tu-
muliuous bosom the contracted breath; al-
ready she hung bending forward towards the
goal; already the herald was lifting the trum-
pet, and her eyes swam with intoxicating joy.

" Proud of her courageous rival, prouder ol
herself, the lofty Britoness measured, but wilb
noble glance, thee, Tuiskone : ' Yes, by the
bards, I grew up with thee in the grove of oaks :

" 'But a tale had reached me that thou wast
no more. Pardon, 0 Mnse, if thou beest im-
mortal, pardon that I but now learn it. Yon-
der at the goal alone will I learn it.

"'There it stands. But dost thou see the
still further one, and its crowns also? This
represt courage, this proud silence, this look
which sinks fiery upon the ground, I know:

" ' Yet weigh once again, ere the herald sound
a note dangerous to thee. Am I not she who have
measured myself with her from Thermopylae,
and with the stately one of the Seven Hills'?"

"She spake: the earnest decisive moment
drew nearer with the herald. ' I love thee/
answered quick with looks of flame, Teutona,
'Britoness, I love thee to enthusiasm;

"'But not warmer than immortality and
those Palms: Touch, if so wills thy genius,
touch them before me; yet will I, when thou
seizest il, seize also the crown.

" 'And, Oh how I tremble I O ye Immortals,
perhaps I may reach first the high goal: then,
oh then, may thy breath attain my loose-
streaming hair !'

" The herald shrilled. They flew with eagle-
speed. The wide career smoKed up clouds of
dust. I looked. Beyond the Oak billowed
yet thicker the dust, and I lost them."

TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY.

293

"This beautiful allegory," adds Mr. Taylor,
♦requires no illustration; but it constitutes
one of the reasons for suspecting that the
younger may eventually be the victorious
Muse." We hope not, but that the generous
race may yet last through long centuries.
Tuiskone has shot through a mighty space,
since this Poet saw her: what if she were now
slackening her speed, and the Britoness quick-
ening hers 1

If the Essay on Klopstock is the best, that
on Kotzebue is undoubtedly the worst, in this
book, or perhaps in any book written by man
of ability in our day. It is one of those acts
which, in the spirit of philanthropjs we could
wish Mr. Taylor to conceal in profoundest
secrecy; were it not that hereby the "stimu-
lant" theory, a heresy which still lurks here
and there even in our better criticism, is in
some sort brought to a crisis, and may the
sooner depart from this world, or at least from
the high places of it, into others more suitable.
Kotzebue, whom all nations, and kindreds, and
tongues, and peoples, his own people the fore-
most, after playing with him for some foolish
hour, have swept out of doors as a lifeless
bundle of dyed rags, is here scientifically ex-
amined, measured, pulse-fell, and pronounced
to be living, and a divinity. He has such pro-
lific -'invention," abounds so in "fine situa-
tions," in passionate scenes, is so soul-har-
rowing, so stimulant. The Proceedinsis at Fow
Street are stimulant enough; neither is prolific
invention, interesting situations, or soul-har-
rowing passion wanting among the Authors
that compose there; least of all if we follow
them to Newgate, and the gallows : but when
did the Morning Herald think of inserting its
Police Reports among our Anthologies 1 Mr.
Taylor is at the pains to analyze very many
of Kotzebue's productions, and translates
copiously from two or three : how the Siberian
Governor took on when his daughter was
about to run away with one Benjowsky, who
however, was enabled to surrender his prize,
there on the beach, with sails hoisted, b)'
"looking at his wife's picture;" how the peo-
ple " lift young Burgund}^ from the Tun," not
indeed to drink him, for he is not wine but a
Duke; how a certain stout-hearied West In-
dian, that has made a fortune, proposes mar-
riage to his two sisters, but finding the ladies
reluctant, solicits their serving-woman, whose
reputation is not only cracked, but visibly
quite rent asunder, accepts her nevertheless,
with her thriving cberub, and is the happiest
of men ; — with more of the like sort. On the
strength of which we are assured that, " accord-
ing to my judgment, Kotzebue is the greatest
dramatic genius that Europe has evolved since
Shakspeare." Such is the table which Mr.
Taylor has spread for pilgrims in the Prose
Wilderness of Life: thus does he sit like a kind
host, ready :.o carve; and though the viands
and beverage are but, as it were, stewed gar-
lic, Yarmouth herrings, and blue-rtnn, praise
them as "stimulant," and courteously presses
the universe to fall to.

What a purveyor with this palate shall say
to Nectar and Ambrosia, may be curious as a
question in Natural History, but hardly other-

wise. The most of what Mr. Taylor has writ
ten on Schiller, on Goethe, and the new Litera-
ture of Germany, a reader that loves him, as v
we honestly do, will consider as unwritten, or
written in a state of somnambulism. He who
has just quitted Kotzebue's Bear-garden, and
Fives-court, and pronounces it to be all stimu-
lant and very good, what is there for him to do
in the Hall of the Gods ? He looks transiently
in; asks with mild authority, "Arian or
Trinitarian ■? Quotidian or Stimulant 1" and
receiving no answer but a hollow echo, which
almost sounds like laughter, passes on, mut-
tering that they are dumb idols, or mere Niirn-
berg waxwork.

It remains to notice Mr. Taylor's Transla-
tions. Apart from the choice of subjects,
which in probably more than half the cases is
unhappy, there is much to be said in favour
of these. Compared with the average of
British Translations, they may be pronounced
of almost ideal excellence ; compared wV.h the
best translations extant, for example, the Ger-
man Shakspeare, Hotner, Calderon, they may
still be called better than indifferent. One
great merit Mr. Taylor has; rigorous ad-
herence to his original; he endeavours at
least to copy with all possible fidelity the turn
of phrase, the tone, the very metre, whatever
stands written for him. With the German
language he has now had a long familiarity,
and, what is no less essential, and perhaps
still rarer among our translators, has a decided
understanding of English. All this of Mr.
Taylor's own Translations: in the borrowed
pieces, whereof there are several, we seldom,
except indeed in those by Shelley and Cole-
ridge, find much worth; sometimes a distinct
worthlessness. Mr. Taylor has made no con-
science of clearing those unfortunate per-
formances even from their gross blunders.
Thus, in that "excellent version by Miss
Plumptre," we find this statement: Professor
Miiller could not utter a period without intro-
ducing the words iiiih wider, "whether they had
business there or not;" which statement, were
it only on the ground that Professor Miiller was
not sent to Bedlam, theie to utter periods, we
venture to deny. Doulitless his besetting sin
was miliiuder, which indeed means at the same
time, or the like, (etymologically, ip'dh among,)
but nowise wilh under. One other instance we
shall give, from a much moie important sub-
ject. Mr. Taylor admits that he does not make
much of Faust: however, he inserts Shelley's
version of the Mayday Night ; and another
scene, evidently rendered by quite a different
artist. In this latter, Margaret is in th e Cathe
dral during High-Mass, but her whole bought;,
are turned inwards on a secret shame and sor
row: an Evil Spirit is whispering in her ear,
the Choir chant fragments of the Dies irce ; shr
is like to choke and sink. In the ( riginal,
this passage is in verse; and, we presume,
in the translation also, — founding on thij
capital letters. The concluding lines an*
these:

"MARGARET.

I feel imprisnn'd. The thirls pntars gird me.
The vaults low'r o'er me. Air, air, I faint.
2 B 2

tB4

CARLYLirS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Itll SPIKIT.

Where wilt thou lie concealed ■? for sin and shame
Remain not hidden — wo is coming down.

THE CHOIR.

^uid sum miser turn dicturus ?
Quern patronum rogaturus ?
Cum vii Justus sit securus.

ETIL SPIRIT.

From thee the glorified avert their view,
The pare forbear to offer thee a hand.

THE CHOIR.

Quid sum miser turn dicturus ?
MARGARET.

Neighbour, your — "

— ^Your what 1 — Angels and ministers of grace
defend us ! — " Your Drambollle." Will Mr.
Taylor have us understand, then, that "the
noble German nation," more especially the
fairer half thereof, (for the " Neighbour" is
iV«c/i6aHn, Neighbour's,) goes to church with a
decanter of brandy in its pocket? Or would
he not rather, even forcibly, interpret Fldsch-
chen by vinnigretlc, by volatile-salts ? — The world
has no notice that this passage is a borrowed
one, but will, notwithstanding, as the more
charitable theory, hope and believe so.

We have now done with Mr. Taylor; and
would fain, after all that has come and gone,
part with him in good nature and good will.
He has spoken freely, we have answered free-
ly. Far as we differ from him in regard to
German Literature, and to the much more im-
portant subjects here connected with it ; deeply
as we feel convinced that his convictions are
wrong and dangerous, are but half true, and,
if taken for the whole truth, wholly false and
fatal, we have nowise blinded ourselves to his
vigorous talent, to his varied learning, his sin-
cerity, his manful independence and self-sup-
port. Neither is it for speaking out plainly
that we blame him. A man's honest, earnest
opinion is the most precious of all he possesses :
let him communicate this, if he is to communi-
cate anything. There is, doubtless, a time to
speak, and a time to keep silence; yet Fon-
tenelle's celebrated aphorism, I might have my
hand full of truth, and would open only my lilllc
finger, may be practised also to excess, and
the little finger itself kept closed. That re-
serve, and knowing silence, long so universal
among us, is less the fruit of active benevo-
lence, of philosophic tolerance, than of in-
difference and weak conviction. Honest Skep-
ticism, honest Atheism, is better than that
withered, lifeless Dilettantism and amateur
Eclecticism, which merely toys with all opi-
nions; or than that wicked Machiavelism,
which, in thought denying every thing, except
that Power is Power, in words, for its own wise
purposes, loudly believes every thing : of both
which miserable habitudes the day, even in
England, is wellnigh over. That Mr. Taylor
belongs not, and at no time belonged, to either
of these classes, we account a true praise. Of
his Historic Survey we have endeavoured to
point out the faults and the merits : should he

reach a second edition, which we hope, per-
haps he may profit by some of our hints, and
render the work less unworthy of himself and
of his subject. In its present state and shape,
this English Temple of Fame can content no
one. A huge, anomalous, heterogeneous mass,
no section of it like another, oriel-window
alternating with rabbit-hole, wrought capital
on pillar of dried mud; heaped together out
of marble, loose earth, rude boulder-stone;
hastily roofed in with shingles, — such is the
Temple of Fame ; uninhabitable either for
priest or statue, and which nothing but a con-
tinued suspension of the laws of gravity can
keep from rushing ere long into a chaos of
stone and dust. For the English worshipper,
who in the meanwhile has no other temple, we
search out the least dangerous apartments ; for
the future builder, the materials that will be
valuable.

And now, in washing our' hands of this ail-
too sordid but not unnecessary task, one word
on a more momentous object. Does not the
existence of such a Book, do not many other
indications, traceable in France, in Germany,
as well as here, betoken that a new era in the
spiritual intercourse of Europe is approach-
ing; that instead of isolated, mutually repul-
sive National Literatures, a World-Literature
may one day be looked for? The better minds
of all countries begin to understand each other;
and, which follows naturally, to love each
other and help each other ; by whom ultimate-
ly all countries in all their proceedings are
governed.

Late in man's history, yet clearly at length,
it becomes manifest to the dullest, that mind
is stronger than matter, that mind is the creator
and shaper of matter; that not brute Force,
but only Persuasion and Faith is the king of
this world. The true Poet, who is but the in-
spired Thinker, is still an Orpheus whose Lyre
tames the savage beasts, and evokes the dead
rocks to fashion themselves into palaces and
stately inhabited cities. It has been said, and
may be repeated, that Literature is fast be-
coming all in all to us ; our Church, our Sen-
ate, our whole Social Constitution. The true
Pope of Christendom is not that feeble old
man in Rome ; nor is its Autocrat the Na-
poleon, the Nicolas, with his half million even
of obedient bayonets; such Autocrat is him-
self but a more cunningly-devised bayonet and
military engine in the hands of a mightier than
he. The true Autocrat and Pope is that man,
the real or seeming Wisest of the past age ;
crowned after death; who finds his Hierarchy
of gifted Authors, his Clergy of assiduous
Journalists; whose Decretals, written not on
parchment, but on the living souls of men, it
were an inversion of the Laws of Nature to
disobey. In these times of ours, all Intellect
has fused itself into Literature: Literature,
Printed Thought, is the molten sea and wonder-
bearing Chaos, into which mind after mind
casts forth its opinion, its feeling, to be molten
into the general mass, and to work there ; In-
terest after Interest is engulfed in it, or em-
barked on it : higher, higher it rises round all
the Edifices of Existence ; they must all ba

TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT-MOTH.

295

molten into it, and anew bodied forth from it,
or stand unconsumed among its fiery surges.
Wo to him whose Edi^ce is not built of true
Asbesl, and on the everlasting Rock ; but on
the false sand, and of the drift-wood of Ac-
cident, and the paper and parchment of anti-
quated Habit! For the power, or powers, exist
not on our Earth, that can say to that sea, roll
back, or bid its proud waves be still.

What form so omnipotent an element will
assume; how long it will welter to and fro as
a wild Democracy, a wild Anarchy; what
Constitution and Organization it will fashion
for itself, and for what depends on it, in the

depths of Time, is a subject for prophetic con-
jecture, wherein brightest hope is not un
mingled with fearful apprehension and awe
at the boundless unknown. The more cheer-
ing is this one thing which we do see and
know — That its tendency is to a universal
European Commonweal; that the wisest in
all nations will communicate and co-operate ;
whereby Europe will again have its true
Sacred College, and Council of Amphictyous ;
wars will become rarer, less inhuman, and, in
the course of centuries, such delirious ferocity
in nations, as in individuals it already is, may
be proscribed, and become obsolete forever.

TMGEDY or THE NIGHT-MOTH.

[Eraser's Magazine, 1831.]

Magna ^iisus,

T is placid midnight, stars are keeping
Their meek and silent course in heaven ;

Save pale recluse, all things are sleeping,
His mind to study still is given.

But see! a wandering Night-moth enters,
Allured by taper gleaming bright;

A while keeps hovering round, then ventures
On Goethe's mystic page to light.

With awe she views the candle blazing ;

A universe of fire it seems
To moih-savan'e with rapture gazing.

Or fount whence Life and Motion streams.

What passions in her small heart whirling,
Hopes boundless, adoration, dread ;

At length her tiny pinions twirling.

She darts and — puff! — the moth is dead !

The sullen flame, for her scarce sparkling,
Gives but one hiss, one fitful glare ;

Now bright and busy, now all darkling,
She snaps and fades to empty air.

Her bright gray form that spread so slimly,
Some fan she seemed of pigmy Queen;

Her silky cloak that lay so trimly,

Her wee, wee eyes that looked so keen,

Last moment here, now gone for ever,
To nought are passed with fiery pain ;

And ages circling round shall never
Give to this creature shape again 1

Poor moth ! near weeping I lament thee,
Thy glossy form, thy instant wo;

'T was zeal for " things too high" that sent thee
From cheery earth to shades below.

Short speck of boundless space was needed
For home, for kingdom, world to thee !

Where passed unheeding as unheeded,
Thy slender life from sorrow free.

But syren hopes from out thy dwelling,
Enticed thee, bade thee Earth explore,^

Thy frame, so late with rapture swelling,
Is swept from Earth for evermore !

Poor moth ! thy fate my own resembles :

Me too a restless asking mind
Hath sent on far and weary rambles,

To seek the good I ne'er shall find.

Like thee, with common lot contented,
With humble joys and vulgar fate,

I might have lived and ne'er lamented,
Moth of a larger size, a longer date !

But Nature's majesty unveiling.

What seemed her wildest, grandest charms^
Eternal Truth and Beauty hailing.

Like thee, I rushed into her arms.

What gained we, little moth 1 Thy ashes.
Thy one brief parting pang may show :

And withering thoughts for soul that dashes
From deep to deep, are but a death more slew.

Mf

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

CHAKACTEUISTICS.*

[Edinburgh Review, 1831.]

The healthy know not of their health, but
only the sick: this is the Physician's Aphorism ;
and applicable in a far wider sense than he
gives it. We may say, it holds no less in
moral, intellectual, political, poetical, than in
merely corporeal therapeutics ; that wherever,
or in what shape soever, powers of the sort
which can be named vital are at work, herein
lies the test of their working right, or working
wrong.

In the Body, for example, as all doctors are
agreed, the first condition of complete health
is, that each organ perform its function uncon-
sciously, unheeded ; let but any organ announce
its separate existence, were it even boastfully,
and for pleasure, not for pain^ then already has
one of those unfortunate "false centres of sen-
sibility" established itself, already is derange-
ment there. The perfection of bodily well-
teing is, that the collective bodily activities
seem one ; and be manifested, moreover, not in
themselves, but in the action they accomplish.
If a Dr. Kitchener boast that his system is in
high order. Dietetic Philosophy may indeed
take credit; but the true Pepiician was that
Countryman who answered that, " for his part,
he had no system." In fact, unity, agreement,
is always silent, or soft-voiced; it is only dis-
cord that loudly proclaims itself. So long as
the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted,
can pour forth theirmovement like harmonious
tuned strings, it is a melody and unison ; Life,
from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in
celestial music and diapason, — which also, like
that other music of the spheres, even because
it is perennial and complete, without interrup-
tion and without imperfection, might be fabled
to escape the ear. Thus, too, in some lan-
guages, is the state of health well denoted by a
term expressing unity ; when we feel ourselves
as we wish to be, we say that we are whole.

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are perma-
nently blessed with that felicity of " having no
system:'" nevertheless, most of us, looking
hack on young years, may remember seasons
of a light, aerial translucency and elasticity,
and perfect freedom ; the body had not yet
become the prison-house of the soul, but was
its vehicle and implement, like a creature of
the thought, and altogether pliant to its bid-
ding. We knew not that we had limbs, we
only lifted, hurled, and leapt; through eye and
ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear un-
impeded tidings from without, and from within

* 1. An Essay on ttie Origin and Prosperts of Man.
By Thomas Hope. .^ vols. 8vo. London, 1831.

2. Philosophische Vorlesnngen^ insbesondere iiber Philo-
eophie der sprache und des IVortes. Oeschriehen iind
vorgetrnaen zu Dresden im December, 1828, vnd in den
ersten Tagendes Januars 1829. (Philosophical Lecturps,
especially on the Philosophy of Languace and the Gift
of Speech. Written and delivered at Dresden in De-
cember, 1828, and the early days of January, 1829.) By
Friedricb von Schlegel. Svo. Vienna, 1830.

issued clear victorious force; we stood as in
the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in
harmony with it all ; unlike Virgil's Husband-
men, "too happy berause we did not know our
blessedriess." In those days, health and sick-
ness were foreign traditions that did not con-
cern us; our whole being was as yet One, the
whole man like an incorporated Will. Such,
were Rest or ever-successful Labour the hu-
man lot, might our life continue to be: a pure,
perpetual, unregarded music ; a beam of per-
fect white light, rendering all things visible,
but itself unseen, even because it was of that
perfect whiteness, and no irregular ob^tructio^
had yet broken it into colours. The beginning
of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, if we con-
sider well, as it must liave originated in the
feeling of something being wrong, so it is and
continues to be but Division, Dismemberment,
and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as
was of old written, the Tree of Knowledge
springs from a root of evil, and bears fruits of
good and evil. Had Adam remained in Para-
dise, there had been no Anatomy and no
Metaphysics.

But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, "Life
itself is a disease; a working incited by suf-
fering;" action from passion! The memory
of that first state of Freedom and paradisiac
Unconsciousness has faded away into an ideal
poetic dream. We stand here too conscious
of many things: with Knowledge, the symptom
of Derangement, we must even do our best to
restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances,
and at rare intervals, the diapason of a hea-
venly melody ; ofteniss^t the fierce jar of disrup-
tions and convulsions, which, do what we will,
there is no disregarding. Nevertheless, such
is still the wish of Nature on our behalf; in
all vital action, her manifest purpose and
eflx)rt is, that we should be unconscious of it,
and, like the peptic Countryman, never know
that we "have a system." For indeed vital
action everywhere is emphatically a means,
not an end; Life is not given us for the mere
sake of Living, but alwa3's with an ulterior
external Aim : neither is it on the process, on
the means, but rather on the result, that Na-
ture, in any of her doings, is wont to intrust us
with insight and volition. Boundless as is the
domain of man, it is but a small fractional
proportion of it that he rules with Conscious-
ness and by Forethought : what he can con-
trive, nay, what he can altogether know and
comprehend, is essentially the mechanical,
small ; the great is ever, in one sense or other,
the vital; it is essentially the mysterious, and
only the surface of it can be understood. But
Nature, it might seem, strives, like a kind
mother, to hide from us even this, that she is a
mystery: she will have us rest on her beauti-
ful and awful bosom as if it were our secure
home ; oh. he bottomless, boundles3 Deej^

CHARACTERISTICS.

297

whereon all human things fearfully and won-
derfully swim, she will have us walk and build,
as if the film which supported us there (which
any scratch of a bare bodkin will rend asunder,
anysputterof a pistol-shot instantaneously burn
up) were no film, but a solid rock-foundation.
For ever in the neighbourhood of an inevitable
Df^ath, man can forget that he is born to die ;
of his Life, which, strictly meditated, contains
in it an Immensity and an Eternity, he can
conceive lightly, as of a simple implement
wherewith to do day-labour and earn wages.
So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all
highest art, which only apes her from afar,
"body forth the Finite from the Infinite;" and
guide man safe on his wondrous path, not more
by endowing him with vision, than, at the right
place, with blindness! Under all her works,
chiefly under her noblest work. Life, lies a
basis of Darkness, which she benignantly con-
ceals ; in Life, too, the roots and in-vard cir-
culations which stretch down fearfully to the
regions of Death and Night, shall not hint of
their existence, and only the fair stem with its
leaves and flowers, shone on by the fair sun,
disclose itself, and joyfully grow.

However, without venturing into the abstruse,
or too eagerly asking Why and How, in things
where our answer must needs prove, in great
part, an echo of the question, let us be content
to remark farther, in the merely historical
way, how that Aphorism of the bodily Physi-
cian holds good in quite other departments.
Of the Soul, with her activities, we shall find
it no less true than of the Body: nay, cry the
Spiritualists, is not that very division of the
unity, Man, into a dualism of Soul and Body,
itself the symptom of disease ; as, perhaps,
your frightful theory of Materialism, of his
being but a Body, and therefore, at least, once
more a unity, may be the paroxysm which
was critical, and the beginning of cure! But
omitting this, we observe, with confidence
enough, that the truly strong mind, view it as
Intellect, as Morality, or under any other as-
pect, is nowise the mind acquainted with its
strength ; that here as before the sign of health
is Unconsciousness. In our inward, as in our
outward world, what is mechanical lies open
to us : not what is dynamical and has vitality.
Of our Thinking, we might say, it is but
the mere upper surface that we shape into
articulate Thoughts; — underneath the region
of argument and conscious discourse lies the
region of meditation ; here, in its quiet myste-
rious depths, dwells what vital force is in us ;
here, if aught is to be created, and not merely
manufactured and communicated, must the
work go on. Manufacture is intelligible, but
trivial ; Creation is great, and cannot be un-
derstood. Thus if the Debater and Demon-
strator, whom we may rank as the lowest of
true thinkers, knows what he has done, and
how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the
highest, knows not; must speak of Inspiration,
and, in one or the other dialect, call his work
the gift of a divinity.

But on the whole, " genius is ever a secret

to itself;" of this old truth we have, on all sides,

daily evidence. The Shakspeare takes no airs

for writing Hamlet and the Tempest, understands

38

not that it is any thing .surprising: Milton,
again, is more conscious of his faculty, which
accordingly is an inferior one. On the other
hand, what cackling and strutting must we
not often hear and see, when, in some shape
of academical prolusion, maiden speech, re-
view article, this or the other well-fledged
goose has produced its goose-egg, of quite
measurable value, were it the pink of its whole
kind; and wonders why all mortals do not
wonder !

Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's
surprise at Walter Shandy ; how, though un-
read in Aristotle, he could nevertheless argue;
and not knowing the name of any dialectic
tool, handled them all to perfection. Is it the
skilfullest Anatomist that cuts the best figure
at Sadler's Wells 1 or does the Boxer hit bel-
ter for knowing that he has a flexor longus
and a flexor brevis ] But, indeed, as in the
higher case of the Poet, so here in that of the
Speaker and Inquirer, the true force is an un-
conscious one. The healthy Understanding^,
we should say, is not the Logical, argumenta-
tive, but the Intuitive; for the end of Under-
standing is not to prove, and find reasons, but
to know and believe. Of Logic, and its limits,
and uses and abuses, there were much to be
said and examined; one fact, however, which
chiefly concerns us here, has long been
familiar; that the man of logic and the man
of insight ; the Keasoner and the Discoverer, or
even Knower, are quite separable, — indeed, for
most part, quite sej)arate characters. In prac-
tical matters, for example, has it not become
almost proverbial that the man of logic cannot
prosper? This is he whom business people
call Systematic and Theorij;er and Word-
monger ; his vital intellectual force lies dormant
or extinct, his whole force is mechanical, con-
scious: of such a one it is foreseen that, when
once confronted with the infinite complexities
of the real world, his little compact theorem
of the world will be found wanting; that unless
he can throw it overboard, and become a new
creature, he will necessarily founder. Nay,
in mere Speculation itself the most ineflectual
of all characters, generally speaking, is your
dialectic man-at-arms; were he armed cap-a-
pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and perfect
master of logic-fence, how little does it avail
him! Consider the old Schoolmen, and their
pilgrimage towards Truth: the faithfullest
endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often
great natural vigour; onlynoprogress: nothing
but antic feats of one limb poised against the
other; there they balanced, somersetted, and
made postures ; at best gyrated swiftly, with
some pleasure, like Spinning Dervishes, and
ended where they began. So it is, so will it
always be, with all System-makers and builders
of logical card-castles; of which class a cer-
tain remnant must, in every age, as they do in
our own, survive and build. Logic is good,
but it is not the best. The Irrefragable Doc-
tor, with his chains of induction, his corollaries,
dilemmas, and other cunning logical diagrams
and apparatus, will cast you a beautiful horo-
scope, and speak reasonable things; neverthe-
less 3'our stolen jewel, which you wanted him to
find you, is not forthcoming. Often by some

S98

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

winged wofJ, winged as the thunderbolt is, of
a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see
the difficulty split asunder, and its secret laid
bare; while the Irrefragable, with all his logi-
cal tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and
finds it on all hands too hard for him.

Again in the difference between Oratory
and Rhetoric, as indeed everywhere in that
superiority of what is called the Natural over
the Artificial, we find a similar illustration. The
Orator persuades and carries all with him, he
knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove
that he ought to have persuaded and car-
ried all with him ; the one is in a state of
healthy unconsciousness, as if he "had no
svstcm;" the other, in virtue of regimen and
Oieteiic punctuality, feels at best that "his
system is in high order." So stands it, in
short, with all forms of Intellect, whether as
directed to the finding of Truth, or to the fit
imparting thereof; to Poetry, to Eloquence, to
depth of Insight, which is the basis of both
these; always the characteristic of right per-
formance is a certain spontaneity, an uncon-
sciousness ; "the healthy know not of their
health, but only the sick." So that the old pre-
cept of the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his
ambitious disciple, might contain in it a most
fundamental truth, applicable to us all, and in
much else than Literature: "Whenever you
have written any sentence that looks particu-
larly excellent, be sure to blot it out." In like
manner, under milder phraseology, and with
a meaning purposely much wider, a living
Thinker has taught us: "Of the Wrong we
are always conscious, of the Right never."

But if such is the law with regard to Specu-
lation and the Intellectual power of man, much
more is it with regard to Conduct, and the
power, manifested chiefly therein, which we
name Moral. "Let not thy left hand know
what thy right hand doeth :" whisper not to
thy own heart, How worthy is this action ; for
then it is already becoming worthless. The
good man is he who nwks continually in well-
doing; to whom well-doing is as his natural
existence, awakening no astonishment, re-
quiring no commentary; but there, like a
thing of course, and as if it could not but be
so. Self-contemplation, on the other hand, is
infallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it
not the sign of cure : an unhealthy Virtue is
one that consumes itself to leanness in repent-
ing and anxiety ; or, still worse, that inflates
itself into dropsical boastfulness and vain
glory: either way, it is a self-seeking; an un-
profitable looking behind us to measure the
'.yay we have made : whereas the sole concern
is to walk continually forward, and make more
way. If in any sphere of Man's Life, then in
the moral sphere, as the inmost and most vital
of all, it is good that there be wholeness ; that
tiiere be unconsciousness, which is the evi-
dence of this. Let the free, reasonable Will,
which dwells in us, as in our Holy of Holies,
be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divini'.y, as
is its right and its effort: the perfect obeiience
will be the silent one. Such perhaps were the
sense of that maxim, enunciating, as is usual,
but the half of a truth : " To say that we have a
clear conscience is to utter a solecism ; had we

never sinned, we should have had no con*
science." Were defeat unknown, neither
would victory be celebrated by songs of
triumph.

This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible
state of being; yet ever the goa towards which
our actual state of being strives; which it is
the more perfect the nearer it can approach.
Nor, in our actual world, where Labour must
often prove ineffectual, and thus in all senses
Light- alternate with Darkness, and the nature
of an ideal Morality be much modified, is the
case, thus far, materially diflerent. It is a
fact, which escapes no one, that, generally
speaking, whoso is acquainted with his worth
has but a little stock to cultivate acquaintance
with. Above all, the public acknowledgment
of such acquaintance, indicating that it has
reached quite an intimate footing, bodes ill,
Already, to the popular judgment, he who
talks much about Virtue in the abstract, begins
to be suspicious ; it is shrewdly guessed that
where there is great preaching, there will be
liitle almsgiving. Or again, on a wider scale,
we can remark that ages of Heroism are not
ages of Moral Philosophy ; Virtue, when it
can be philosophized of, has become aware
of itself, is sickly, and beginning to decline.
A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of
Chivalrous Valour shrinks togelher, and perks
itself up into shrivelled Points of Honour;
humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind
dwindles into punctilious Politeness, " avoid-
ing meats;" "paying tithe of mint and anise,
neglecting the weightier matters of the law."
Goodness, which was a rule to itself, must ap-
peal to Precept, and seek strength from Sanc-
tions; the Freewill no longer reigns unques-
tioned and by divine right, but like a mere
earthly sovereign, by expediency, by Rewards
and Punishments : or rather, let us say, the Free-
will, so far as may be, has abdicated and with-
drawn into the dark, and a spectral nightmare
of a Necessity usurps its throne; for now that
mysterious Self-impulse of the whole man,
heaven-inspired, and in all senses partaking
of the Infinite, being captiously questioned in
a finite dialect, and answering, as it needs
must, by silence, — is conceived as non-extant,
and only the outward Mechanism of it remains
acknowledged: of Volition, except as the
synonym of Desire, we hear nothing; of "Mo-
tives," without any Mover, more than enough.

So, too, when the generous Affections have
become well-nigh paralytic, we have the reign
of Sentimentality. The greatness, the profit-
ableness, at any rate the extremely ornamental
nature of high feeling, and the luxury of doing
good ; charity, love, self-forgetfulness, devoted-
ness, and all manner of godlike magnanimity
are everywhere insisted on, and pressingly in-
culcated in speech and writing, in prose and
verse; Socinian Preachers proclaim " Benevo-
lence" to all the four winds, and have Truth
engraved on their watchseals : unhappily with
little or no effect. Were the Limbs in right
Walking order, why so much demonstrating
of Motion 1 The barrenest of all mortals is
the Sentimentalist. Granting even that he
were sincere, and did not wilfully deceive us,
or without first deceiving himself, what good

CHARACTERISTICS.

fi99

is in him 1 Does he not He there as a perpetual
lesson of despair, and type of bedrid valetudina-
rian impotence ? His is emphatically a Virtue
that has become, through every fibre, conscious
of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were
made of glass and durst not touch or be
touched : in the shape of work, it can do
nothing; at the utmost, by incessant nursing
and candling, keep itself alive. As the last
stage of all, when Virtue, properly so called,
has ceased to be practised, and become extinct,
and a mere remembrance,, we have the era of
Sophists, descanting of its existence, proving
it, denying it, mechanically " accountmg" for
it ; — as dissectors and demonstrators cannot
operate till once the body be dead.

Thus is true Moral genius, like true intellec-
tual, which indeed is but a lower phasis thereof,
" ever a secret to itself." The healthy moral
nature loves Goodness, and without wonder
wholly lives in it; the unhealthy makes love to
it, and would fain get to live in it; or, finding
such courtship fruitless, turns rt)und, and not
without contempt, abandons it. These curious
relations of the Voluntary and Conscious to
the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the
small proportion which, in all departments of
our life, the former bears to the latter, — might
lead us into deep questions of Psychology and
Physiology: stich, however, belong not to our
present object. Enough, if the fact itself be-
come apparent, that Nature so meant it with
us; that in this wise we are made. We may
now say, that view man's individual Existence
under what aspect we will, under the highest
Spiritual, as under the merely Animal aspect,
everywhere the grand vital energy, while in its
sound state, is an unseen, unconscious one ;
or, in the words of our old Aphorism, " the
healthy know not of their health, but only the
sick."

To understand man, however, we must look
beyond the individual man and his actions or
interests, and view him in combination with
his fellows. It is in Society that man first
feels what he is ; first becomes what he can
be. In Society an altogether new set of spiri-
tual activities are evolved in him, and the old
immeasurably quickened and strengthened.
Society is the genial element wherein his nature
first lives and grows; the solitary man were
but a small portion of himself, and must con-
tinue for ever folded in, stunted, and only half
alive. " Already," says a deep Thinker, with
more meaning than will disclose itself at
once, "my opinion, my conviction, gains hifi-
niifbj in strength and sureness, the moment
a sjcond mind has adopted it." Such, even in
its simplest form, is association; so wondrous
the communion of soul with soul as directed
to the mere act of Knowing! In other higher
acts, the wonder is still more manifest; as in
that portion of our being which we name the
Moral: for properly, indeed, all communion is
of a moral son, whereof such intellectual com-
munion, (in the act of knowing,) is itself an
example. But with regard to Morals strictly
so called, it is in Society, we might almost say,
that Morality begins; here at least it lakes an
altogether new form, and on every side, as in
liviii g growth, expands itself. The Duties of

Man to himself, to what is Highest in himself,
make but the First Table of the Law: to the
First Table is now superadded a Second, v;ith
the duties of Man to his Neighbour; whereby
also the significance of the first now assumes
its true importance. Man has joined himself
with man; soul acts and reacts on soul; a
mystic miraculous unfathomable Union estab-
lishes itself; Life, in all its elements, has be-
come intensated, consecrated. The lightning-
spark of Thought, generated, or say rather
heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens
its express likeness in ant iher mind, in a
thousand other minds, and all blaze up together
in combined fire; reverberated from mind to
mind, fed also with fresh fuel in each, it ac-
quires incalculable new Light as Thought, in
calculable new Heat as converted into Action.
By and by, a common store of Thought can
accumulate, and be transmitted as an everlast-
ing possession : Literature, whether as pre-
served in the memory of Bards, in Runes and
Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of
written or printed paper, comes into existence,
and begins to play its wondrous part. Politics
are formed; the weak submitting to the strong;
with a willing loyalty, giving obedience that he
may receive guidance : or say rather, in honour
of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the
wise ; for so it is in all even the rudest com-
munities, man never yields himself wholly to
brute Force, hut always to moral Greatness;
thus the universal title of respect, from the
Oriental Scheik, from the Sarhcm of the red In-
dians, down to our English Sir, implies only
that he whom we mean to honour is our senior.
Last, as the crown and all-supporting keystone
of the fabric, Religion arises. The devout
meditation of the isolated man, which flitted
through his soul, like a transient tone of Love
and Awe from unknown lands, acquires cer-
tainty, continuance, when it is shared in by his
brother-men. " Where two or three are gathered
together" in the name of the Highest, then first
does the Highest, as it is written, "appear
among them to bless them ;" then first does an
Altar and act of united Worship open a way
from Earth to Heaven ; whereon, were it but a
simple Jacob's-ladder, the heavenly Messen-
gers will travel, with glad tidings, and unspeak-
able gifts for men. Such is Societt, the vital
articulation of many individuals into a new
collective individual : greatly the most impor-
tant of man's attainments on this earth; that in
which, and by virtue of which, all his other
attainments and attempts find their arena, and
have their value. Considered well. Society is
the standing wonder of our existence; a true
region of the Supernatural; as it were, a se-
cond all-embracing Life, wherein our first indi-
vidual Life becomes doubly and trebly alive,
and whatever of infinitude was in us bodies
itself forth, and becomes visible and active.

To figure society as endowed with Life is
scarcely a metaphor ; but rather the statement
of a fact by such imperfect methods as language
afl^ords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union,
Nature's highest work with man, wherein man's
volition plays an indispensable yet so subordi-
nate a part, and the small Mechanical grows so
mysteriously and indissolubly out of the infinite

soo

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Dynamical, like body out of Spirit, — is truly
enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears
the distinguishing character of life. In the
same style also, we can say that Society has
its periods of sickness and vigour, of youth,
manhood, decrepitude, dissolution, and new-
birth ; in one or other of which stages, we may,
in all times and all places where men inhabit,
discern it; and do ourselves in this time and
place, whether as co-operating or as contending,
as healthy members or as diseased ones, to our
joy and sorrow, form part of it. The question,
what is the actual condition of Society] has
in these days unhappily become important
enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that
question ; but for the majority of thinking men
a true answer to it, such is the state of matters,
appears almost as the one thing needful. Mean-
while as the true answer, that is to say, the
complete and fundamental answer and settle-
ment, often as it has been demanded, is no-
where forthcoming, and indeed by its nature is
impossible, any honest approximation towards
such is not without value. The feeblest light,
or even so much as a more precise recognition
of the darkness, which is the first step to attain-
ment of light, will be welcome.

This once understood, let it not seem idle if
we remark that here too our old Aphorism
holds ; that again in the Body Politic, as in the
animal body, the sign of right performance is
Unconsciousness. Such, indeed, is virtually the
meaning of that phrase "artificial state of so-
ciety," as contrasted with the natural state, and
indicating something so inferior to it. For, in
all vital things, men distinguish an Artificial
and a Natural ; founding on some dim percep-
tion or sentiment of the very truth we here
insist on ; the Artificial is the conscious, me-
chanical ; the Natural is the unconscious, dy-
namical. Thus as we have an artificial Poetry,
and prize only the natural ; so likewise we have
an artificial Morality, an artificial Wisdom, an
artificial Society. The artificial Society is
precisely one that knows its own structure, its
own internal functions ; not in watching, not in
knowing which, but in working outwardly to
the fulfilment of its aim, does the well-being of
a Society consist. Every Society, every Polity,
has a spiritual principle; is the imbodiment,
tentative, and more or less complete, of an
Idea: all its tendencies of endeavour, speciali-
ties of custom, its laws, politics, and whole pro-
cedure, (as the glance of some Montesquieu
across innumerable superficial entanglements
can partly decipher,) are prescribed by an Idea,
and flow naturally from it, as movements from
the living source of motion. This idea, be it
of devotion to a Man or class of Men, to a
Creed, to an institution, or even, as in more
ancient times, to a piece of land, is ever a true
Loyalty ; has in it something of a religious,
paramount, quite infinite character ; it is pro-
perly the Soul of the State, its Life : mysterious
as other forms of Life, and like these working
secretly, and in a depth beyond that of con-
sciousness.

Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages
of a Roman Republic that Treatises of the
Commonwealth are written : while the Decii
are rushing with devoted bodies on the ene-

mies of Rome, what need of preaching Patri-
otism ? The virtue of Patriotism has already
sunk from its pristine, all-transcendant condi-
tion, before it has received a name. So long as
the Commonwealth continues rightly athletic, it
cares not to dabble in anatomy. Why teach
Obedience to the sovereign ; why so much as ad-
mire it, or separately recognise it, while a divine
idea of Obedience perennially inspires all men ?
Loyalty, like Patriotism, of which it is a form,
was not praised until it had begun to decline;
the Prcux Chnudicrs first became rightly admir-
able, when "dying for their king" had ceased to
be a habit with chevaliers. Forif the mystic sig-
nificance of the State, let this be what it may,
dwells vitally in every heart, encircles every life
as with a second higher life, how should it stand
self-questioning 1 It must rush outward, and
express itself by works. Besides, if perfect,
it is there as by necessity, and does not ex-
cite inquiry : it is also by nature, infinite, has
no limits; therefore can be circumscribed by
no conditions and definitions ; cannot be rea-
soned of; except musically, or in the language
of Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of.
In those days. Society was what we name
healthy, sound at heart. Not, indeed, without
sufiering enough; not without perplexities,
difliculty on every side: for such is the ap-
pointment of man ; his highest and sole bless-
edness is, that he toil, and know what to toil at:
not in ease, but in united victorious labour,
which is at once evil and the victory over evil,
does his Freedom lie. Nay, often, looking no
deeper than such superficial perplexities of the
early Time, historians have taught us that it
was all one mass of contradiction and disease;
and in the antique RepuDlic, or feudal Mo-
narchy, have seen only the confused chaotic
quarry, not the robust labourer, or the stately
edifice he was building of it. If society, in such
ages, had its difficulty, it had also its strength ;
if sorrowful masses of rubbish so encumbered
it, the tough sinews to hurl them aside, with
indomitable heart, were not wanting. Society
went along without complamt; did not stop to
scrutinize itself, to say. How well I perform,
or, Alas, how ill ! Men did not yet feel them-
selves to be " the envy of surrounding nations ;"
and were enviable on that very account. So-
ciety was what we can call whole, in both
senses of the word. The individual man was
in himself a whole, or complete union ; and
could combine with his fellows as the living
member of a greater whole. For all men,
through their life, were animated by one great
Idea ; thus all eflf>rts pointed one way, t , ery-
where there was wholenes!'. Opinion and Action
had not yet become disunited ; but the former
could still produce the latter, or attempt to
produce it, as the stamp does its impression
while the wax is not hardened. Thought, and
the Voice of thought, were also a unison ; thus,
instead of Speculation we had Poetry; Lite-
rature, in its rude utterance, was as yet a
heroic Song, perhaps too a devotional Anthem.
Religion was everywhere; Philosophy lay hid
under it, peacefully included in it. Herein, as
in the life-centre of all, lay the true health and
oneness. Only at a later era must Religion
split itself into Philosophies ; and thereby the

CHARACTERISTICS.

301

vital union of thought being lost, disunion and
mutual collision in all provinces ol'Speech and
of Action more and more prevail. For if the
Poet, or Priest, or by whatever title the inspired
thinker may be named, is the sign of vigour
and wellbeing; so likewise is the Logician, or
uninspired thinker, the sign of disease, proba-
bly of decrepitude and decay. Thus, not to
mention other instances, one of them much
nearer hand, — so soon as Prophecy among the
Hebrews had ceased, then did the reign of Ar-
gumentation begin ; and the ancient Theocracy,
in its Sadduceeisms and Phariseeisms, and
vain jangling of sects and doctors, give token
that the suiil of it had fled, and that the body
itself by natural dissolution, "with the old
forces still at work, but working in reverse
order," was on the road to final disappearance.

We might pursue this question into innu-
merable other ramifications; and everywhere,
under new shapes, find the same truth, which
we here so imperfectly enunciate, disclosed :
that throughout the whole world of man, in all
manifestations and performances of his nature,
outward and inward, personal and social, the
Perfect, the Great is a mystery to itself, knows
not itself; whatsoever does know itself is al-
ready little, and more or less imperfect. Or other-
wise, we may say. Unconsciousness belongs to
pure unmixed Lit'e ; Consciousness to a diseased
mixture and conflict of Life and D^ath : Uncon-
sciousness is the sign of Creation; Conscious-
ness at best, that of Manufacture. So deep, in
this existence of ours, is the signiflcance of Mys-
tery. Well might the Ancients make silence a
god ; for it is the element of all godhood, infini-
tude, or transcendental greatness; at once the
source and the ocean wherein all such begins
and ends. In the same sense, too, have Poets
sung"Hymns totheNight;" asif'Night" were
nobler than day ; as if Day were but a small
motley-coloured veil spread transiently over
the infinite bosom of Night, and did but deform
and hide from us its purely ti-ansparent, eter-
nal deeps. So likewise have they spoken and
sung as if Silence were the grand epitome and
complete sum-tola! of all Harmony; and Death,
what mortals call Death, properly the begin-
ning of Life. Under such figures, since ex-
cept in figures there is no speaking of the Invi-
sible, have men endeavoured to express a great
Truth ; — a Truth, in our times, as nearly as is
perhaps possible, forgotten by the most; which
nevertheless continues for evertrue,foreverall-
importanl, and will one da}% under new figures,
be again brought home to the bosoms of all.

But, indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest
mind has still some intimation of the greatness
there is in Mystery. If Silence was made a
god of by the Ancients, he still continues a
government clerk among us Moderns. To all
Quacks, moreover, of what sort soever, the
eflect of Mystery is well known : here and there
some Cagliostro, even in latter days, turns it
to notable account: the Blockhead also, who
is ambitious, and has no talent, finds sotnetimes
in "the talent of silence," a kind of snccedane-
um. Or again, looking on the opposite side of
the matter, do we not see, in the common un-
dersiauling of mankind, a certain distrust, a

certain contempt of what is altogether self
conscious and mechanical 1 As nothing that is
wholly seen through has other than a trivial cha-
racter ; so any thing professing to be great, and
yet wholly to see through itself, is already
known to be false, and a failure. The evil re-
pute your " theoretical men" stand in, the ac-
knowledged inefficiency of " Paper Constitu-
tions," and all that class of objects, are in-
stances of this. Experience often repeated,
and perhaps a certain instinct of something far
deeper that lies under such experiences, has
taught men so much. They know, beforehand,
thai the loud is generally the insignificant, the
empty. Whatsoever can proclaim itself from
the house-tops may be fit for the hawker, and
for those multitudes that must needs buy of him;
but for any deeper use, might as well coniinue
unproclaimed. Observe, too, how the cv\ : rse
of the proposition holds ; how the insignificant,
the empty, is usually the loud; and, after the
manner of a drum, is loud even because of its
emptiness. The uses of some Patent Dinner
Calefactor can be bruited abroad over the
whole world in the course of the first winter;
those of the Printing Press are not so well seen
into for the first three centuries : the passing
of the Select Vestries Bill raises more noise
and hopeful expectancy among mankind, than
did the promulgation of the Christian Religion
Again, and again, we say, the great, the crea-
tive, and enduring, is ever a secret to itself ^
only the small, the barren, and transient, is
otherwise.

If we now, with a practical medical view,
examine, by this same test of Unconsciousness,
the Condition of our own Era, and of man's
Life therein, the diagnosis we arrive at is no-
wise of a flattering sort. The state of Society
in our days is of all possible states the least an
unconscious one: this is especially the Er.*^
when all manner of Inquiries into what was
once the unfelt, involuntary sphere of manV
existence, find their place, and as it were oc
cupy the whole dcunain of thought. M'^hat, fo''
example, is all this that we hear, for the las ■
generation or two, about the Improvement o'
the Age, the Spirit of the Age, Destruction of
Prejudice, Progress of the Species, and tht
March of Intellect, but an unhealthy state of
self-sentience, self-survey: the precursor and
prognostic of still worse health'? That Intel-
lect do march, if possible at double-quick time,
is very desirable ; nevertheless why should
she turn round at every stride, and cry: See
you what a stride I have taken ! Such a
marching of Intellect is distinctly of the spa-
vined kind ; what the Jockeys call " all action
and no go." Or at best, if we examine well, it
is the marching of that gouty Patient, whom
his Doctors had clapt on a metal floor artifi
cially heated to the searing point, so that he
was obliged to march, and marched with
a vengeance — nowhither. Intellect did not
awaken for the first time yesterday; but has
been under way from Noah's Flood down-
wards : greatly her best progress, moreover,
was in the old times, when she said nothing
about it. In those same dark " ages," Intellect
(metaphorically as we!l as literally) could in
vent glass, which now she has enough ado .r
2C

902

CARLYLl:'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

grind into spedarles. Intellect built not only
Churches, but a Church, /he Church, based on
this firm Earth, yet reaching; up, and leadingup,
as high as Heaven ; and now it is all she can do
to keep its doors bolted, that there be no tearing
of the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box.
She built a Senate-house likewise, glorious in
its kind; and now it costs her a wellnigh mortal
effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and get the
roof made rain-tight.

But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most
other things, we are now passing from that
first or boastful stage of Self-sentience into
the second or painful one: out of these often
asseverated declarations that " our system is
in high order," we come now, by natural se-
quence, to the melancholy conviction that it is
altosether the reverse. Thus, for instance, in
the matter of Government, the period of the
"Invaluable Constitution" must be followed by
a Reform Bill; to laudatory De Lolmes suc-
ceed objurgatory Benthams. At any rate,
what Treatises on the Social Contract, on the
Elective Franchise, the Rights of Man, the
Rights of Property, Codifications, Institutions,
Constitutions, have we not, for long years,
groaned under! Or a<rain, with a wider sur-
vey, consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts
on Man, Inquiries concerning Man; not to
mention Evidences of the Christian Faith,
Theories of Poetry, Consideration on the Ori-
gin of Evil, which during the last century
have accumulated on us to a frightful extent.
Never since the beginning of Time was there,
that we hear or read of, so intensely self-con-
scious a Society. Our whole relations to the
Universe and to our fellow man have become
an Inquiry, a Doubt: nothing will go on of its
own accord, and do its functions quietly ; but
all things must be probed into, the whole work-
ing of man's world be anatomically studied.
Alas, anatomically studied, that it may be me-
dically aided ! Till at length, indeed, we have
come to such a pass, that except in this same
Medicine, with its artifices and appliances,
few can so much as imagine any strength or
hope to remain for us. The whole Life of
Society must now be carried on by drugs :
doctor after doctor appears with his nostrum,
of Co-operative Societies, Universal Suffrage,
Cottage-nnd-Cow systems, Repression of Popu-
lation, Vote by Ballot. To such height has
the dyspepsia of Society reached ; as indeed
the constant grinding internal pain, or from
time to time the mad spasmodic throes, of all
Socit'ty do otherwise too mournfully indicate.

Far be it from us to attribute, as some un-
wise persons do, the disease itself to this un-
happy sensation that there is a disease! The
Encyclopedists did not produce the troubles of
France; but the troubles of France produced
the Encyclopedists, and much else. The Self-
consciousness is the symptom merely; nay, it
."s also the attempt towards cure. We record
the fact, without special censure ; not wonder-
ing that Society should feel itself, and in all
ways complain of aches and twinges, for it
has suffered enough. Napoleon was but a
Job's comforter, when he told his wounded
Staff-ofticer, twice unhorsed by cannon balls,

and with half his limbs blown to pieces : Vout
vous eroutcz trop !

On the outward, or as it were Physical diseases
of Society, it were beside our purpose to insist
here. These are diseases which he who runs
may read ; and sorrow over, with or without
hope. Wealth has accumulated itself into
masses; and Poverty, also in accumulatioa
enough, lies impassably separated from it; op-
posed, uncommunicating, like forces in posi-
tive and negative poles. The gods of this
lower world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less
happy than Epicurus' gods, but as indolent, as
impotent; while the boundless living chaos of
Ignorance and Hunger welters terrific, in its
dark fury, under their feet. How much among
us might be likened to a whited sepulchre;
outwardly all Pomp and Strength ; but in-
wardly full of horror and despair and dead
men's bones ! Iron highways, with their wains
fire-winged, are uniting all ends of the firm
Land; quays and moles, with their innumera-
ble stately fleets, tame the Ocean into our pli-
ant bearer of burdens ; Labour's thousand arms,
of sinew and of metal, all-conquering, every-
where, from the tops of the mountain down to
the depths of the mine and the caverns of the
sea, ply unweariedly for the service of man :
Yet man remains unserved. He has subdued
this Planet, his habitation and inheritance, yet
reaps no profit from the victory. Sad to look
upon, in the highest stage of civilfzation, nine-
tenths of mankind must struggle in the lowest
battle of savage or even animal man, the bat-
tle against Famine. Countries are rich, pros-
perous in all manner of increase, beyond ex-
ample: but the Men of those countries are
poor, needier than ever of all sustenance out-
ward and inward; of Belief, of Knowledge,
of Money, of Food. The rule. Sic vos non vobis,
never altogether to be got rid of in men's In-
dustry, now presses with such incubus weight,
that Industry must shake it off, or utterly be
strangled under it ; and, alas, can as yet but
gasp and rave, and aimlessly struggle, like one
in the final deliration. Thus Change, or the
inevitable approach of Change, is manifest
everywhere. In one Country we have seen
lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelope all
things ; Government succeed Government, like
the phantasms of a dying brain : in another
Country, we can ev^en now see, in maddest al-
ternation, the Peasant governed by such guid-
ance as this: To labour earnestly one month
in raising wheat, and the next month labour
earnestly in burning it. So that Society, were
it not by nature immortal, and its death ever a
new-birth, might appear, as it does in the eyes
of some, to be sick to dissolution, and even
now writhing in its last agony. Sick enough
we must admit it to be, with disease enough, a
whole nosology of diseases ; wherein he per-
haps is happiest that is not called to prescribe
as physician; — wherein, hovevcr, one small
piece of policy, that of summoning the Wisest
in the Commonwealth, by the sole method yet
known or thought of, to come together and with
their whole soul consult for it, might, but lor
late tedious experiences, have seemed unques-
tionable enough.

CHARACTERISTICS.

303

But leaving this, let us rather look within,
into the Spiritual condition of Society, and see
what aspects and prospects offer themselves
there. For, after all, it is there properly that
the secret and origin of the whole is to be
Bought: the Physical derangements of Society
are but the image and impress of ils Spiritual ;
while the heart continues sound, all other
sickness is superficial, and temporary. False
Action is the fruit of false Speculation; let the
spirit of Society be free and strong, that is to
say, let true Principles inspire the members
of Society, then neither can disorders accumu-
late in its Practice ; each disorder will be
promptly, faithfully inquired into, and reme-
died as it arises. But alas, with us the Spiri-
tual condition of Society is no less sickly than
the Physical. Examine man's internal world,
in any of its social relations and performances,
here too all seems diseased self-consciousness,
collision, and mutually-destructive struggle.
Nothing acts from within outwards in undi-
vided healthy force; every thing lies impotent,
lamed, its force turned inwards, and painfully
"listens to itself"

To begin with our highest Spiritual function,
with Religion, we might ask, whither has Reli-
gion now fled? Of Churches and their estab-
lishments we here say nothing; nor of the
unhappy domains of Unbelief, and how innu-
merable men, blinded in their minds, must
" live without God in the world ;" but, taking the
fairest side of the matter, we ask. What is the
nature of that same Religion, which still lin-
gers ill the hearts of the few who are called, and
call themselves, specially the Religious? Is it
a healthy Religion, vital, unconscious of itself;
that shines forth spontaneously in doing of the
Work, or even in preaching of the Word!
Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyr Con-
duct, and inspired and soul-inspiring Elo-
quence, whereby Religion itself were brought
home to our living bosoms, to live and reign
there, we have " Discourses on the Evidences,"
endeavouring, with smallest result, to make it
probable that such a thing as Religion exists.
The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do not
preach a Gospel, but keep describing how it
should and might be preached; to awaken the
sacred fire of Faith, as by a sacred contagion,
is not their endeavour ; but, at most, to describe
how Faith shows and acts, and scientifically
distinguish true Faith from false. Religion,
'ilce all else, is conscious of itself, listens to
Itself; it becomes less and less creative, vital;
more and more mechanical. Considered as a
whole, the Christian Religion, of late ages has
been continually dissipating itself into Meta-
physics; and threatens now to disappear, as
some rivers do, in deserts of barren sand.

Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide-
spread maladies, why speak 1 Literature is
but a branch of Religion, and always partici-
pates in its character. However, in our time,
it is the on\y branch that still shows any green-
ness ; and, as some think, must one day become
the main stem. Now, apart from the subter-
ranean and tartarean regions of Literature; —
leaving out of view the frightful, scandalous
statistics of Puffing, the mystery of Slander,
Falsehood, Hatred, and other convulsion-work

of rabid Imbecilily, and all that has rendered
Literature on that side a perfect "Babylon the
mother of Abominations," in very deed, making
the world "drunk" with the wine of heriniquity;
— forgetting all this, let us look only to the re-
gions of the upper air; to such Literature as
can be said to have some attempt towards
truth in it, some tone of music, and if it be not
poetical, to hold of the poetical. Among other
characteristics, is not this manifest enough:
that it knows itself? Spontaneous devotedness
to the object, being wholly possessed by the
object, what we can call Inspiration, has well-
nigh ceased to appear m Literature. Which
melodious SingJr forgets that he is singing
melodiously? We have not the love of great-
ness, but the love of the love of greatness.
Hence infinite AfTectations, Distractions; in
every case inevitable Error. Consider, for one
example, this peculiarity of Modern Literature,
the sin that has been named View-hunting. In
our elder writers, there are no paintings of
scenery for its own sake ; no euphuistic gal-
lantries with Nature, but a constant heart-love
for her, a constant dwelling in communion
with her. View-hunting, with so much else
that is of kin to it, first came decisively into
action through the Sorrows of Werler : which
wonderful Performance, indeed, may in many
senses be regarded as the progenitor of all that
has since become popular in Literature;
whereof, in so far as concerns spirit a id ten-
dency, it still ofl^rs the most instructive image ;
for nowhere, except in its own country, above
all in the mind of its illustrious Author, has it
yet fallen wholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till
that late epoch, did any worshipper of Nature
become entirely aware that he was worship-
ping, much to his own credit, and thiiik of
saying to himself: Come let us make a de-
scription ! Intolerable enough: when every
puny whipster draws out his pencil, and insists
on painting you a scene; so that the in;,tant
you discern such a thing as "wavy outline,''
" mirror of the lake," " stern headland," or the
like, in any Book, you must timorously hasten
on ; and scarcely the Author of Waverley !iim-
self can tempt you not to skip.

Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious slate
of Literature disclosed in this one fact, which
lies so near us here, the prv.-valence of Review-
ing! Sterne's wish for a reader " that would
give up the reins of his imagination into his
author's hands and be pleased he knew not
why, and cared not wherefore," might lead him
a long journey now. Indeed, for our best class
of readers, the chief pleasure, a very stinted
one', is this same knowing of the Why; which
many a Karnes and Bossu has been, inetlec-
tually enough, endeavouring to teach us: till
at last these also have laid down their trade ;
and now your Reviewer is a mere lasler, who
tastes, and says, by the evidence of such palate,
such tongue, as he has got — It is good ; it is
bad. Was it thus that the French carried out
certain inferior creatures on their Algerine
Expedition, to tnste the wells for them, and try
whether they were poisoned ? Far be it from
us Ic disparagt our own craft, whereby vvo
have our livin;;;' Only we must note these
things, thai Reviewing spreads with strange

304

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

«igour; that such a man as Byron reckons the
Reviewer and the Poet equal; that at the last
Leipsic Fair, there was advertised a Review
of Reviews. By and by it will be found that
'•'all Literature has become one boundless self-
devouring Review; and as in London routs,
we have to do nothing, but only to see others do
nothing." — Thus does Literature also, like a
sick thing, superabundantly "listen to itself."

No less is this unhealthy symptom manifest,
if we cast a glance on our Philosophy, on the
character of our speculative Thinking. Nay,
already, as above hinted, the mere existence
and necessity of a Philosophy is an evil. Man
is sent hither not to question, but to work:
"the end of man," it was long ago written, "is
an Action, not a Thought." In the perfect
state, all Thought were but the Picture and in-
spiring Symbol of Action ; Philosophy, except
as Poetry and Religion, had no being. And
yet how, in this imperfect state, can it be
avoided, can it be dispensed with"? Man
stands as in the centre of Nature; his fraction
of Time encircled by Eternity, his handbreadth
of Space encircled by Infinitude: how shall
he forbear asking himself. What am I; and
Whence; and Whither? How too, except in
slight partial hints, in kind asseverations and
assurances, such as a mother quiets her fret-
fully inquisitive child with, shall he get answer
to such inquiries ■?

The disease of Metaphysics, accordingly, is
a perennial one. In all ages, those questions
of Death and Immortality, Origin of Evil, Free-
dom and Necessity, must, under new forms,
anew make their appearance; ever, from time
to time, must the attempt to shape for our-
selves some Theorem of the Universe be
repeated. And ever unsuccessfullv : for what
Theorem of the Infinite can the Finite render
complete 1 We, the whole species of Man-
kind, and our whole existence and history, are
but a lloating speck in the illimitable ocean of
the All; yet in that ocean; indissoluble portion
thereof; partaking of its infinite tendencies;
borne this way and that by its deep-swelling
tides, and grand ocean currents ; — of which
what faintest chance is there that we should
ever exhaust the significance, ascertain the
goings and comings? A region of Doubt,
therefore, hovers for ever in the background;
in Action alone can we have certainty. Na)\
properly. Doubt is the indispensable, inexhaus-
tible material whereon Action works, which
Action has to fashion into Certainty and Re-
ality; only on a canvas of Darkness, such is
man's way of being, could the many-coloured
picture of our Life paint itself and shine.

Thus if our oldest system of Metaphysics is
as old as the Took of Genesis, our latest is that
of Mr. Thomas Hope, published only within
the current year. It is a chronic malady that
of Metaphysics, as we said, and perpetually
recurs on us. At the utmost, there is a better
and a w^orse in it; a stage of convalescence,
and a stage of relapse with new sickness:
these for ever succeed each other, as is the
nature of all Life-movements here below. The
first, or convalescent stage, we might also
name of that Dogmatical or Constructive Meta-
' physics: when the mind constructively en-

deavours to scheme out, and assert for itself
an actual Theorem of the Universe, and there-
with for a time rests satisfied. The second or
sick stage might be called that of Skeptical
or Inquisitory Metaphysics; when the mind
having widened its sphere of vision, the exist-
ing Theorem of the Universe no longer answers
the phenomena, no longer yields contentment;
but must be torn in pieces, and certainty anew
sought for in the endless realms of Denial.
All Theologies and sacred Cosmogonies be-
long, in some measure, to the first class: in
all Pyrrhonism from Pyrrho down to Hume
and the innumerable disciples of Hume, we
have instances enough of the second. In the
former, so far as it affords satisfaction, a tem-
porary anodyne to Doubt, an arena for whole-
some action, there may be much good; indeed
in this case, it holds rather of Poetry than
of Metaphysics, might be called Inspiration
rather than Speculation. The latter is Meta-
physics proper; a pure, unmixed, though from
time to time a necessary evil.

For truly, if we look into it, there is no more
fruitless endeavour than this same, which the
Metaphysician proper toils in : to educe Con-
viction out of Negation. How, by merely
testing and rejecting what is not, shall we ever
attain knowledge of what is] Metaphysical
Speculation, as it begins in No or Nothingness,
so it must needs end in Nothingness ; circu-
lates and must circulate in endless vortices ;
creating, swallowing — itself. Our being is
made up of Light and Darkness, the Light
resting on the DarVrness, and balancing it;'
everywhere there is Dualism, Equipoise; a
pei'petual Contradiction dwells in us : " where
shall I place myself to escape from my own
shadow?" Consider it well. Metaphysics is
th« attempt of the mind to rise above the
mind; to environ, and shut in, or as we say,
(ompreheud the mind. Hopeless struggle, for
the wisest, as for the foolishest ! What strength
of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable the
stoutest athlete to fold his own body in his
arms, and, by lifting, lift up himself? The
Irish Saint swam the Channel "carrying his
head in his teeth:" but the feat has never been
imitated.

That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the
proper, or skeptical Inquisitory sense ; that
there was a necessity for its being such an
age, we regard as our indubitable misfortune.
From many causes, the arena of free Activity
has long been narrowing, that of skeptical In-
quiry becoming more and more universal, more
and more perplexing. The Thought conducts
not to the Deed; but in boundless cliaos, self-
devouring, engenders monstrosities, fantasms,
fire-breathing chimeras. Profitable Specula-
tion were this: What is to be done; and How
is it to be done? But with us not so much as
the What can be got sight of. For some
generations, all Philosophy has been a painful,
captious, hostile question towards every thing in
the Heaven above, in the Earth beneath: Why
art thou there? Till at length it has come to
pass that the worth and authenticity of all things
seems dubitable or deniable: our best effort
must be unproductively spent, not in working,
but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and

CHARACTERISTICS.

305

so much as whether we are to work at all.
Doubt, which, aS was said, ever hangs in the
back-ground of our world, has now become
our middle-ground and foreground; whereon,
for the time, no fair Life-picture can be painted,
but only the dark air-canvas itself flow round
us, bewildering and benighting.

Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is
actually Here; not to ask questions, but to do
work: in this time, as in all times, it must be
the heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Ac-
tion lie dormant, and only that of skeptical In-
quiry exert itself. Accordingly, whoever looks
abroad upon the world, comparing the Past
with the Present, may find that the practical
condition of man, in these days, is one of the
saddest; burdened with miseries which are in
a considerable degree peculiar. In no time
was man's life what he calls a happy one ; in
no time can it be so. A perpetual dream there
has been of Paradises, and some luxurious
Lubberland, where the brooks should run wine,
and the trees bend with ready-baked viands;
but it was a dream merely, an impossible
dream. Suffering, Contradiction, Error, have
their quite perennial, and even indispensable,
abode in this Earth. Is -not Labour the in-
heritance of man ] And what Labour for the
present is joyous, and not grievous ? Labour,
Effort, is the very interruption of that Ease,
which man foolishly enough fancies to be his
Happiness: and yet without Labour there
were no Ease, no Rest, so much as conceiva-
ble. Thus Evil, what we call Evil, must ever
exist while man exists: Evil, in the widest
sense we can give it, is precisely the dark,
disordered material out of which man's Free-
will has to create an edifice of order, and
Good. Ever must Pain urge us to Labour;
and only in free Effort can any blessedness be
imagined for us.

But if man has, in all ages, had enough to
encounter, there has, in most civilized ages,
been an inward force vouchsafed him, whereby
the pressure of things outward might be with-
stood. Obstruction abounded ; but Faith also
was not wanting. It is by Faith that man re-
moves mountains: while he had Faith, his
limbs might be wearied with toiling, his back
galled with bearing; but the heart within him
was peaceable and resolved. In the thickest
gloom there burnt a lamp to guide him. If he
struggled and suffered, he felt, that it even
siiould be so; knew for what he was suffering
and struggling. Faith gave him an inward
Willingness; a world of Strength wherewith
to front a world of Diflicvilty. The true
wretchedness lies here : that the Difficulty re-
main and the Strength be lost; that Pain can-
not relieve ilself in free Effort; that we have
the Labour, and want the Willingness. Faith
strengthens us, enlightens us, forall endeavours
and endurances ; with Faith we can do all, and
dare all, and life itself has a thousand times
been joyfully given away. But the sum of
man's misery is even this, that he feel himself
crushed under the Juggernaut wheels and
know that Juggernaut is no divinity, but a
dead mechanical idol.

Now this is specially the misery which has
fallen on man in our Era. Belief, Faith has
39

wellnigh vanished from the world. The youth
on awakening in this wondrous Universe, no
longer finds a competent theory of its wonders.
Time was when, if he asked himself: What is
man ; what are the duties of man ] the answer
stood ready written for him. But now the
ancient " ground-plan of the AH" belies itself
when brought into contact with reality ; Mother
Church has, to the most, become a superan-
nuated Siepmother, whose lessons go disre-.
garded; or are spurned at, and scornfully
gainsayed. For young Valour and thirst of Ac-
tion no ideal Chivalry invites to heroism, pre-
scribes what is heroic: the old ideal of Man-
hood has grown obsolete, and the new is still
invisible to us, and we grope after it in dark-
ness, one clutching this phantom, another that ;
Werterism, Byronism, even Brummelism,
each has its day. For contemplation and love
of Wisdom no Cloister now opens its religious
shades; the Thinker must, in all senses, wandr.r
homeless, too often aimless, looking up to a
Heaven which is dead for him, round to an
Earth which is deaf. Action, in those old
days, was easy, was voluntary, for the divine
worth of human things lay acknowledged;
Speculation was wholesome, for it ranged
itself as the handmaid of Action; what could
not so range itself died out by its natural death,
by neglect. Loyalty still hallowed obedience,
and made rule noble; there was still some-
thing to be loyal to; the Godlike stood em-
bodied under many a symbol in men's interests
and business; the Finite shadowed forth the
Infinite; Eternity looked through Time. The
Life of man was encompassed and overcano-
pied by a glory of Heaven, even as his dwell-
ing-place by the azure vault.

How changed in these new dav < ! Truly may
it be said, the Divinity has wiMidrawn from
the Earth ; or veils himself in that wide-wast-
ing Whirlwind of a departing Era, wherein the
fewest can discern his goings. Not Godhead,
but an iron, ignoble circle of Necessity em-
braces all things; binds the youth of these
times into a sluggish thrall, or else exasperates
him into a rebel. Heroic Acticjn is paralyzed;
for what worth now remains unquestionable
with him] At the fervid period when his
whole nature cries aloud for Action, there is
nothing sacred under whose banner he can act;
the course and kind and conditions of free
Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt
storms in on him through every avenue: in-
quiries of the deepest, painfuUest sort must be
engaged with; and the invincible energy of
young years waste itself in skeptical, suicidal
cavillings ; in passionate " questionings of
Destiny," whereto no answer will be returned.'

For men, in whom the old perennial prin-
ciple of Hunger (be it Hunger of the poor
Day-drudge who stills it with eighteenpence a
da}'', or of the ambitious Place-hunter who can
nowise still it with so little) suffices to fill up
existence, the case is bad; but not the worst.
These men have an aim, such as it is; and
can steer towards it, with chagrin enough truly;
yet, as their hands are kept full, without des
peration. Unhappierare they to whom a higher
instinct has been given; who struggle to be
persons, not machine; ; to whom the Univers*?
2c2

306

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

is not a warehouse, or at best fancy-bazaar,
but a mystic temple and hall of doom. For
such men there lie properly two courses open.
The lower, yet still an estimable class, take
up with worn-out Symbols of the Godlike ;
keep trimming and trucking between these
and Hypocrisy, purblindly enough, miserably
enough. A numerous intermediate class end
in Denial ; and form a theory that there is no
theory; that nothing is certain in the world,
except this fact of Pleasure being pleasant ;
so they try to realize what trifling modicum
cf Pleasure they can come at, and to live con-
tented therewith, winking hard. Of these we
speak not here ; but only of the second nobler
class, who also have dared to say No, and
cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No
they dwell as in a Golgotha, where life enters
not, where peace is not appointed them. Hard,
for most part, is the fate of such men ; the
harder the nobler they are. In dim forecast-
ings, wrestles within them the " Divine Idea
of the World," yet will nowhere visibly reveal
itself. They have to realize a Worship for
themselves, or live unworshipping. The God-
like has vanished from the world; and they,
by the strong cry of their soul's agony, like
true wonder-workers, must again evoke its
presence. This miracle is their appointed task;
which they must accomplish, or die wretched-
ly : this miracle has been accomplished by
such : but not in our land ; our land yet knows
not of it. Behold a Byron, in melodious tones,
"cursing his day:" he mistakes earthborn
passionate Desire for heaven-inspired Free-
will; without heavenly loadstar, rushes madly
into the dance of meteoric lights that hover on
the mad Mahlstrom ; and goes down among
its eddies. Hear a Shelley filling the earth wiih
inarticulate wail; like the infinite, inarticulate
grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A
noble Friedrich Schlegel, stupified in that fear-
ful loneliness, as of a silenced battle-field, flies
back to Catholicism; as a child might to its
slain mother's bosom, and cling there. In lower
regions, how many a poor Hazlilt must wander
on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest on
burning deserts; passionately dig wells, and
draw up only the dry quicksand; believe that
he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among
endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as
with spectre-hosts ; and die and make no
sign !

To the better order of such minds any mad
joy of Denial has long since ceased : the pro-
blem is not now to deny, but to ascertain and
perform. Once in destroying the False, there
was a certain inspiration; but now the genius
of Destruction has done its work, there is now
nothing more to destroy. The doom of the Old
has long been pronounced, and irrevocable;
the Old has passed away: but, alas, the New
appears not in its stead; the Time is still in
pangs of travail with the New. Man has walked
by the light of conflagrations, and amid the
sound of falling cities; and now there is dark-
ness, and long watching till it be morning.
The voice even of the faithful can but exclaim:
"As yet struggles the twelfth hour of the
Night: birds of darkness are on the wing,
spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living

dream. — Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt cause
the day to dawn !"*

Such being the condition, temporal and
spiritual, of the world at our Epoch, can we
wonder that the world "listens to itself," and
struggles and writhes, everywhere externally
and internally, like a thing in pain 7 Nay, is
not even this unhealthy action of the world's
Organization, if the symptom of universal dis-
ease, yet also the symptom and sole means of
restoration and curel The effort of Nature,
exerting her medicative force to cast out
foreign impediments, and once more become
One, become whole 1 In Practice, still more
in Opinion, which is the precursor and proto-
type of Practice, there must needs be collision,
convulsion; much has to be ground away.
Thought must needs be Doubt and Inquiry, be-
fore it can again be Affirmation and Sacred
Precept. Innumerable " Philosophies of Man,"
contending in boundless hubbub, must an-
nihilate each other, before an inspired Poesy
and Faith for Man can fashion itself together.

From this stunning hubbub, a true Babylon-
ish confusion of tongues, we have here selected
two voices ; less as objects of praise or con-
demnation, than as signs how far the confusion
has reached, what prospect there is of its
abating. Friedrich Schlegel's Lcrhircs, de-
livered at Dresden, and Mr. Hope's Essmj,
published in London, are the latest utterances
of European Speculation: far asunder in ex-
ternal place, they stand at a still wider dis-
tance in inward purport; are, indeed, so op-
posite and yet so cognate that they may, in
many senses, represent the two Extremes of
our whole modern system of Thought; and be
said to include between them all the Meta-
physical Philosophies, so often alluded to here,
which, of late times, from France, Germany,
England, have agitated and almost over-
whelmed us. Both in regard to matter and to
form, the relation of these two Works is signifi-
cant enough.

Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let
us remark, not without emotion, one quite ex-
traneous point of agreement; the fact that the
Writers of both have departed from this world;
they have now finished their search, and had
all doubts resolved: while we listen to the
voice, the tongue that uttered it has gone £i.«nt
for ever. But the fundamental, all-pervading
similarity lies in this circumstance, well wor-
thy of being noted, that both these Philoso-
phies are of the Dogm.atic, or Constructive
sort: each in its way is a kind of Genesis; an
endeavour to bring the Phenomena of man's
Universe once more under some theoretic
Scheme; in both there is a decided principle
of unity; they strive after a result which shall
be positive; their aim is not to question, but
to establish. This, especially if we consider
with what comprehensive concentrated force
it is here exhibited, forms a new feature in
such works.

Under all other aspects, there is the most
irreconcilable opposition ; a staring contrarie-
ty, such as might provoke contrasts were there

♦ Jean Paul's Hespeius. Vorrede.

CHARACTERISTICS.

807

far fewer points of comparison. If Schlegel's
Work is the apotheosis of Spiritualism ; Hope's
again is the apotheosis of Materialism : in the
one, all matter is evaporated into a Phenome-
non, and terrestrial Life itself, with its whole
doings and showings, held out as a Disturbance
(Zcnilttung) produced by the Zatgcist, (Spirit
of Time ;) in the other, Matter is distilled and
sublimated into some semblance of Divinity:
the one regards Space and Time as mere forms
of man's mind, and without external existence
or reality; the other supposes Space andTime
to be "incessantly created," and rayed in
upon us like a sort of "gravitation." Such is
their difference in respect of purport; no less
striking is it in respect of manner, talent, suc-
cess, and all outward characteristics. Thus,
if in Schlegel we have to admire the power of
Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it might
almost be said, at the want of an articulate
Language. To Schlegel his Philosophic
Speech is obedient, dexterous, exact, like a
promptly-ministering genius; his names are
so clear, so precise and vivid, that they almost
(sometimes altogether) become things for him :
with Hope there is no Philosophical Speech ;
but a painful, confused stammering, and strug-
gling after such; or the tongue, as in dotish
forgetfulness, maunders low, longwinded, and
speaks not the word intended, but another ; so
that here the scarcely intelligible, in these end-
less convolutions, becomes the whully unreada-
ble ; and often we could ask, as that mad pupil
did of his tutor in Philosophy, " But whether
is Virtue a fluid, then, or a gas?" If the fact,
that Schlegel, in the city of Dresden, could
find audience for such high discourse, may ex-
cite our envy ; this other fact, that a person of
strong powers, skilled in English Thought and
master of its Dialect, could write the Origin
and Prospects of Man, may painfully remind us
of the reproach, "that England has now no
language for Meditation ; that England, the
mosi Calculative, is the least Meditative, of all
civilized countries."

It is not our purpose to offer any criticism
of Schlegel's Book; in such limits as were
possible here, we should despair of communi-
cating even the faintest image of its signifi-
cance. To the mass of readers, indeed, both
among the Germans themselves, and still more
elsewhere, it nowise addresses itself, and may
lie for ever sealed. We point it out as a re-
markable document of the Time and of the
Man; can recommend it, moreover, to all
earnest Thinkers, as a work deserving their
best regard: a work full of deep meditation,
wherein the infinite mystery of Life, if not re-
presented, is decisively recognised. Of Schle-
gel himself, and his character, and spiritual
history, we can profess no thorough or final
understanding; yet enough to make us view
him with admiration and pity, nowise with
harsh contemptuous censure; and must say,
with clearest persuasion, that the outcry of
his being "a renegade," and so forth, is but
like other such outcries, a judgment where
there was neither jury, nor evidence, nor
judge. The candid reader, in this Book itself,
to say nothing of all the rest, will find traces
of a high, far-seeing, earnest spirit, to whom

" Austrian Pensions," and the Kaiser's crown,
and Austria altogether, were but a light mattec
to the finding and vitally appropriating of
Truth. Let us respect the sacred mystery of
a Person ; rush not irreverently into man's
Holy of Holies ! Were the lost little one, as
we said already, found "sucking its dead mo-
ther, on the field of carnage," could it be other
than a spectacle for tears 1 A solemn mourn-
ful feeling comes over us when we see this last
Work of Friedrich Schlegel, the unwearied
seeker, end abruptly in the middle ; and, as if
he had not yet found, as if emblematically of
much, end with an " Aber — ," with a " But — !"
This was the last word that came from the
Pen of Friedrich Schlegel: about eleven at
night he wrote it down, and there paused
sick; at one in the morning. Time for him
had merged itself in Eternity; he was, as we
say, no more.

Still less can v/e attempt any criticism of
Mr. Hope's new Book of Genesis. Indeed,
under any circumstances, criticism of it were
now impossible. Such an utterance could
only be responded to in peals of laughter; and
laughter sounds hollow and hideous through
the vaults of the dead. Of this monstrous
Anomaly, where all sciences are heaped and
huddled together, and the principles ot^ all are,
with a childlike innocence, plied hither and
thither, or wholly abolished in case of need;
where the First Cause is figured as a huge
Circle, with nothing to do but radiate " gravi-
tation" towards its centre ; and so construct a
Universe, wherein all, from the lowest cu-
cumber with its coolness, up to the highest
seraph with his love, were but, "gravitation,"
director reflex, "in more or less central globes,"
— what can we say, except, with sirrow and
shame, that it could have originated nowhere
save in England? It is a general agglomerate
of all facts, notions, whims, and observations,
as they lie in the brain of an English gentle-
man; as an English gentleman, of unusual
thinking power, is led to fashion them, in his
schools and in his world : all these thrown
into the crucible, and if not fused, yet soldered
or conglutinated with boundless patience ; and
now tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amor-
phous, unspeakable, a world's wonder. Most
melancholy must we name the whole business ;
full of long-continued thought, earnestness,
loftiness of mind ; not without glances into
the Deepest, a constant fearless endeavour af-
ter truth; and with all this nothing accom-
plished, but the perhaps absurdest BdoIc
written in our century by a thinking man. A
shameful Abortion; which, however, need not
now be smothered or mangled, for it is already
dead; only, in our love and sorrowing reve-
rence for the writer of Jnasiasiuit, and the he-
roic seeker of Light, though not bringer thereof,
let it be buried and forgotten.

For ourselves, the loud discord which jars
in these two Works, in innumerable works of
the like import,and generally in all the Thought
and Action of this period, does not any longer
utterly confuse us. Unhappy who, in such a
time, felt not, at all conjunctures, ineradicably
in his heart the knowledge that a God made
this Universe, and a Demon not! And shall

308

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Evil always prosper, then 1 Out of all Evil
comes Good ; and no Good that is possible but
shall one day be real. Deep and sad as is our
feeling that we stand yet in the bodeful Night;
equally deep, indestructible is our assurance
that the Morning also will not fail. Nay, al-
ready, as we look round, streaks of a day-
spring are in the east: it is dawning; when
the time shall be fulfilled, it will be day. The
progress of man towards higher and no-
bler Developments of whatever is highest and
noblest in him, lies not only prophesied to
Faith, but now written to the eye of Observa-
tion, so that he who runs may read.

One great step of progress, for example, we
should say, in aciual circumstances, was this
same* tV.e clear ascertainment that we are in
progress. About the grand Course of Provi-
dence, and his final Purposes with us, we can
know nothing, or almost nothing: man begins
in darkness, ends in darkness; mystery is
everywhere around us and in us, under our
feet, among our hands. Nevertheless so much
has become evident to every one, that this
wondrous Mankind is advancing somewhither;
that at least all human things are, have been,
and forever will be, in Movement and Change;
— as, indeed, for beings that exist in Time, by
virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might
have been long since understood. In some
provinces, it is true, as in Experimental Sci-
ence, this discovery is an old one ; but in most
others it belongs wholly to these latter days.
How often, in former ages, by eternal Creeds,
eternal Forms of Government, and the like,
has it been attempted, fiercely enough, and
with destructive violence, to chain the Future
under the Past; and say to the Providence,
whose ways with man are mysterious, and
through the great Deep: Hitherto shalt thou
come, but no farther! A wholly insane attempt ;
and fur man himself, could it prosper, the
frightfiillest of all enchantments, a very Life-
in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny
of every individual man, is to be in turns Ap-
prentice and Workman ; or say rather, Scholar,
Teacher, Discoverer : by nature he has a
strength for learning, for imitating; but also a
strength for acting, for knowing on his own
account. Are we not in a World seen to be
Infinite: the relations lying closest together
modified by those latest-discovered, and lying
farthest asundtrl Could you ever spell-bind
man into a Scholar merely, so that he had no-
thing to discover, to correct; could you ever
establish a Theory of the Universe that were
entire, unimprovable, and which needed only
to be got by heart; man then were spiritually
defunct, the species We now name Man had
ceased to exist. But the gods, kinder to us
than we are to ourselves, have forbidden such
suicidal acts. As Phlogiston is displaced by
Oxygen, and the Epicycles of Ptolemy by the
Ellipses of Kepler; so does Paganism give
place to Catholicism, Tyranny to Monarchy,
and Feudalism to Representative Government,
— where also ihe process does not stop. Per-
fection of Practice, like completeness of
Opinion, is always approaching, never arrived;
Truth, in the words of Schiller, i?nmer wird, nie
fit ; never is, always is a-being.

Sad, truly, were our condition did we know
but this, that Change is universal and inevi-
table. Launched info a dark shoreless sea of
Pyrrhonism, what would remain fur us but to
sail aimless, hopeless; or make madly merry,
while the devouring Death had not yet engulfed
us? As, indeed, we have seen many, and stili
see many do. Nevertheless so stands it not.
The venerator of the Past (and to what pure
heart is the Past, in that " moonlight of me-
mory," other than sad and holy?) sorrows not
over its depaitnre, as one utterly bereaved.
The tiTie Past departs not, nothing that wa;3
worthy in the Past departs; no 'i'rulh or Good-
ness realized by man ever dies, or can die;
bat is all slill here, and recognised or not,
lives arKl works through endless changes. If
all things, to speak in the German dialect, are
discerned by os, and exist for us, in an element
of Time, and therefore of Mortality and Muta-
bility; yet 'I'ime itself "reposes on Eternity:
the truly Great and Transcendental has its
basis and substance in Eternity; stands re-
vealed to us as Eternitv in a vesture of Time.
Thus in all Poetry, Worship, Art, Suciely, as
one form passes into another, nothing is lost:
it is but the superficial, as it were the body
only, that grows obsolete and dies; under the
mortal body lies a smd that is immortal; that
anew incarnates itself in fairer revelation ; and
the Present is the living sum-total of the whole
Past.

In Change, therei'"ore, there is nothing ter-
rible, nothing supernatural: on the contrary,
it lies in the very essence of our lot, and life
in this world. To-day is not yesterday: we
ourselves change; how can our Works and
Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest,
continue always the same? Change, indeed,
is painful; yet ever needful; and if Memory
have its force and worth, so also has Hope.
Nay. if we look well to it, what is all Derange-
ment, and necessity of gre;it Change, in itself
such an evil, but the product simply of in-
n-eaacd resovrrrn which the old ii:rthod< can no
longer administer; of new wealth which the
old colTers will no longer contain ? What is
it, for example, that in our own day bursts
asunder the bonds of ancient Political Sys-
tems, and perplexes all Europe with the fear
of Change, but even this: the increase of
social resources, which the old social methods
will no longer sufficientiv administer? The
new omnipotence (if the Steam-ensrine is hew-
ing asunder quite other mountains than the
physical. Have not our economical distresses,
those barnyard Conflagrations themselves, the
frightfiillest madness of our mad epoch, their
rise also in what is a real inferease ; increase
of Men ; of human Force ; properly, in such a
Planet as ours, the most precious of all in-
creases? It is true again, the ancient methods
of administration will no longer suflice. Must
the indomitable millions, fuh if old Saxon
energy and fire, lie cooped up in ihis Western
Nook, choking one another, as in a Blaekhole
of Calcutta, while a whole fertile untenanted
Earth, desolate for want of the ploughshare,
cries: C^'tif' and till me, come and reap me?
If the :incient Cnptains can no longer yield
guidance, new must be sought after: for the

CHARACTERISTICS.

30»

difficulty lies not in nature, but in artifice : the
European Calcutta-Blackhole has no walls but
air ones, and paper ones. — So, too, Skepticism
itself, with its innumerable mischiefs, what is
it but the sour fruit of a most blessed increase,
that of Knowledge; a fruit, too, that will not
always continue sour?

In fact, much as we have said and mourned
about the unproductive prevalence of Meta-
physics, it was not without some insight into
the use that lies in them. Metaphysical Specu-
lation, if a necessary evil, is the forerunner of
much good. The fever of Skepticism must
needs burn itself out, and burn out thereby the
Imparities that caused it; then again will there
be clearness, health. The principle of Life,
which now struggles painfully, in the outer,
thin, and barren domain of the Conscious or
Mechanical, may then withdraw into its inner
Sanctuaries, its abysses of mystery and mi-
racle; withdraw deeper than ever into that
domain of the Unconscious, by nature infinite
and inexhaustible; and creatively work there.
From that mystic region, and from that alone,
all wonders, all Poesies, and Religions, and
Social Systems have proceeded: the like won-
ders, and greater and higher, lie slumbering
there; and, brooded on by the spirit of the
waters, will evolve themselves, and rise like
exhalations from the Deep.

Of our modern Metaphysics, accordingly,
may not this already be said, that if they have
produced no Affirmation, they have destroyed
much Negation? It is a disease expelling a
disease: the fire of Doubt, as above hinted,
consuming away the Doubtful; that so the
Certain come to light, and again lie visible on
the surface. English or French Metaphysics,
in reference to this last stage of the speculative
process, are not what we allude to here ; but
only the Metaphysics of the Germans. In
France or England, since the days of Diderot
and Hume, though all thought has been of a
skeptico-metaphysical texture, so far as there
were any Thought, we have seen no Meta-
physics ; but only more or less ineffectual
questionings whether such could be. In the
Pyrrhonism of Hume and the Materialism of
Diderot, Logic had, as it were, overshot itself,
overset itself. Now, though the athlete, to use
our old figure, cannot, by much lifting, lift up
his own body, he may shift it out of a laming
posture, and get to stand in a free one. Such
a service have German Metaphj'sics done for
man's mind. The second sickness of Specula-
tion has abolished both itself and the first.
Friedrich Schlegel complains much of the
fruitlessness, the tumult and transiency of
German as of all Metaphysics ; and with rea-
son : yet in that wide-spreading, deep-whirling
vortex of Kantism, so soon metamorphosed
into Fichteism, Schellingism, and then as
Hegelism, and Cousinism, perhaps finally
evaporated, is not this issue visible enough,
that Pyrrhonism and Materialism, themselves
necessary phenomena in European culture,
have disappeared; and a Faith in Religion
has again become possible and inevitable for
the scientific mind; and the word J'';ff-thinker
no longer means the Denier or Caviller, but
the Believer, or the Ready to believe? Nay,

in the higher Literature of Germany, there
already lies, for him that can read it, the be-
ginning of a new revelation of the Godlike;
as yet unrecognised by the mass of the world;
but waiting there for recognition, and sure to
find it when the fit hour comes. This age also
is not wholly without its Prophets.

Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarian-
ism, or Radicalism, or the Mechanical Philo-
sophy, or by whatever name it is called, has
still its long task to do ; nevertheless we can
now see through it and beyond it : in the bet-
ter heads, even among us English, it has be-
come obsolete; as in other countries it has
been, in such heads, for some forty or even
fifty years. What sound mind among the
French, for example, now fancies that men
can be governed by "Constiiuiions ;" by the
never so cunning mechanizing of Self-inte-
rests, and all conceivable adjustments of
checking and balancing: in a word, by the
best possible solution of this quite insoluble
and impossible problem. Given a world of
Knaves, to prodv.ce an Hones'y from their united
action? Were not experiments enough of
this kind tried before all Europe, and found'
wanting, when, in that doomsday of France,
the infinite gulf of human Passion shivered
asunder the thin rinds of Habit ; and burst
forth all-devouring, as in seas of Nether Fire?
Which cunningly-devised "Constitution," con-
stitutional, republican, democratic, sans-culot-
tic, could bind that raging chasm together?
Were they not all burnt up, like Paper as
they were, in its molten eddies : and still the
fire-sea raged fiercer than before? It is not
by Mechanism, but by Religion ; not by Self-
interest, but by Loyally, that men are governed
or governable.

Remarkable it is, trul}', how everywhere
the eternal fact begins again to be recognised,
that there is a Godlike in human affairs ; that
God not only made us and beholds us, but is
in us and around us; that the Age of Mira-
cles, as it ever was, now is. Such recogni-
tion we discern on all hands, and in all coun-
tries : in each country after its own fashion-
In France, among the younger nobler minds,
strangely enough ; where, in their loud con-
tention with the Actual and Conscious, the
Ideal or Unconscious is, for the time, without
exponent; where Religion means not the pa-
rent of Polity, as of all that is highest, but
Polity itself; and this and the other earnest
man has not been wanting, who could whisper
audibly : " Go to, I will make a religion." In
England still more strangely; as in all things,
worthy England will have its way : by the
shrieking of hysterical women casting out of
devils, and other " gifts of the Holy Ghost."
Well might Jean Paul say, in this his twelfth
hour of the Night, "the living dream;" well
might he say, "the dead walk." Meanwhile
let us rejoice rather that so much has beeu
seen into, were it through never so diffracting
media, and never so madly distorted ; that in
all dialects, though but half-articulately, this
high Gospel begins to be preached: "Man is
still Man." The genius of Mechanism, as
was once before predicted, will not always sit
like a choking incubus on our soul ; but at

sie

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

length, when by a new magic Word the old
spell is broken, become our slave, and as fa-
miliar-spirit do all our bidding. "We are
near awakening when we dream that we
dream."

He that has an eye and a heart can even
now say: Why should I falter 1 Light has
come into the world; to such as love Light, so
as Light must be loved, with a boundless all-
doing, all-enduring love. For the rest, let
that vain struggle to read the mystery of the
Infinite cease to harass us. It is a mystery
which, through all ages, we shall only read
here a line of, there another line of. Do we
not already know that the name of the Infinite
is Good, is God 1 Here on Earth we are as

Soldiers, fighting in a foreign larrd; th4t un-
derstand not the plan of the campaign, and
have no need to understand it; seeing well
what is at our hand to be done. Let us do it
like Soldiers, with submission, with courage,
with a heroic joy. " Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with all thy might." Be-
hind us, behind each one of us, lie Six Thou-
sand years of human eflbrt, human conquest :
before us is the boundless Time, with its as
yet uncreated and unconquered Continents
and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to
conquer, to create: and from the bosom of
Eternity shine for us celestial guiding stars.
"My inlieritancc how wide and fair !
Tiuifie is my fair seed-field, of Time I 'm he«."

GOETHE'S PORTEAIT.*

[Fraser's Magazine, 1832.]

Readeh I thou here beholdest the Eidolon of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. So looks and
lives, now in his eighty-third year, afar in the
bright little friendly circle of Weimar, "the
clearest, most universal man of his time."
Strange enough is the cunning ibat resides in
the ten fingers, especially what they bring to
pass by pencil and pen I Him who never saw
England, England now sees: from Fraser's
"Gallery" he looks forth here, wondering,
doubtless, how he came into such Lichtstrassc
(" light-street," or galaxy ;) yet with kind recog-
nition of all neighbours, even as the moon
looks kindly on lesser lights, and, were they
but fish-oil cressets, or terrestrial Vauxhall
stars, (of clipped tin,) forbids not their shining.
Nay, the very soul of the man Jhou canst like-
wise behold. Do but look well in those forty
volumes of "musical wisdom," which, under
the title of Goethe's Werkc, Cotta of Tubingen,
or Black and Young of Covent Garden — once
offer them a trifle of drink-money — will cheer-
fully hand thee: greater sight, or more profit-
able, thou wilt not meet vs^ith in this generation.
The German language, it is presumable, thou
knowest; if not, shouldst thou undertake the
study thereof for that sole end, it were well
worth thy while.

Croquis (a man otherwise of rather satirical
turn) surprises us, on this occasion, with a fit
of enthusiasm. He declares often, that here
is the finest of all living heads; speaks much
of blended passion and repose; serene depths
of eyes; the brow, the temples, royally arched,
a very palace of thought; — and so forth.

The writer of these Notices is not without
decision of character, and can believe what be
knows. He answers Brother Croquis, that it
is no wonder the head should be royal and a
palace ; for a most royal work was appointed

*By Stleler of Munich ; the copy in Fraser's Maga-
zine proved a total failure and iiivn'liinlary caricature, —
leseuibling, as was said at the time, a wretched old-
clolhesnian carrying behind his back a liat which lie
teemed to liavc stolen.

to be done therein. Reader? wifhin that head
the whole world lies mirrored, in such clear,
ethereal harmony, as it has done in none since
Shakspeare left us: even this Rag-fair of a.
world, wherein thou painfully strugglest, and
(as is like) stumblest — all lies transfigured
here, and revealed authentically to be still holy,
still divine. What alchyray was that: to find
a mad universe full of skepticism, discord,
desperation ; and transfrmfe it into a wise uni-
verse of belief, and melody, and reverence !
Was not there an opi<s magnum, if one ever was 1
This, then, is he who, heroically doing and en-
during, has accomplished it.

In this distracted lime of ours, wherein men
have h)st their old loadstars, and wandered
after night-fires and foolish will-o'-wisps ; and
all things, in that " shaking of the nations,"
have been tumbled into chaos, the high made
low and the low high, and ever and anon some
duke of this, and king of that, is gurgled aloft,
to float there for moments; and fancies him-
self the governor and head-director of it all,
and is but the topmost froth-bell, to burst again
and mingle with the v/ild fermenting mass, —
in this so despicable time, we say, there were
nevertheless — be the bounteous heavens ever
thanked for ill — two s^reat men sent among us.
The one, in the island of St. Helena now
sleeps "dark and lone, amid the ocean's ever-
lasting lullaby," the other still rejoices in the
blessed sunlight, on the banks of the lime.

Great was the part allotted each, great the
talent given him for the same*, yet, mark the
contrast! Bonaparte \valked through the war-
convulsed world like an all-devouring earth-
quake, heaving, thundering, harling kingdom
over kingdoin ; Goethe was as the mild-shining,
inaudible light, which, notwithstanding, can
again make that chaos into a creation. Thus,
too, we see Napoleon, with his Austerlitzes,
Waterloos, and Borodinos, is quite gone — all
departed, sunk to silence like a tavern-brawl.
While this other! — he still shines with his
direct radiance ; his inspired words are to abide

BIOGRAPHY.

311

in living hearts, as the life and inspiration of
thinkers, born 'and still unborn. Some fifty
years hence, his thinking will be found trans-
lated, and ground down, even to the capacity
of the diurnal press; acts of parliament will
be passed in virtue of him : — this man, if we
well consider of it, is appointed to be ruler of
the world.

Reader' to thee thyself, even now, he has

one counsel to give, the secret of his whole
poetic alchymy: Gr.nENKE zv lebex. Yes,
"think of living!" Thy life, wert thou the
"pitifullest of all the sons of earth," is no idle
dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own ; it
is all thou hast to front eternity with. Work,
then, even as he has done, and does — "Like a

STAR UNHASTING, TET UNIIESTING." Sic VU

leas.

BIOGRAPinV

[Frazer's Magazine, 1832.]

Man's sociality of nature evinces itself, in
spite of all that can be said, with abundant
evidence by this one fact, were there no other:
the unspeakable delight he takes in Biography.
It is written, "The proper study of mankind is
man;" to which study, let us candidly admit,
he, by true or by false methods, applies him-
self, nothing loath. "Man is. perennially inte-
resting to man; nay, if we look strictly to it,
there is nothing else interesting." How inex-
pressibly comfortable to know our fellow-
creature ; to st-e into him, understand his goings
forth, decipher the whole heart of his mystery:
nay, not only to see into him, but even to see
out of him, to view the world altogether as he
views it; so that we can theoretically construe
him, and could almost practically personate
him; and do now thoroughly discern both
what manner of man he is, and what manner
of thing he has got to work on and live on !

A scientific interest and a poetic one alike
inspire us in this matter. A scientific: because
every mortal has a Problem of Existence set
before him, which, were it only, what for the
most it is, the Problem of keeping soul and
body together, must be to a certain extent
oiismnl, unlike every other; and yet, at the
same time, so lik-e every other; like our own,
therefore; instructive, moreover, since we also
are indentured to live. A poetic interest still
more : for precisely this same struggle of
human Free-will against material Necessity,
which every man's Life, by the mere circum-
stance that the man continues alive, will more
or less victoriously exhibit, — is that which
above all else, or rather inclusive of all else,
calls the Sympathy of mortal hearts into ac-
tion ; and whether as acted, or as represented
and written of, not only is Poetry, but is the
sole Poetry possible. Borne onwards by which
two all-embracing interests, may the earnest
Lover of Biography expand himself on all
sides, and indefinitely enrich himself. Look-
ing with the eyes of every new neighbour, he
can discern a new world diflerent for each:
feeling v^fith the heart of every neighbour, he
lives with every neighbour's life, even as with

• The Life of SamiiPl Johnson. LL.D. : including a
Tour to the Hebrides : By James lioswell, Esq. A new
Edition, with numerous Addilions and Notet^. By John
WUson Croker, LL.L)., F. R. S. 5 vols. London, 1831.

his own. Of these millions of living men each
individual is a mirror to us: a mirror both
scientific and poetic; or, if you will, both nat-
ural and magical; — from which one would so
gladly draw aside the gauze veil ; and, peering
therein, discern the image of his own natural
face, and the supernatural secrets that pro-
phetically lie under the same !

Observe, accordingly, to what extent, in the
actual course of things, this business of Bio-
graphy is practised and relished. Define to
thyself, judicious Reader, the real significance
of these phenomena, named Gossip, Egotism,
Personal Narrative, (miraculous or not,) Scan-
dal, Raillery, Slander, and such like ; the sum-
total of which (with some fractional addition
of a better ingredient, generally too small to be
noticeable) constitutes that other grand pheno-
menon still called "Conversation." Do they
not mean wholly: Biography ^wA Autnbionraphxj ?
Not only in the common Speech of men ; but
in all Art, too, which is or should be the con-
centrated and conserved essence of what men
can speak and show, Biography is almost the
one thing needful.

Even in the highest works of Art our interest,
as the critics complain, is too apt to be
strongly or even mainly of a Biographic sort.
In the Art, we can nowise forget the Artist:
while looking on the Tranffitcuration, while
studying the Iliad, we ever strive to figure to
ourselves what spirit dwelt in Raphael; what
a head was that of Homer, wherein, woven of
Elysian light and Tartarian gloom, that old
world fashioned itself together, of which these
written Greek characters are but a feeble
though perennial copy. The Painter and the
Singer are present to us; we partially and for
the time become the very Painter and the very
Singer, while we enjoy the Picture and the
Song. Perhaps, too, let the critic say what he
will, this is the highest enjoyment, the clearest
recognition, we can have of these. Art indeed
is Art; yet Man also is Man. Had the Tratis
figuration been painted without human hand,
had it grown merely on the canvas, say by
atmospheric influences, as lichen-pictures do
on rocks, — it were a grand Picture doubtless,'
yet nothing like so grand as tlie Picture, which,
on opening our eyes, we everywhere in
Heaven and in Earth see painted; and every-

519

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

■where pass over with indifference, — because !
the Painter was not a Man. Think of this;
much lies in it. The Vatican is sfreat; yet
poor to Chimborazo or the Pealie of Tenerilfe : '
its dome is but a foolish Big-cndian or Little- |
endian chip of an esrg-sheli, compared with
that star-fretted Dome where Arcturus and
Orion glance for ever; which latter, notwith-
standing:, who looks at, save perhaps some ne-
cessitous star-gazer bent to make Almanacs,
some thick-quiited watchman, to see what wea- !
ther it will prove? The Biographic interest '
is wanting: no Michael Angelo was He who,
built that "Temple of Immensity;" therefore
do we, pitiful Littlenesses as we are, turn rather
to wonder and to worship in the little toybox
of a Temple built by our like.

Still more decisively, still more exclusively
does the Biographic interest manifest itself as
we descend into lower regions of spiritual
communication; through the whole range of
what is called Literature. Of History, for ex-
ample, the most honoured, if not honourable
species of composition, is not the whole pur-
port biographic 1 " History," it has been said,
"is the essence of innumerable Biographies."
Such, at least, it should be: whether it is,
might admit of question. But, in any case,
what hope have we in turning over those old
interminable Chronicles, with their garrulities
and insipidities ; or still worse, in patiently ex-
amining those modern Narrations, of the Phi-
losophic kind, where "Philosophy, teaching
by Experience," must sit like owl on house-
top, sce'mg nothing, understanrlinp; nothing, ut-
tering only, with solemnity enough, her per-
petual most wearisome hoo-hoo : — what hope
have we, except for the most part fallacious
one of gaining some acquaintance with our
fellow-creatures, though dead and vanished,
yet dear to us ; how they got along in those old
days, suffering and doing; to what extent, and
under what circumstances, they resisted the
Devil and triumphed over him, or struck their
colours to him, and were trodden under foot
by him; how, in short, the perennial Battle
went, which men name Life, which we also in
these new days, M'ith indifferent fortune, have
to fight, and must bequeath to our sons and
grandsons to go on fighting, — till the Enemy
one day be quite vanquished and abolished, or
else the great Night sink and part the combat-
ants; and thus, either by some Millennium or
some new Noah's Deluge, the Volume of Uni-
versal History wind itself up ! Other hope, in
studying such Books, we have none: and that
it is a deceitful hope, who that has tried knows
not? A feast of widest Biographic insight is
spread for us; we enter full of hivngry antici-
pation : alas ! like so many other feasts, which
Life invites us to, a mere Ossian's " feast of
shells," — the food and liquor being all emptied
out and clean gone, and only the vacant dishes
and deceitful emblems thereof left ! Your
modern Historical Restaurateurs are indeed
little better than high-priests of Famine ; that
keep choicest china dinner-sets, only no din-
ner to serve therein. Yet such is our Biogra-
phic appetite, we run trying from shop to
hhop, with ever new hope; and, unless we

could cat the wind, with (ver new disappoint-
ment.

Again, C(uisitler the: whole class of Fictitious
Narratives; from the highest category of epic
or dramatic Poetry, in Shakspeare and Homer,
down to the lowest of froth Prose in the Fash-
ionable Novel. What are all these but so
many mimic Biographies ? Attempts, here by
an inspired Speaker, there by an uninspired
Babbler, to deliver himself more or less inef-
fectually, of the grand secret wherev/ith all
hearts labour oppressed : The significance of
Man's Life; — which deliverance, even as
traced in the unfurnished head, and printed at
the Minerva Press, finds readers. For, ob-
serve, though there is a greatest Fool, as a su-
perlative in every kind; and the most Foolish
man in the Earth is now indubitably living
and breathing, and did this morning or lately
eat breakfast, and is even now digesting the
same; and looks out on the world, with his
dim horn-eyes, and inwardly f 'rms some un-
speakable theory thereof: yet where shall the
authentically Existing be personally met with !
Can one of us, otherwise than by guess, know
that we have got sight of him, have orally
communed with him? To take even the nar
rower sphere of this our English metropolis,
can any one confidently say to himself that he
has conversed withnhe identical, individual,
Stupidest man now extant in London ? No
one. Deep as we dive in the Profound, there
is ever a new depth opens : where the ultimate
bottom may lie, through what new scenes of
being we must pass before reaching it, (except
that we know it does lie somewhere, and might
by human fiiculty and opportunity be reached,)
is altogether a mystery to us. Strange, tan-
talizing pursuit! We have the fullest assu-
rance, not only that there is a Stupidest of
London men actually resident, with bed and
board of some kind, in London; but that seve-
ral persons have been or perhaps are now
speaking face to face with him: while for us,
chase it as we may, such scientific blessedness
will too probably be for ever denied ! — But the
thing we meant to enforce was this comforta-
ble fact, that no known Head was so wooden,
but there might be other heads to which it
were a genius and Friar Bacon's Oracle. Of
no given Book, not even of a Fashionable
Novel, can you predicate with certainty that
its vacuity is absolute ; that there are not other
vacuities which shall partially replenish them-
selves therefroin,and esteem it a plenum. How
knowest thou, may the distressed Novelwright
e$claim, that I, here where I sit, am the Fool-
ishest of existing mortals; that this my Long-
ear of a Fictitious Biography shall not find
one and the other, into whose still longer ears
it may be the means, under Providence, of in-
stilling somewhat ? We answer. None knows,
none can certainly know: therefore, write on,
worthy Brother, even as thou canst, as it has
been given thee.

Here, however, in regard to " Fictitious Bio-
graphies," and much other matter of like sort,
which the greener mind in these days inditeth,
we may as well insert some singular sen-
tences on the importance and significance of

BIOGRAPHY.

313

B.iality, as they,stand written for us in Professor
Gottfried Sauerleig's JEsthelisdic Sjiringu-iirzcl :
a Work, perhaps, as yet new to most English
readers. The Professor and Doctor is not a
man whom we can praise without reserv^ation ;
neither shall we say that his Spriuiiwurzel (a sort
of magical pick-locks, as he affectedly names
tl.em) are adequate to " starl" every boll that
locks up an aesthetic mystery; nevertheless, in
his crabbed, one-sided way, he sometimes hits
ir.ass's of the truth. We endeavour to trans-
late faithfully, and trust the reader will find it
worth serious perusal :

"The significance, even for poetic purposes,"
sa/s Sauerteig, " that lies in Reality, is too
apt to escape us; is perhaps only now begin-
ning to be discerned. When we named Rous-
seau's Confessions an elegiaco-didactic Poem, we
meant more than an empty figure of speech;
we meant an historical scientific fact.

"Fiction, while the feigner of it knows that
he is feigning, partakes, more than we suspect,
of the nature of lying ,■ and has ever an, in some
degree, unsatisfactory character. All Mytho-
logies were once Philosophies; were believed:
the Epic Poems of old time, so long as they
continued epic, and had an)- complete impres-
siveness, were Histories, and understood to be
narratives of fads. In so far as Homer em-
ployed his gods as mere ornamental frinses,
and had not himself, or at least did not expect
his hearers to have, a belief that they were
real agents in those antique doings ; so far did
he fail to be genuine; so far was he a partially
hollow and false singer ; and sang to please only
a portion of man's mind, not the whole thereof.

"Imagination is, after all, but a poor matter
when it must part company with Understand-
ing, and even front it hostilely in flat contra-
diction. Our mind is divided in twain : there
is contest; wherein that which is weaker must
needs come to the worse. Now of all feelings,
states, principles, call it what you will, in man's
mind, is not Belief the clearest, strongest ;
against v/hich all others contend in vain 1
Belief is, indeed, the beginning and first con-
dition of all spiritual Force whatsoever: only
in so far as Imagination, were it but momen-
tarily, is believed, can there be any use or mean-
ing in it, any enjoyment of it. And what is
momentary Belief? The enjoyment of a mo-
ment. Whereas a perennial Belief were en-
joyment perennially, and with the whole united
soul.

" It is thus that I judge of the Supernatural
in an Epic Poem; and would say, the instant
it had ceased to be authentically supernatural,
and become what you call 'Machinery;' sweep
it out of sight (s/liaff'es iiiir vorn Hcdse) ! Of a
truth, that same 'Machinery,' about which the
critics make such hubbub, was well named
Mddiincry : for it is in ver}' deed mechanical, no-
wise inspired or poetical. Neither for us is
there the smallest aesthetic enjoyment in it;
save only in this way : that we believe it to have
been believed, — by the Singer or his Hearers; into
whose case we now laboriously struggle to
transport ourselves; and so, with stinted
enough result, catch some reflex of the Rea-
lity, which for them was wholly real, and vi-
sible face to face. Whenever it has come so
40

far that your 'Machinery' is avowedly niecha
nical and unbelieved, — what is it else, if we
dare tell ourselves the truth, but a miserable,
meaningless Deception kept up by old use and
wont alone] If the gods of an Iliad are to us
no longer authentic Shapes of Terror, heart-
stirring, heart-appalling, but only vague-glit-
tering Shadows, — what must the dead Pa-
gan gods of an Epigoniad be, the dead-living
Pagan-Christian gods of a Lusiad, the concrete-
abstract, evangelical-metaphysical gods of a
Paradise Lost? Superannuated lumber ! Cast
raiment, at best; in which some poor mime,
strutting and swaggering, may or may not set
forth new noble Human Feelings, (again a Rea-
lity,) and so secure, or not secure, our pardon
of such hoydenish masking, — for which, in any
case, he has a pardon to ask.

"True enough, none but the earliest Epic
Poems can claim this distinction of entire cre-
dibility, of Reality: after an Iliad, a Shatter, a
Koran, and other the like primitive perform-
ances, the rest seem, by this rule of mine, to be
altogether excluded from the list. Accordingly,
what arc all the rest from Virgil's ^(ic/r/ down-
wards, in comparison 1 — Frosty, artificial, he-
terogeneous things; more of gumdowers than
of roses ; at best, of the two mixed incoherently
together: to some of which, indeed, it were
hard to deny the title of Poems ; yet to no one
of which can that title belong in any sense even
resembling the old high one it, in those old days,
conveyed, — when the epithet 'divine' or ' sa-
cred,' as applied to the uttered Word of man,
was not a vain metaphor, a vain sound, but a
real name with meaning. Thus, too, the farther
we recede from those early days, when Poetry,
as true Poetry is ahvays, was still sacred or
divine, and inspired, (what ours, in great part,
only pretends to be,) — the more impossible
becomes it to produce any, we say not true
Poetry, but tolerable semblance of such ; the
hollower, in particular, grow all manner of
Epics; till at length, as in this generation, the
very name of Epic sets men a-yawning, the
announcement of a new Epic is received as a
public calamity.

" But what if the impossible being once for all
quite discarded, the probable be well adhered to :
how stands it with fiction then? Why, then, I
would say, the evil is much mended, but no-
wise completely cured. We have then, in place
of the wholly dead modern Epic, the partially
living modern Novel ; to which latter it is much
easier to lend that above-mentioned, so essen-
tial ' momentary credence,' than to the former:
indeed infinitely easier : for the former being
flatly incredible, no mortal can for a moment
credit it, for a moment enjoy it. Thus, here
and there, a Tom Jones, a Meistcr, a Crusoe, will
yield no little solacement to the minds of men:
though still immeasurably less than a Reaidy
would, were the significance thereof as im-
pressively unfolded, were the genius that could
so unfold it once given us by the kind Heavens.
Neither say thou that proper Realities are
wanting: for Man's Life, now as of old, is the
genuine work of God ; wherever there is a
Man, a God also is revealed, and all that is God-
like : a whole epitome of the Infinite, with its
meanings, lies enfolded in the Life of every
2D

S14

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Man, Only, alas, that the Seer to discern this
same Godlike, and vvitli fa utterance wHfold it
I'or us, is wanting, and may \of)'^ be wanting!

''Nay, a question arises on us here, wherein
the whole German reading-world will eagerly
join: Whether man can any longer be so in-
terested by the spoken Word, as he often- was
in those primeval days, when, rapt away by its
inscrutable power, he pronounced it, in such
dialect as he had, to be transcendental, (to
transcend all measure,) to be sacred, prophetic,
and the inspiration of a god 1 For myself, I,
(iV/i memesi Orlo:,) by faith or by insight, do
heartily understand that the answer to such
question will be. Yea ! For never, that I could
in searching find out, has Man been, by Time
which devours so much, deprivated of any fa-
culty whatsoever that he in any era was pos-
sessed of. To my seeming, the babe born yester-
day has all the organs of Body, Soul, and Spirit,
and in exactly the same combination and cntire-
ness, that the oldest Pelasgic Greek, or Meso-
potamian Patriarch, or Father Adam himself
could boast of. Ten fingers, one heart with
venous and arterial blood therein, still belong
to man that is born of woman : when did he
lose any of his spiritual Endowments either:
above all, his highest spiritual Endowment, that
of revealing Piietic Beauty, and of adequately
receiving the samel Not the material, not the
susceptibility is wanting ; only the poet, or long
series of Poets, to work ou these. 'J'rue, alas
too true, the Poet is still utterly wanting, or all
but utterly: nevertheless have we not centuries
enough before us to produce him in 1 Him and
much else! — I, for the present, will but predict
that chiefly by working more and more on
Realitt, and evolving more and more wisely
its inexhaustible meanings; and, in brief, speak-
ing forth in fit utterance whatsoever our whole
soul believes, and ceasing to speak forth what
thing soever our whole soul does not believe, —
will this high emprise be accomplished, or ap-
proximated to."

These notable, and not unfounded, though
partial and deep-seeing rather than vide-seeing
observations on the great import of Rkalitt,
considered even as a poetic material, we have
inserted the more willingly, because a tran-
sient feeling to the same purpose may often
have suggested itself to many readers; and,
on the whole, it is good that every reader and
every writer understand, with all intensity of
conviction, what quite infinite worth lies in
Truth ; how all-pervading, omnipotent, in
man's mind, is the thing we name Iklief. For
the rest, Herr Sauerteig, though one-sided, on
this matter of Reality, seems heartily per-
suaded, and is not perhaps so ignorant as he
looks. It cannot be unknown to him, for ex-
ample, what noise is made about " Invention ;"
what a supreme rank this faculty is reckoned
to hold in the poetic endowment. Great truly
is Invention ; nevertheless, that is but a poor
exercise of it with which Belief is not con-
cerned. "An Irishman with whisky in his
head," as pocu' Byron said, will invent you, in
this kind, till there is enough and to spare.
Nay, perhaps, if we consider well, the highest
txe-rcise of Invention has, in very deed, nothing
to do with Fiction ; but is an invention of new

Truth, what we can call a Revelation; which
last does undoubtedly transcend all other po-
etic elTorts, nor can Hcrr Sauerteig be too
loud in its praises. But, on the other hand,
whether such eflort is still possible for man,
Herr Sauerteig and the bulk of the world are
probably at issue, — and will probably continue
so till that same " Revelation" or new " Inven-
tion of Reality," of the sort he desiderates,
shall itself make its appearance.

Meanwhile, quitting these airy regions, let
any one hethinic him how impressive the
smallest historical fact may become, as con-
trasted with the grandest fictitious event ; what
an incalculable force lies for us in this consi-
deration : The Thing which I here hold imaged
in my mind did actually occur; was, in very
truth, an element in the system of the All,
whereof I too form part; had therefore, and
has, through all time, an authentic being; is
not a dream, but a reality! We ourselves can
remember reading in Lord Clayendim,\v\\\\ feel-
ings perhaps somehow accidentally opened to
it, — certainly with a depth of impression
strange to us then and now, — that insignifi-
cant looking passage, where Charles, after the
battle of Worcester, glides down, with Sauire
Careless, from the Royal Oak, at night-fall,
being hungry: how, "making a shift to get
over hedges and ditches, after walking at least
eight or nine miles, which were the more
grievous to the King hy the weight of his
boots, (for he could not put them off", when he
cut oif his hair, for want of shoes,) before
morning they came to a poor cottage, the owner
whereof heiiig a Ro7nan Catholic ivas known to Cere-
less." How this poor drudge, being knocked
up from his snoring, "carried them into a lit-
tle barn full of hay, which was a better lodg-
ing than he had for himself;" and by and by,
not without dilFiculty, brought his Majesty "a
piece of bread and a great pot of butter-milk,"
saying candidly that "he himself lived by his
daily labour, and that what he had brought
him was the fare he and his wife had :" on
which nourishing diet his Majesty, " staying
upon the haymow," feeds thankfully for two
days; and then depaiis, under new guidance,
having first changed clothes down to the very
shirt and "old pair of shoes," with his land-
lord; and so as worthy Bunyan has it, "goes
on his way, and sees him no more."* Singu-
lar enough if we will think of it ! This then
was a genuine flesh-and-blood Rustic of the
year 1651 : he did actually swallow bread and
butter-milk (not having ale and bacon,) and
do field labour; with these hob-uailed "shoes"
has sprawled through mud-roads in winter,
and, jocund or not, driven his team a-fielc in
summer; he made bargains; had chaff"erings
and higglings, now a sore heart, now a glad
one ; was born ; was a son, was a father ; —
toiled in many ways, being forced to it, till the
strength was all worn out of him : and then —
lay down "to rest his galled back," and sleep
there till the long-distant morning ! — How
comes it, that he alone of all the British rus-
tics who tilled and lived along with him,
on whom the blessed sun on that same " fifth

♦ History of the Rebellion, iii. 625.

BIOGRAIflY.

315

day of September" was shining, should have
chanced to rise on us; that this poor pair of
clouted Shoes, out of a million million hides
that have been tanned, and cut, and worn,
should still subsist, and hang visibly together 1
We see him but for a moment; for one mo-
ment, the blanket of the Night is rent asun-
der, so that we behold and see, and then
closes over him — for ever.

So too, in some Bosu-ell's Life of Johnson, how
indelible, and magically bright, does many a
liitle Reality dwell in our remembrance !
There is no need that the personages on the
scene be a King and Clown; that the scene
be the Forest of the Royal Oak, " on the bor-
ders of Staffordshire :" need only that the
scene lie on this old firm Earth of ours, where
we also have so surprisingly arrived ; that the
personages be men, and seen with the eyes of a
man. Foolish enough, how some slight, per-
haps mean and even ugly incident — if real, and
well presented — will fix itself in a susceptive
memory, and lie ennobled there; silvered over
with the pale cast of thought, with the pathos
which belongs only to the Dead. For the
Past is all holy to us ; the Dead are all holy,
even they that were base and wicked while
alive. Their baseness and wickedness was
not Theij, was but the heavy unmanageable
Environment thai lay round them, with which
they fought unprevailing : iheij (the ethereal
God-given Force that dwelt in them, and was
their Self) have now shuffled off that heavy
Environment, and are free and pure: their
life-long Battle, go how it might, is all ended,
with many wounds or with fewer; they have
been recalled from it, and the once harsh-jar-
ring battle-field has become a silent awe-in-
spiring Golgotha, and Gol/csackcr — Field of
God! — Boswell relates this in itself smallest
and poorest of occurrences : "As we walked
along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a wo-
man of the town accosted us in the usual en-
ticing manner. 'No, no, my girl,' said John-
son ; ' it won't do.' He, however, did not
treat her with harshness, and we talked of the
wretched life of such women." Strange power
of Reality.' Not even this poorest of occur-
rences, but now, after seventy years are come
and gone, has a meaning for us. Do but con-
sider that it is Irtie ; that it did in very deed
occur! That unhappy Outcast, with all her
sins and woes, her lawless desires, too com-
plex mischances, her wailings and her riot-
ings, has departed utterly : alas ! her siren
finer}' has got all besmutched; ground, gene-
ra'.lons since, into dust and smoke, of her de-
giaded body, and whole miserable earthly
existence, all is away: she is no longer here,
but far from us, in the bosom of Eternity, —
whence we too came, whither we too are
bound ! Johnson said, " No, no, my girl ; it
won't do ;" and then " we talked ;" — and here-
with the wretched one, seen but for the twink-
ling of an eye, passes on into the utter Dark-
ness. No high Calista, that ever issued from
Story-teller's brain, will impress us more
deeply than this meanest of the mean; and
for a good reason : That sAc issued from the
Maker of Men.

It is well worth the Artist's while to examine

for himself what it is that gives such pitiful in-
cidents their memorableness; his aim likewise
is, above all things, to be memorable. Half the
effect, we already perceive, depends on the
object, on if. being real, on its being really sccm.
The other half will depend on the observer;
and the question now is : How are real objects
to be so seen ; on what quality of observing, or
of style in describing, does this so intense pic-
torial power depend 1 Often a slight circum-
stance contributes curiously to the result: some
little, and perhaps to appearance accidental, fea-
ture is presented ; a light-gleam, which instan-
taneously e.rciies the mind, and urges it to com-
plete the picture, and evolve the meaning
thereof for itself. By critics, such light-gleam.s
and their almost magical influence have fre-
quently been noted : but the power to produce
such, to select such features as will produce
them, is generally treated as a knack, or trick
of the trade, a secret for being "graphic;"
whereas these magical feats are, in truth,
rather inspii-ations; and the gift of performing
them, which acts unconsciously, without fore-
thought, and as if by natu/e alone, is properly
a genius for description.

One grand, invaluable secret there is, how-
ever, which includes all the rest, and, what is
comfortable, lies clearly in every man's power:
To have an- open, loving heart, and ivhat follows
from the ]iofsessioti of sucli ! Truly has it been
said, emphatically in these days ought it to be
repeated: A loving heart is the beginning of
all Knowledge. This it is that opens the whole
mind, quickens every faculty of the intellect to
do its fit work, that of knowi)ig ; and therefrom,
by sure consequence, of vividly ulliruig forth.
Other secret fur being " graphic" is there none,
worth having: but this is an all-sufficient one.
See, for example, what a small Boswell can
do ! Hereby, indeed, is the whole man made a
living mirror, wherein the wonders of this ever-
wonderful Universe are, in their true light,
(which is ever a magical, miraculous one,) re-
presented, and reflected back on us. It has
been said, "the heart sees farther than the
head:" but, indeed, without the seeing heart
there is no true seeing for the head so much as
possible; all is mere oversight, hallucination,
and vain superficial phantasmagoria, which
can permanently profit no one.

Here, too, may we not pause for an instant,
and make a practical reflection 1 Considering
the multitude of mortals that handle the Pen
in these days, and can mostly spell, and write
without daring violations of grammar, the
question naturally arises : How is it, then, that
no Work proceeds from them, bearing any
stamp of authenticity and permanence ; of
worth for moie than one day ? Ship-loads of
Fashionable Novels, Sentimental Rhymes,
Tragedies, Farces, Diaries of Travel, Tales by
flood and field, are swallowed moi. ihly into the
bottomless Pool; still does the Press toil: in-
numerable Paper-makers, Compositors, Print-
ers' Devils, Bookbinders, and Hawkers grown
hoarse with loud proclaiming, rest not from
their labour; and still, in torrents, rushes on
the great array of Publications, unpausing, to
their final home; and still Oblivion, like the
Grave, cries : Give ! Give ! How is it that of

816

(lARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

all these countless multitudes, no one can attain I
to the smallest mark of excellence, or produce
ought that shall endure longer than " snow-
flake on the river," or the foam of penny-beer 1
We answer: Because they are foam; because
there is no Rcalihj in them. These Three
Thousand men, women, and children, that
make up the army of British Authors, do not,
if we will well consider it, see any thing what-
ever; consequently have nothing that they can
record and utter, only more or fewer things
that they can plausibly pretend to record. The
Universe, of Man and Nature, is still quite
shut up from them; the "open secret" still
utterly a secret; because no sympathy with
Man or Nature, no love and free simplicity of
heart has yet unfolded the same. Nothing
but a pitiful Image of their own pitiful Self,
with its vanities, and grudgings, and ravenous
hunger of a>' kinds, hangs for ever painted in
the retina these unfortunate persons : so that
the starry \ll, with whatsoever it embraces,
does but appear as some expanded magic-
lantern shadow of that same Image, — and natu-
rally looks pitiful enough.

It is vain for these persons to allege that
they are naturally without gift, naturally stu-
pid and sightless, and so can attain to no
knowledge of any thing; therefore, in writing
of any thing, must needs write falsehoods of
it, there being in it no truth for them. Not so,
good Friends. The stupidest of you has a
certain faculty; were it but that of articulate
speech, (say, in the Scottish, the Irish, the
Cockney dialect, or even in " Governess-Eng-
lish,") and of physically discerning what lies
under your nose. The stupidest of you would
perhaps grudge to be compared in faculty
with James Bosvvell ; yet see what he has pro-
duced ! You do not use your faculty honestly ;
your heart is shut up; full of greediness, ma-
lice, discontent; so your intellectual sense
cannot be open. It is vain also to urge that
James Boswell had opportunities ; saw great
men and great things, such as you can never
hope to look on. What make ye of Parson
White in Selborne 1 He had not only no great
men to look on, but not even men; merely
sparrows and cock-chafers : yet has he left us
a Biography of these; which, under its title
Natural History of Selborne, still remains valu-
able to us ; which has copied a little sentence
or two faithfully from the inspired volume of
Nature, and so is itself not without inspiration.
Go ye and do likewise. Sweep away utterly
all frothiness and falsehood from your heart ;
struggle unweariedly to acquire, what is pos-
sible for every god-created Man, a free, open,
humble soul .- speak iiol at all, in any tcise, till
you have somcivhut to speak; care not for the
reward of your speaking, but simply and with
nndivided mind for the truth of your speaking:
then be placed in what section of Space and
of Time soever, do but open your eyes, and
they shall actually see, and bring you real
ienowledge, woi 4rous, worthy of belief; and in-

stead of one Boswell and one While, the world
will rejoice in a thousand, — stationed on their
thousand several watch-towers, to instruct us
by indubitable documents, of whatsoever ia
our so stupendous world comes to light and is!
O, had the Editor of this Magazine but a
magic rod to turn all that not inconsiderable
Intellect, which now deluges us with artificial
fictitious soap-lather, and mere Lying, into the
faithful study of Reality, — what knowledge of
great, everlasting Nature, and of Man's ways
and doings therein, would not every year bring
us in ! Can we but change one single soap-
latherer and mountebank Juggler, into a true
Thinker and Doer, that even tries honestly to
think and do — great will be our reward.

But to return ; or rather from this point to
begin our journey ! If now, what with Herr
Sauerteig's Springniirzel, what with so much lu-
cubration of our own, it have become apparent
how deep, immeasurable is the " worth that lies
in Rsality," and farther, how exclusive the in-
terest which man takes in the Histories of
Man, — may it not seem lamentable, that so few
genuinely good Biographies\\dL.ve yet been accu-
mulated in Literature ; that in the whole world,
one cannot find, going strictly to work, above
some dozen, or baker's dozen, and those chiefly
of very ancient date 1 Lamentable; yet, after
what we have just seen, accountable. An-
other question might be asked : How comes it
that in England we have simply one good
Biography, this BosweU's Johnson: and of good,
indiff'erent, or even bad attempts at Biography,
fewer than any civilized people ? Consider
the French and Germans, with their Moreris,
Bayles, JiJrdenses, JiJchers, their innumerable
Meinoircs, and Schilderunsien, and Biographies
Universelles: not to speak of Rousseaus, Goethes,
Schubarts, Jung-Stillings : and then contrast
with these our poor Birches, and Kippises and
Pecks, — the whole breed of whom, moreover,
is now extinct !

With this question, as the answer might
lead us Cur, and come out unflattering to patri-
otic sentiment, we shall not intermeddle; but
turn rather, v/ith greater pleasure, to the fact,
that one excellent Biography is actually Eng-
lish ; — and even now lies, in Five new Volumes,
at our hand, soliciting a new consideration
from us ; such as, age after age (the Peren-
nial showing ever new phases as our position
alters,) it may long be profitable to bestow on
it; — to which task we here, in this age, gladh'
address ourselves.

First, however. Let the foolish Apvil-fool
day pass by; and our Reader, during these'
twenty-nine days of uncertain weather that
will follow, keep pondering, according to con-
venience, the purport of BioBnAPHT in genvN
ral : then, with the blessed dew of May-day,
and in unlimited convenience of space, shall
all that we have written on Johnson, and BoS'
icelFs Johnson, and Crokcr's BosweU's Johnson, be
faithfully laid before him.

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

BOSWELUS LIFE OF JOHNSON/

[Fraser's Magazine, 1832.]

^sop's Fly, sitting on the axle of the cha-
riot, has been much laughed at for exclaiming :
What a dust I do raise ! Yet Avhich of us, in
liis way, has not sometimes been guilty of the
liice! Na}', so foolish are men, they often, stand-
..ng at ease and as spectators on the highway,
will volunteer to exclaim of the Fly (not being
tempted to it, as /le was) exactly to the same pur-
port : What a dust tlwu dost raise ! Smallest of
mortals, when mounted aloft by circumstances,
come to seem great; smallest of phenomena
connected with them are treated as important,
and must be sedulously scanned, and com-
.iicntcd upon with loud emphasis.

That Mr. Croker should undertake to edit
Eostrcli's Life nf Johnson, was a praiseworthy
but no miraculous procedure: neither could
the accomplishment of such undertaking be,
in an epoch like ours, anywise regarded as an
event in Universal History; the right or the
wrong accomplishment thereof was, in very
truth, one of the most insignificant of things.
However, it sat in a great environment, on the
axle of a high, fast-rolling, parliamentary
chariot; and all the \vorld has exclaimed over
it, and the author of it : What a dust thou dost
raise ! List to the Reviews, and " Organs of
Public Opinion," from the National Onmlbi's
upwards; criticisms, vituperative and laudato-
ry, stream from their thousand throats of brass
and leather; here chanting Jo pmnis : there
grating harsh thunder, or vehement shrew-
mouse squeaklets ; till the general ear is filled,
and nigh deafened. Boswell's Book had a
noiseless birth, compared wtth this Edition of
Boswell's Book. On the other hand, consider
with what degree of tumult Paradise Lost and
the Iliad were ushered in !

To swell such clamor, or prolong it beyond
the lime, seems nowise our vocalif)n here. At
most, perhaps we are bound to inform simple
readers, with all possible brevity, what manner
of performance and Edition this is ; especial-
ly, whether, in our poor judgment, it is worth
laying out three pounds sterling upon, yea or
not. The whole business belongs distinctly to
the lower ranks of the trivial class.

Let us admit, then, with great readiness, that
as Jolir.son once said, and the Editor repeats,
"all \\Mi-:vs which describe manners, require
notes in sixty or seventy years, or less ;" that,
accordingly, a new Edition of Bosvvell was de-
sirable; and that Mr. Croker has given one.
For this task he had various qualifications:
his own voluntary resolution to do it; his high
place in society unlocking all manner of ar-
chives to him; not less, perhaps, a certain
anecdoiico-biographic turn of mind, natural
or acquired; we mean, a love for the iiniiu,ta-
events of History, and talent for investigating

♦ Tne I.ifn of Samuel Johnson, I.I..D. : inclmiinu a
Tour to :lie Iteliridos. Hy .liiiiies Uoswell, Esq.— A new
Edition. U'itli imniiMdus Additions and Notes. Hy .John
Wilson Crolier, LL.U., F. 11. S. 5 vols. London, 1831.

these. Let us admit, too, that he has been very
diligent ; seems to have made inquiries perse-
venngly far and near; as well as drawn freely
from his own ample stores; and so tells us to
appearance quite accurately, much that he has
nolfound lying on the highways, but has had to
seek and dig for. Numerous persons, chiefly
of quality, rise to view in these Notes; when
and also where ihey came into this world, re-
ceived ofiice or promotion, died, and were
buried (only what they did, except digest, re-
maining often too mysterious,) — is faithfully
enough set down. Whereby all that their va-
rious and doubtless widely-scattered Tomb-
sttmes could have taught us, is here presented,
at once, in a bound Book. Thus is an indubi-
table conquest, though a small one, gained
over our great enemy, the all-destroyer Time;
and as such shall have welcome.

Nay, let us say that the spirit of Diligence,
exhibited in this departinent, seems to attend
the Editor honestly throughout: he keeps
everywhere a watchful outlook on his Text;
reconciling the distant with the present, or at
least indicating and regretting their irrecon-
cilability; elucidating, smoothing down; in
all ways, exercising, according to ability, a
strict editorial superintendence. Any little
Latin or even Gi-eek phrase is rendered into
English, in general with perfect accuracy;
citations are verified, or else corrected. On
all hands, moreover, there is a certain spirit
of Decency maintained and insisted on : if not
good morals, yet good manners, are rigidly in-
culcated ; if not Religion, and a devout Chris-
tian hetirt, yet Orthodoxy, and a cleanly. Shovel-
hatted look, — which, as coiupared with flat
Nothing, is something very considerable.
Grant too, as no contemj)tible triumph of this
latter spirit, that thciugh the Editor is known
as a decided Politician and Party-man, he has
carefully subdued all temptations to transgress
in that way: except by quite involuntary indi-
cations, and rather as it were the perv^ading
temper of the whole, you could not discover
on which side of the Political Warfare he is
enlisted and fights. This, as we said, is a
great triumph of the Decency-principle: for
this, and for these other graces and perform-
ances, let the Editor have all praise.

Herewith, however, must the praise unfor-
tunately terminate. Diligence, Fidelity, De-
cency, are good and indispensable; yet, with-
out Faculty, without Light, they will not do
the work. Along with that Tombjtone infor-
mation, perhaps even without much of it. we
could have liked to gain some answer, in one
way or other, to this wide question : What and
how was English Life in Johnson's time;
wherein has ours grown to diff"er therefrom'?
In other words : What things have we to for-
get, what to fancy and remember, before we,
from such distance, can put ourselves in
Johnson's place; and so, in the full sen.s'* of
2 D 2

318

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

the term, uniJcrsiand him, his sayings and his
doings ! This was indeed specially the prob-
lem which a Commentator and Editor had to
solve: a complete solution of it should have
Jain in him, his whole mind should have beer
filled and prepared with perfect insight into it:
then, whether in the way of express Disser-
tation, of incidental Exposition and Indication,'
opportunities enough would have occurred of
bringing out the same: what was dark in the
figure of the Past had thereby been enlighten-
ed; Bos well had, not in show and word only,
but in very fact, been made new again, reada-
ble to us who are divided from him, even as
he was to those close at hand. Of all which
very little has been attempted here; accom-
plished, we should say, next to nothing, or
altogether nothing.

Excuse, no doubt, is in readiness for such
omission; and, indeed, for innumerable other
failings; — as where, for example, the Editor
\iill punctually explain what is already sun-
clear; and then anon, not without frankness,
declare frequently enough that "the Editor
does not understand," that " the Editor cannot
guess," — while, for most part, the Reader can-
not help both guessing and seeing. Thus, if
Johnson say, in one sentence, that " English
names should not be used in Latin verses ;"
and then, in the next sentence, speak blamingly
of "Carteret being used as a dactyl," will the
generality of mortals detect any puzzle there]
Or again, where poor Boswell writes: "I
always remember a remark made to me by a
Turkish lady, educated in France: ' il/a fox,
monsieur, noire bonheur depend de la fngon que no-
ire sang cirnile ;' " — though the Turkish lady
here speaks English-French, where is the call
for a Note like this: "Mr. Boswell no doubt
fancied these words had some meaning, or he
would hardly have quoted them ; but what that
meaning is the Editor cannot guess?" The
Editor is clearly no witch at a riddle. — For
these and all kindred deficiencies, the excuse,
as we said, is at hand; but the fact of their
existence is not the less certain and regretable.
Indeed, it, from a very early stage of the
business, becomes afflictively apparent, how
much the Editor, so well furnished with all
external appliances and means, is from within
unfurnished with means for forming to him-
self any just notion of Johnson, or of John-
son's Life; and therefore of speaking on that
subject with much hope of edifying. Too
lightly is it from the first taken for granted
that Hunger, the great basis of our life, is also
its apex and ultimate perfection; that as
"Neediness and Greediness and Vain-glory"
are the chief qualities of most men, so no man,
not even a Johnson, acts or can think of acting
on any other principle. Whatsoever, there-
foTC. cannot be referred to the two former cate-
gories, (Need and Greed,) is without scruple
langed under the latter. It is here properly
that our Editor becomes burdensome ; and, to
the weaker sort, even a nuisance. "What
good is it," will such cry, " when we had still
.some faint shadow of belief that man was bel-
Icr than a selfish Digesting-machine; what
good is it to poke in, at everv turn, and ex-
plain how this and that which we thought

noble in old Samuel, was vulgar, base; that
for him too there was no reality but in the
Stomach; and except Pudding, and the finer
species of pudding which is named Praise, life
had no pabulum 1 Why, for instance, when
we know that Johnson loved his good Wife,
and says expressly that their marriage was "a
love-match on both sides," — should two closed
lips open to tell us only this: "Is it not pos-
sible that the obvious advantage of having a
woman of experience to superintend an estab-
lishment of this kind (the Edial School) may
have contributed to a match so disproportionate
in point of age — Ei>. 1" Or a?ain, when in the
Text, the honest cynic speaks freely of his
former poverty, and it is known that he once
lived on fourpence halfpenny a-day, — need a
Commentator advance, and comment thus:
" When we find Dr. Johnson tell unpleasant
truths to, or of, other men, let us recollect that
he does not appear to have spared himself, on
occasions in which he might be forgiven for
doing sol" "Why in short," continues the
exasperated Reader, "should Notes of this
species stand afi^ronting me, when there might
have been no Note at all V — Gentle Reader,
we answer. Be not wroth. What other could
an honest Commentator do, than give thee the
best he had 1 Such was the picture and
theorem he had fashioned for himself of the
world and of man's doings therein: take it,
and draw wise inferences from it. If there
did exist a Leader of Public Opinion, and
Champion of Orthodoxy in the Church of
Jesus of Nazareth, who reckoned that man's
glory consisted in not being poor; and that
a Sage, and Prophet of his time, must needs
blush because the world had paid him at that
easy rate of fourpence halfpenny per diem, —
was not the fact of such existence worth
knowing, worth considering?

Of a much milder hue, yet to us practically
of an all-defacing, and for the present enter-
prise quite ruinous character, — is another
grand fundamental failing; the last we shall
feel ourselves obliged to take the pain of
specifying here. It is that our Editor has
fatall3% and almost surprisingly, mistaken the
limits of an Editor's function ; and so, instead
of working on the margin with his Pen, to
elucidate as best might be, strikes boldly into
the body of the page with his Scissors, and
there clips at discretion ! Four Books Mr. C.
had by him, wherefrom to gather light for the
fifth, which was Boswell's. What does he do
but now, in the placidest manner, — slit the
whole five into slips, and sew these togetlier
into a sexlnm quid, exactly at his own con-
venience; giving Boswell the credit of the
whole! By what art-magic, our readers ask,
has he united them ? By the simplest of all :
by Brackets. Never before was the full virtue
oif the Bracket made manifest. You begin a
sentence under Boswell's guidance, thinking
to be carried happily through it by the same:
but no ; in the middle, perhaps after voursemi-
colon, and some consequent "for," — starts up
one of these Bracket-ligatures, and stitches
you in from half a pasre, to twenty or thirty
pages of a Hawkins, Tyers, Murphy, Piozzi;
so that often one must make the old sad re-

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

^19

flection, " where we are we know, whither we
are going no 'man knoweth !" It is truly said
also, "There is much between the cup and the
/lip;" but here the case is still sadder: for not
till after consideration can you ascertain, now
when the cup is at the lip, what liquor is it
you are imbibing; whether Boswell's French
wine which you began with, or some Piozzi's
ginger-beer, or Hawkins's entire, or perhaps
some other great Brewer's penny-swipes or
even alegar, which has been surreptitiously
substituted instead thereof. A situation almost
original; not to be tried a second time! But,
in fine, what ideas Mr. Croker entertains of a
literary ivhole and the thing called Book, and
how the very Printer's Devils did not rise in
mutiny against such a conglomeration as this,
and refuse to print it, — may remain a problem.

But now happily our say is said. All faults,
the Moralists tell us, are properly shnrlcomings :
crimes themselves are nothing other than a
nol doing enough; a. fgliti7>g, but with defective
vigour. How much more a mere insuthciency,
and this after good efforts, in handicraft prac-
tice ! Mr. Croker says: "The worst that can
happen is that all the present Editor has
contributed may, if the reader so pleases, be
rejected as siuplKsage." It is our pleasant duty
to take with hearty welcome what he has
given; and render thanks even for what he
meant to give. Next and finally, it is our pain-
ful duty to declare, aloud if that be necessary,
that his gift, as weighed against the hard
money which the Booksellers demand for
giving it you. is (in our judgment) very greatly
the lighter. No portion, accordingly, of our
small floating capital has been embarked in
the business, or shall ever be ; indeed, were
we in the market for such a thing, there is
simply no Edition of Eoswdl to which this last
would seem preferable. And now enough, and
more than enough !

We have next a word to say of James Bos-
well. Boswell has already been much com-
mented upon ; but rather in the way of censure
and vituperation, than of true recognition. He
was a man that brought himself much before
the world ; confessed that he eagerly coveted
fame, or if that were not possible, notoriety;
of which latter as he gained far more than
seemed his due, the public were incited, not
only by their natural love of scandal, but by a
special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of
him could be said. Out of the fifteen millions
that then lived, and had bed and board, in the
British Islands, this man has provid-ed us a
greater pleamre than any other individual, at
whose cost we now enjoy ourselves; perhaps
has done us a greater service than can be
specially attributed to more than two or three:
yet, ungrateful that we are, no written or
spoicen eulogy of James Boswell anywhere
exists; his recompense in solid pudding (so
far as copyright went) was not excessive ; and
as for the etnpiy praise, it has altogether been
denied him. Men are unwiser than children;
ihey do not know the hand that feeds.

Boswell was a person whose mean or bad
qualities lay open to the general eye ; visible,
palpable to the dullest. His good qualities
3gain, belonged not to the Time he lived in;

were far from common then, indeed, in inich a
degree, were almost unexampled ; not recognis-
able therefore by every one ; nay, apt even (so
strange had they grown) to be confounded with
the very vices they lay contiguous to, and had
sprung out of. That he was a wine-bibber and
gross liver; gluttonously fond of whatever
would yield him a little solacement, were it
only of a stomachic character, is undeniable
enough. That he was vain, heedless, a bab-
bler; had much of the sycophant, alternating
with the braggadocio, curiously spiced too with
an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb ; that he
gloried much when the Tailor, by a court-suit,
had made a new man of him ; that he appeared
at the Shakspeare Jubilee with a riband, im-
printed "Corsica Boswell," round his hat;
and in short, if you will, lived no day of his
life without doing and saying more than one
pretentious ineptitude: all this unhappily is
evident as the sun at noon. The very look of
Boswell seems to have signified so much. In
that cocked nose, cocked partly in triumph
over his weaker fellow-creatures, partly to
snuff up the smell of coming pleasure, and
scent it from afar; in those bag-cheeks, hang-
ing like half-filled wine-skins, still able to con-
tain more; in that coarsely protruded shelf
mouth, that fat dewlapped chin ; in all this,
who sees not sensuality, pretension, boisterous
imbecility enough; much that could not have
been ornamental in the temper of a great man's
overfed great man, (what the Scotch name
flunky.) though it had been more natural there.
The under part of Boswell's face is of a low,
almost brutish character.

Unfortunately, on the other hand, what great
and genuine good lay in him was nowise so
self-evident. That Boswell was a hunter after
spiritual Notabilities, that he loved such, and
longed, and even crept and crawled to be near
them; that he fir>t (in old Touchwood Auchin-
leck's phraseology) " took on with Paoli," and
then being off with " the Corsican landlouper,"
look on with a schoolmaster, " ane that keeped
a schule, and ca'd it an academe;" that he did
all this, and could not help doinn; it, we account
a very singular merit. The man, once for all,
had an " open sense," an open loving heart,
which so [ew have: where Excellence existed,
he was compelled to acknowledge it; was
drawn towards it, and (let the old sulphur-
brand of a Laird say what he liked) rouhl nol
but walk with it, — if not as superior, if not as
equal, then as inferior and lackey, better sc
than not at all. If we refiect now that this love
of Excellence had not only s^c/i an evil iwiurt
to triumph over; but also what an educ'ilion
and social position withstood it and weighed
it down, its innate strength, victoriousj overall
these things, may astonish us. Consider what
an inward impulse there must have been, how
many mountains of impediment hurled aside,
before the Scottish Laird could, as humble
servant, embrace the Icnecs (the bosom was
not permitted him) of the English Dominie!
" Your Scottish Laird," says an English na-
turalist of these days, " may be defined as the
hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet known."
Boswell too was a Torj^; of quite peculiarly
feudal, genealogical, pragmatical temper, had

820

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

been nurtured in an atmosphere of Heraldry;
at the feet of a very Gamaliel in that kind;
within bare walls, adorned only with pedigrees,
amid serving-men in threadbare livery; all
things teaching him, from birth upwards, to
remember, that a Laird was a Laird. Perhaps
there was a special vanity in his very blood:
old Anchinleck had, if not the gay, tail-spread-
ing, peacock vanity of his son, no little of the
slow-stalking, contentious, hissing vanity of
the gander; a still more fatal species. Scottish
Advocates will yet tell you how the ancient
man, having chanced to be the first sheriff ap-
pointed (after the abolition of " hereditary
jurisdiction ") by royal authority, was wont,
in dull pompous tone, to preface many a de-
liverance from the bench, with these words:
"I, the first king's SherifFin Scotland."

And now behold the worthy Borzy, so pre-
possessed and held back by nature and by art,
fly nevertheless like iron to its magnet, whither
his better genius called ! You may surround
the iron and the magnet with what enclosures
and encumbrances you please, — with wood,
with rubbish, with brass : it matters not, the
two feel each other, they struggle restlessly
towards each other, they irill be together. The
iron may be a Scottish squirelet, full ofgulosity
and " gigmanity ;"* the magnet an English ple-
beian, and moving rag-and-dust mountain,
coarse, proud, irascible, imperious : neverthe-
less, behold how they embrace, and insepara-
bly cleave to one another! It is one of the
strangest phenomena of the past century, that
at a time when the old reverent feeling of Dis-
cipleship (such as brought men from far
countries, with rich gifts, and prostrate soul,
to the feet of the Prophets) had passed utterly
away from men's practical experience, and
was no longer surmised to exist, (as it does,)
perennial, indestructible, in man's inmost heart,
— James Eoswell should have been the in-
dividual, of all others, predestmed to recall it,
in such singular guise, to the wondering, and,
for a long while, laughing, and unrecognising
world. It has been commonly said, The man's
vulgar vanity was all that attached him to
Johnson ; he delighted to be seen near him, to
be thought connected with him. Now let it be
at once granted that no consideration spring-
ing out of vulgar vanity could well be absent
from the mind of James Boswell, in this his
intercourse with Johnson, or in any consider-
able transaction of his life. At the same time
ask yourself: Whether such vanity, and no-
thing else, actuated him therein; whether this
was the true essence and moving principle of
the phenomenon, or not rather its outward
vesture, and the accidental environment (and de-
facement) in which it came to light 1 The man
■was, by nature and habit, vain; a sycophant-
coxcomb, be it granted : but had there been
nothing more than vanity in him, was Samuel
Johnson the man of men to whom he must
attach himselfl At the date when Johnson
was a poor rusty-coated "scholar," dwelling

•Q" What do you mean by 'respectable V—./?. He
always kept a g\s."—(,ThurtelVs TWu/.)— " Thus," It
has been said, "does society naturally divide itself
into four classes: Noblemen.GcntleMien, Gigmen, and
Men."

in Temple-lane, and indeed throughout their
whole intercourse afterwards, were there not
chancellors and prime ministers enough;
graceful gentlemen, the glass of fashion: hon-
our-giving noblemen ; dinner giving rich men;
renowned fire-eaters, swordsmen, gownsmen;
Quacks and Realities of all hues, — any one
of whom bulked much larger in the world's
eye than Johnson ever did] To any one of
whom, by half that submissiveness and assi-
duity, our Bozzy might have recommended
himself; and sat there, the envy of surround-
ing liclfspittles ; pocketing now solid emolu-
ment, swallowing now well-cooked viands and
wines of rich vintage; in each case, also,
shone on by some glittering reflex of Renown
or Notoriety, so as to be the observed of in-
numerable observers. To no one of whom,
however, though otherwise a most diligent
solicitor and purveyor, did he so attach him-
self: such vulgar courtierships were his paid
drudgery, or leisure-amusement; the worship
of Johnson was his grand, ideal, voluntary
business. Does not the frothy-hearted yet
enthusiastic man, doffing his Advocate's-wig,
regularly take post, and hurry up to London,
for the sake of his Sage chiefly; as to a Feast
of Tabernacles, the Sabbath of his whole 3'ear ?
The plate-licker and winc-bibber dives into
Bolt Court, to sip muddy coffee with a cynical
old man, and a sour-tempered blind old woman
(feeling the cups, whether they are full, with
her finger;) and patiently endured contradic-
tions without end ; too happy so he may but
he allowed to listen and live. Nay, it does
not appear that vulgar vanity could ever have
been much flattered by Boswell's relation to
Johnson. Mr. Croker says, Johnson was, to
the last, little regarded by the great world ;
from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honour, as
from its fountain, descends. Bozzy, even
among Johnson's friends and special admirers,
seems rather to have been laughed at than
envied : his oflicious, whisking, consequential
ways, the daily reproofs and rebuffs he under-
went, could gain from the world no golden,
but only leaden, opinions. His devout Dis-
cipleship seemed, nothing more than a mean
Spanielship, in the general eye. His mighty
"constellation," or sun, round whom he, as
satellite, observantly gyrated, was, for the mass
of men, but a huge ill-snuffed tallow-light, and
he a weak night-moth, circling foolishly, dan-
gerously about it, not knowing what he wanted.
If he enjoyed Hishland dinners and toasts, as
henchman to a new sort of chieftain, Henr}
Erskine, in the domestic " Outer-House," could
hand him a shilling "for the sight of his Bear."
Doubtless the man v/as laughed at, and often
heard himself laughed at for his Johnsonism.
To be envied, is the grand and sole aim of
vulgar vanity; to be filled with good things is
that of sensuality : for Johnson perhaps no
man living envied poor Bozzy; and of good
things (except himself paid for them) there
was no vestige in that acquaintanceship. Had
nothing other or better than vanity and sea
suality been there, Johnson and Bosweli had
never come together, or had soon and finally
separated again.

In fact, the so copious terrestrial Dross that

BOSWELL'S LnS'E OF JOHNSON.

321

welters chaotically, as the outer sphere of this
man's character, does but render for us more
remarkable, more touching!:, the celestial spark
of goodness, of light, and Reverence for Wis-
dom, which dwelt in the interior, and could
struggle through such encumbrances, and iu
some degree illuminate and beautify them.
There is much lying yet undeveloped in the
love of Bosweli for Johnson. A cheering
proof, in a time which else utterly wanted and
still wants such, that living Wisdom is quite
ivfinilely precious to man, is the symbol of the
Godlilce to him, which even weak eyes may
discern; that Loyalty, Discipleship, all that
was ever meant by Hero-worship, lives peren-
nially in the human bosom, and waits, even in
these dead days, only for occasions to unfold
it, and inspire all men with it, and again make
the world alive ! James Bosweli we can re-
gard as a practical witness (or real vmriyr) to
this high, 'everlasting truth. A wonderful
martyr, if you will; and in a time which made
such martyrdom doubly wonderful: yet the
time and its martyr perhaps suited each other.
For a decrepit, death-sick Era, when Cant had
first decisively opened her poison-breathing
lips to proclaim that God-worship and Mam-
mon-worship were one and the same, that Life
was a Lie, and the Earth Beelzebub's, which
the Supreme Qv.nck should inherit; and so all
things were fallen into the yellow leaf, and fast
hastening to noisome corruption: for such an
Era, perhaps no better Prophet than a parti-
coloured Zany-Prophet, concealing (from him-
self and others) his prophetic significance in
such unexpected vestures, — Vi^as deserved, or
would have been in place. A precious medi-
cine lay hidden in floods of coarsest, most
composite treacle : the world swallowed the
treacle, for it suited the world's palate; and
now, after half a century, may the medicine
also begin to show itself! James Bosweli be-
longed, in his corruptible part, to the lowest
classes of mankind ; a foolish, inflated creature,
swimming in an element of self-conceit: but
in his corruptible there dwelt an incorruptible,
all the more impressive and indubitable for the
! trange lodging it had taken.

Consider, too, with what force, diligence,
find v'.variy, he has rendered back, all this
which, in Johnson's neighbourhood, his "open
sense" had so eagerly and freely taken in.
That loose-flowing, careless-looking Work of
Ills is as a picture by one of Nature's own
Artists; the best possible resemblance of a
Reality; lilfe the very image thereof in a clear
minor. Which indeed it was: let but the
mirror be clear, this is the great point; the pic-
ture must and will be genuine. How the bab-
bling B0ZZ3;, inspired only by love, and the
recognition and vision which love can lend,
epitomizes nightly the words of Wisdom, the
deeds and aspects of Wisdom, and so, by little
and little, unconsciously works together for us
a whole Johnsmiiad : a more free, perfect, sun-
lit, ind spirit-speaking likeness, than for many
centuries had been drawn by man of man!
Scarcely since the daj's of Homer has the feat
been equalled: indeed, in many senses, this
also is a kind of Heroic Poem. The fit Oc/y.'-
sey of our unheroic age was to be written, not
41

sung; of a Thinker, not of a Fighter; and (for
want of a Homer) by the first open soul that
might ofl^er, — looked such even through the or-
gans of a Bosweli. We do the man's intel-
lectual endowment great wrong, if we measure
it by its mere logical outcome; though here,
too, there is not wanting a light ingenuity, a
figurativencss, and fanciful sport, with glimpses
of insight far deeper than the common. But
Boswell's grand intellectual talent was (as
such ever is) an unronsrious one, of far higher
reach and significance than Logic; and showed
itself in the whole, not in parts. Here again
we have that old saying verified, "The heart
sees farther than the head."

Thus does poor Bozzy stand out to us as an
ill-assorted, glaring mixture of the highest and
the lowest. What, indeed, is man's life gene-
rally but a kind of beast-godhood ; the god in
us triumphing more and more over the beast;
striving more and more to subdue it under his
feet? Did not the Ancients, in their wise, pe-
rennially significant way, figure Nature itself,
their sacred All, or Pan, as a portentous com-
mingling of these two discords; as musical,
humane, oracular in its upper part, yet ending
below in the cloven hairy feet of a goati The
union of melodious, celestial Freewill and
Reason, with foul L-rationality and Lust; in
which, nevertheless, dwelt a mysterious un-
speakable Fear and half-mad panic Awe; as
for mortals there well might ! And is not man
a microcosm, or epitomized mirror of that
same Universe; or, rather, is not that Uni-
verse even Himself, the reflex of his own fear-
ful and wonderful being, "the waste fantasy
of his own dream 1" No wonder that man, that
each man, and James Bosweli like the others,
should resemble it! The peculiarity in his
case was the unusual defect of amalgamation
and subordination: the highest lay side by
side with the lowest; not morally combined
with it and spiritually transfiguring it; but
tumbling in half-mechanical juxtaposition
with it, and from time to time, as the mad al-
ternation chanced, irradiating it, or eclipsed
by it.

The world, as we said, has been but unjust
to him; discerning only the outer terrestrial
and often sordid mass ; without eye, as it
generally is, for his inner divine secret; and
thus figuring him nowise as a god Pan, but
simply of the bestial species, like the cattle
on a thousand hills. Nay, sometimes a strange
enough hypothesis has been started of him;
as if it were in virtue even of these same bad
qualities that he did his good work; as if it
were the very fact of his being among the
worst men in this world that had enabled him
to write one of the best books therein ! Falser
hypothesis, we may venture to say, never rose
in human soul. Badh by its nature negative,
and can d« nolhins: : whatsoever enables us to
do any thing is by its very nature good. Alas,
that there should be teachers in Israel, or even
learners, to whom this world-ancient fact ii
still problematical, or even deniable! Bos
well wrote a good Book because he had a
heart and an eye to discern Wisdom, and an
utterance to render it forth ; because of his freu
insight, his lively talent, above ail, of his Love

322

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and childlike Opeu-mindedness. His sneaking
sycophancies, his greediness and forwardness,
■whatever was bestial and earthy in him, are
so many blemishes in his Book, which still
disturb us in its clearness: wholly hindrances,
not helps. Towards Johnson, however, his
feeling was not Sycophancy, which is the low-
est, but Reverence, which is the highest of
human feelings. None but a reverent man
(which so unspeakably few are) could have
found his way from Boswell's environment to
Johnson's: if such worship for real God-made
superiors showed itself also as worship for
apparent Tailor-made superiors, even as hol-
low, interested mouth-worship for such, — the
case, in this composite human nature of ours,
was not miraculous, the more was the pity!
But for ourselves, let every one of us cling to
this last article of Faith, and know it as the
beginning of all knowledge worth the name:
That neither James Boswell's good Book, nor
any other good thing, in any time or in any
place, was, is, or can be performed by any
man in virtue of his badness, but always and
solely in spite thereof.

As for the Book itself, questionless the uni-
versal favour entertained for it is well merited.
In worth as a Book we have rated it beyond
any other product of the eighteenth century :
all Johnson's own Writings, laborious and in
their kind genuine above most, stand on a
quite inferior level to it; already, indeed, they
are becoming obsolete for this generation ; and
for some future generation, may be valuable
chiefly as Prolegomena and expository Scholia
to this Johnsoniad of Boswell. Which of us
but remembers, as one ©f the sunny spots in
his existence, the day when he opened these
airy volumes, fascinating him by a true natural-
magic! It was as if the curtains of the Past
were drawn aside, and we looked mysteriously
into a kindred country, where dwelt our
Fathers ; inexpressibly dear to us, but which
had seemed for ever hidden from our eyes.
For the dead Night had engulfed it; all was
gone, vanished as if it had not been. Never-
theless, wondrously given back to us, there
once more it lay; all bright, lucid, blooming;
a little island of Creation amid the circumam-
bient Void. There it still lies; like a thing
stationary, imperishable, over which change-
ful Time were now accumulating itself in
vain, and could not, any longer, harm it, or
hide it.

If we examine by what charm it is that men
are still held to this Life of Johnson, now when
so much else has been forgotten, the main part
of the ansv.'er will perhaps be found in that
speculation "on the import of Reali'y," com-
municated to the world, last Month, in this
Magazine. The Johnsoniad of Boswell turns
on objects that in very deed existed ; it is ail
true. So far other in melodiousness of tone, it
vies with the Odyssey or surpasses it, in this
one point: to us these read pages, as those
chanted hexameters were to the first Greek
heroes, are in the fullest, deepest ^^nse,
wholly credible. All the wit and wisdom, ytig:
embalmed in Boswell's Book, plentP'^^us as
these are, could not have saved it. Far more
scieutitic instruction (mere excitement and

enlightenment of the thinking poicer) can be
found in twenty other works of that time, which
make but a quite secondary impression on us.
The other works of that time, however, fall
under one of two classes: Either they are pro-
fessedly Didactic ; and, in that way, mere Ab-
stractions, Philosophic Diagrams, incapable
of interesting us much otherwise than as
Euclid's Elements may do : Or else, with all
their vivacity, and pictorial richness of colour,
they ore Eictions and not Eealitics. Deep, truly,
as Herr Sauerteig urges, is the force of this
consideration: The thing here stated is a fact;
these figures, that local habitation, are not
shadow but substance. In virtue of such ad-
vantages, see how a very Boswell may become
Poetical !

Critics insist much on the Poet that he
should communicate an "Infinitude" to his
delineation ; that by intensity of conception,
by that gift of " transcendental Thought,"
which is fitly named genius, and inspiration, he
should inform the Finite with a certain Infini-
tude of significance ; or as they sometimes say,
ennoble the Actual into Idealness. They are
right in their precept; they mean rightly. But
in cases like this of the Johnsoniad, (such is
the dark grandeur of that "Time-element,"
wherein man's soul here below lives impri-
soned,) the Poet's task is, as it were, done to
his hand: Time itself, which is the outer veil
of Eternity, invests, of its own accord, with an
authentic, felt "infinitude," whatsoever it has
once embraced in its mysterious folds. Con-
sider all that lies in that one word, Past!
What a pathetic, sacred, in every sense poetic,
meaning is implied in it; a meaning growing
ever the clearer, the farther we recede in Time,
— the more of that same Past we have to look
through ! — On which ground indeed must
Sauerteig have built, and not without plausi-
bility, in that strange thesis of his : "that His-
tory after all is the true Poetry; that Reality
if rightly interpreted is grander than Fiction;
na}', that even in the right interpretation of
Reality and History does genuine Poetry con-
sist."

Thus for PostceU's Life of Johnson has Time
done, is Time still doing, what no ornament
of Art or Artifice could have done for it. Rough
Samuel and sleek wheedling James icere, and
are not. Their Life and whole personal Envi-
ronment has melted into air. The Mitre
Tavern still stands in Fleet Street: but where
now is its scot-and-lot paying, beef-and-ale
loving, cocked-hatted, potbellied Landlord; its
rosy-faced, assiduous Landlady, with all her
shining brass-pans, waxed tables, well-filled
larder-shelves; her cooks, and bootjacks, and
errand-boys, and watery-mouthed hangers-on 1
Gone! Gone! The becking M'aiter, that with
wreathed smiles, wont to spread for Samuel
and Bozzy their " supper of the gods," has long
since pocketed his last sixpence; and vanish-
ed, sixpences and all, like a ghost at cock
crowing. The Bottles they drank out of art
all broken, the Chairs they sat on all rotted
and burnt; the very Knives and Forks they
ate with have rusted to the heart, and become
brown oxide of iron, and mingled with the in-
discriminate clay. All, all, has vanished; in

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

rery deed and truth, like that baseless fabric
of Prospero's air-vision. Of the Mitre Tavern
nothing but the bare walls remain there: of
London, of England, of the World, nothing but
ihe bare walls remain ; and these also decay-
ing, (were they of adamant,) only slower. The
mysterious River of Existence rushes on : a
new Billow thereof has arrived, and lashes
wildly as ever round the old embankments;
but the former Billow with its loud, mad eddy-
ings, where is it? — Where! — Now this Book
of Boswell's, this is precisely a Revocation of
the Edict of Destiny; so that Time shall not
utterly, not so soon by several centuries, have
dominion over us. A little row of Naphtha-
lamps, with its line of Naphtha-light, burns
clear and holy through the dead Night of the
Past : they who are gone are still here ; though
hidden ihey are revealed, though dead they yet
speak. There it shines, that little miraculously
lamp-lit Pathway; shedding its feebler and
feebler twilight into the boundless dark Ob-
livion, for all that our Johnson lonchal has
become illuminated for us : on which miracu-
lous little Pathway we can still travel, and see
wonders.

It is not speaking with exaggeration, but
with strict measured sobriety, to say that this
Book of Boswell's will give us more real in-
sight into the History nf England during those
days than twenty other Books, falsely entitled
"Histories," which take to themselves that
special aim. What good is it to me though
innumerable Smolletts and Belshams keep
dinning in my ears that a man named George
the Third was born and bred up, and a man
named George the Second died ; that Walpole,
and the Pelhams, and Chatham, and Rocking-
ham, and Shclburne, and North, with their
Coalition or their Separation Ministries, all
ousted one another ; and vehemently scrambled
for "the thing they called the Rudder of Go-
vernment, but which was in reality the Spigot
of Taxation V That debates were held, and
infinite jarring and jargoning took place ; and
road-bills and enclosure-bills, and game-bills
and India-bills, and Laws which no man can
number, which happil}' few men needed to
trouble their heads with beyond the passing
moment, were enacted, and printed by the
King's Stationer? That he who sat in Chan-
cery, and rayed out speculation from the
Woolsack, was now a man that squinted, now
a man that did not squint? To the hungry
and thirsty mind all this avails next to nothing.
These men and these things, we indeed know,
did swim, by strength or by specific levity, (as
apples or as horse-dung.) on the top of the
current : but is it by painfully noting the
courses, eddyings, and bobbings hither and
thither of such drift-articles, that you will un-
fold to me the nature of the current itself; of
that mighty-rolling, loud-roaring. Life-current,
bottomless as the foundations of the Universe,
mysterious as its Author? The thing I want
to see is not Redbook Lists, and Court Calen-
dars, and Parliamentary Registers, but the
Life of Max in England: what men did,
thought, suffered, enjoyed ; the form, especially
the spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its out-
ward environment, its inward principle; how

and what it was; whence it proceeded, whither
it was tending.

Mournful, in truth, is it to behold what the
business called " History," in these so enlight-
ened and illuminated times, still continues to
be. Can you gather from it, read till your
eyes go out, any dimmest shadow of an an-
swer to that great question : How men lived
and had their being; were it but economically,
as what wages they got, and what they bought
with these? Unhappily you cannot. History
will throw no light on any such matter. At
the point where living memory fails, it is all
darkness; Mr. Senior and Mr. Sadler must
still debate this simplest of all elements in the
condition of the past: Whether men were bet-
ter off, in their mere larders and pantries, or
were worse ofi'than now! History, as it stands
all bound up in gilt volumes, is but a shade
more instructive than the wooden volumes of
a Backgammon-board. How ray Prime Minis-
ter was appointed is of less moment to me
than How my House Servant was hired. In
these days, ten ordinary Histories of Kings
and Courtiers were well exchanged against
the tenth part of one good History of Book-
sellers.

For example, I would fain know the His-
tory of Scotland ; who can tell it me ? "Ro-
bertson," cry innumerable voices ; "Robertson
against the world." I open Robertson ; and
find there, through long ages too confused for
narrative, and fit only to be presented in the
way of epitome and distilled essence, a cun-
ning answer and hypothesis, not to this ques-
tion : By whom, and by what means, when
and how, was this fair broad Scotland, with
its Arts and Manufactures, Temples, Schools,
Institutions, Poetry, Spirit, National Charac-
ter, created and made arable, verdant, pecu-
liar, great, here as I can see some fair section
of it lying, kind and strong, (like some Bac-
chus-tamed Lion,) from the Castle-hill of Edin-
burgh ? — but to this other question : How did
the King keep himself alive in these old days;
and restrain so many Butcher-Barons and
ravenous Henchmen from utterly extirpating
one another, so that killing went on in some
sort of moderation ? In the one little Letter
of jEneas Sylvius, from old Scotland, there is
more of History than in all this. — At length,
however, we come to a luaiinous age, interest-
ing enough; to the age of the Reformation.
All Scotland is awakeneJ to a second higher
life: the Spirit of the highest stirs in every
bosom, agitates every bosom ; Scotland is
convulsed, fermenting, struggling to body
itself forth anew. To the herdsman among
his cattle in remote woods ; to the craftsman,
in his rude, heath-thatched workshop, among
his nide guild-brethren ; to the great and to
the little, a new light has arisen: in town and
hamlet groups are gathered, with eloquent
looks, and governed or ungovernable tongues;
the great and the little go forth together to do
battle for the Lord against the mighty. We
ask, with breathless eagerness: How was it;
how went it on? Let us understand it, let us
see it, and know it! — In reply, is handed us a
I really graceful, and most dainty little Scanda-
i lous Chronicle (as for some Journal of Fash*

324

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ion) of two persons : Mary Stuart, a Beauty,
but over lightheaded; and Henry Darnley, a
Booby, who had fine legs. How these first
courted, billed and cooed, according to nature;
tlien pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged, and
blew one another up with gunpowder: this,
and not the History of Scotland, is what we
goodnaturedjy read. Nay, by other hands,
something like a horseload of other Books
have been written to prove that it was ttie
B^>auty who blew up the Booby, and that it was
not she. Who or what it was, the thing once
fur all bcmg so efl^eclually done, concerns us
little. To know Scotland, at that great epoch,
were a valuable increase of knowledge: to
know poor Darnley and see him with burning
candle, from centre to skin, were no increase
of knowledge at all. — Thus is History written.

Hence, indeed, comes it that History, which
should be "the essence of innumerable Bio-
graphies," will tell us, question it as we like,
less than one genuine Biography may do,
pleasantly and of its own accord! The time
is approaching when History will be attempted
on quite other principles; when the Court, the
Senate, and Battle-field, receding more and
more into the background, the Temple, the
Workshop, and Social Hearth, will advance
more and more into the foreground ; and His-
tory will not content itself with shaping some
answer to that question : How are men Inxerl
and kcpi (jiiici then T but will seek to answer
this other infinitely wider and higher question :
How and what were vicn then 1 Not our Go-
vernment only, or the " Hon.^c wherein our life
was led," but the Life itself we led there, will
be inquired into. Of which latter it may be
found that Government, in any modern sense
of the word, is after all but a secondary con-
dition : in the mere sense of Tamlion and
Keeping <piie', a small, almost a pitiful one. —
Meanwhile let us welcome such Boswells,
each in his degree, as bring us any genuine
contribution, were it never so inadequate, so
inconsiderable.

An exception was early taken against this
Life of Jolinsoii, and all similar enterprises,
which we here recommend ; and has been
transmitted from critic to critic, and repeated
in their several dialects, uninterruptediv, ever
since: That such jottings down of careless
conversation are an infringement of social
privacy; a crime against our highest Free-
dom, the Freedom of man's intercourse with
man. To this accusation, which we have
read and heard ofiener than enough, might it
not be well for once to offer the flattest con-
tradiction, and plea of No' at nil guiiy ? Not
that conversation is noted down, but that con-
versation should not deserve noting down, is
the evil. Doubtless, if ctmversation be falsely
recorded, then is it simply a Lie; and worthy
.of being swept, with all despatch, to the Fa-
iber of Lies. But if, on the other hand, con-
versation can be authentically recorded, and
any one is ready for the task, let him by all
means proceed with it; let conversation be
kept in remembrance to the latest date possi-
ble. Nay, should the consciousness that a
man may be among us " taking notes" tend,
to any measure, to restrict those floods of idle

insincere speech with which the thov.ght of ms.n'
kind is well nigh drowned, — were it other than
the most indubitable benefit] He who speaks
honestly cares not, needs not care, though his
words be preserved to remotest time: for him
who speaks c/ishonesily, the fittest of all punish,
menls seems to be this same, which the na-
ture of the case provides. The dishonest
speaker, not he only who purposely utters
falsehoods, but he who does not purposely,
and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth
alone; who babbles he knows not what, and
has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it
run racket, ejecting chatter and futility, — is
among the most indubitable malefactors omit-
ted, or inserted, in the Criminal Calendar.
To him that will well consider ii, idle speak-
ing is precisely the beginning of all Hollow-
ness, Halfness, Lifidelily, (want of Faithful-
ness;) the genial atmosphere in which rank
weeds of every kind attain the mastery over
noble fruits in man's life, and utterly choke
them out: one of the most crying maladies
of these days, and to be testified against, and
in all ways to the uttermost withstood. Wise,
of a wisdom far beyond our shalfow depth,
was that old precept : Watch thy tongue . out
of it are the issues of Life ! " Man is properly
an incaninied word :" the laord that he spealrs is
the m-ni himself. Were eyes put into our
head, that we might «•«,- or only that we might
fancy, and plausibly pretend, we had seen?
Was the tongue suspended there, that it might
tell truly what we had seen, and make man
the soul's brother of man ; or only that it
might ulter vain sounds, jargon, soul-confus-
ing, and so da-ide man, as by enchanted walls
of Darkness, from union with man ? Thoa
who wearest that cunning. Heaven-made or-
gan, a Tongue, think well of this. Speak not,
I passionately entreat thee, till thy thought
Iiave silently matured itself, till thou have
other than mad and mad-making noises to
emit : hold thy longiie (thou hast it a-holding)
till sm/if meaning lie behind, to set it wagging.
Consider the significance of Silence: it is
boundless, never by meditating to be exhaust-
ed; unspeakably profitable to thee! Cease
that chaotic hubbub, wherein thy own soul
runs to waste, to confused suicidal dislocation
and s'upor: oulof Silence comes thy strength.
"Speech is silvern. Silence is golden; Speech
is hum in. Silence is divine." Fool ! thinkest
thou that because no Boswell is there with
ass-'-kin and black-lead to note ihy jargon, it
therefore dies and is harmless] Nothin? dies,
nothing can die. No idlest word thou speak-
est but is a seed cast into Time, and grows
through all Eternity! The Recording Angel,
consider it well, is no fable, but the truest of
truths : the paper tablets thou canst burn ; of
the "iron leaf" there is no burning. — Truly,
if we can permit God Almighty to note down
our conversation, thinlcing it good enough for
Him, — any poor Boswell need not scruple to
work his will of it.

Leaving now this our English Odyssey, with
its Singer and Scholiast, let us come to the
Ulyase^ : that great Samuel Johnson himself,
the far-experienced, " much-enduring man/'

fiOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

325

whose labours and pilgrimage are here sung.
A full-length image of his Existence has been
preserved for us: and he, perhaps of all living
Englishmen, was the one who best deserved
that honour. For if it is true and now almost
proverbial, that " the Life of the lowest mortal,
if faithfully recorded, would be interesting to
the highest;" how much more when the mor-
tal in question was already distinguished in
fortune and natural quality, so that his think-
ings and doings were not significant of himself
only, but of large masses of maiildnd ! " 'I'here
is not a man whom I meet on the streets," says
one, "but I could like, were it otherwise con-
venient, to know his Biography:" neverthe-
less:, could an enlightened curiosity be so far
gratified, it must be owned the Biography of
most ought to be, in an extreme degree, sum-
mary. In this world, there is so wonderfully
little self-subsistence among men ; next to no
originality, (though never absolutely none.)
one Life is too servilely the copy of another;
and so in whole thousands of them you find
little that is properly new; nothing but the old
song sung by a new voice, with better or
worse execution, here and there an ornamen-
tal quaver, and false notes enough : but the
fundamental tune is ever the same; and for
the ivords, these, all that they meant stands
written generally on the Churchyard stone:
Natus sum : esurieham, qucrreham : nunc rephius
requie^ro. Mankind sail their Life-voyage in
huge fleets, following some single whale-fish-
ing or herring-fishing Commodore: the log-
book of each differs not, in essential purport,
from that of any other; nay the most have no
legible log-book (reflection, observation not
being among their talents;) keep no reckon-
ing, only keep in sight of the flagship, — and fish.
Read the Commodore's Papers, (know his Life ;)
and even your lover of that street Biography
will have learned the most of what he sought
after.

Or, the servile hvitniiaj, and yet also a nobler
relationship and mysterious union to one
another v/hich lies in such imitancy, of Tvlan-
kind might be illustrated under the difl^erent
figure (itself nowise original) of a Flock of
Sheep. Sheep go in flocks for three reasons:
First, because they are of a gregarious temper,
and love to be together: Secondly, because of
their cowardice ; they are afraid to be left
alone : Thirdly, because the common run of
them are dull of sight, to a proverb, and can
have no choice in roads; sheep can in fact see
nothing; in a celestial Luminar)%and a scour-
ed pewter Tankard, would discern only that
both dazzled them, and were of unspeakable
glory. How like their fellow-creatures of the
human species! Men, too, as was from the
first maintained here, are gregarious: then
surely faint-hearted enough, trembling to be
Jeft by themselves: above all, dull-sighted,
down to the verge of utter blindness. Thus
p-e we seet\ ever running in torrents, and
mobs, if we run at all ; and after what foolish
scoured Tankards, mistaking them for Suns !
Foolish Turnip-lanterns likewise, to all ap-
pearance supernatural, keep whole nations
quaking, their hair on snd. Neither know
we,exi '>pt by blind habl;, where the good pas-

tures lie: solely when the sweet grass is be-
tween our teeth, we know it, and chew it; also
when grass is bitter and scant, we know it, —
and bleat and butt: these last two facts we
know of a truth, and in very deed. — Thus do
Men and Sheep play their parts on this Nether
Earth; wandering restlessly in large masses,
they know not whither; for most part, each
following his neighbour, and his own nose.

Nevertheless, not always; look better, you
shall find certain that do, in some small de-
gree, knoio whither. Sheep have their Bell-
wether; some ram of the folds, endued with
more valour, with clearer vision than other
sheep; he leads them through the wolds, by
height and hollow, to the woods and water-
courses, for covert or for pleasant provender;
courageously marching, and if need he, leap-
ing, and with hoof and horn doing battle, in
the van: him they courageously, and with as-
sured heart, follow. Touching it is, as every
herdsman will inform you, with what chival-
rous devoledness these woolly Hosts adhere to
their Wether; and rush after him, through
good report and through bad report, were it
into safe shelters and green thyiuy nooks, or
into asphaltic lakes and the jaws of devouring
lions. Ever also must we recall that fact
which we owe Jean Paul's quick eye: "Tf you
hold a stick before the Wether, so that he, by
necessity, leaps in passing you, and then with-
draw your stick, the Flock will nevertheless
all leap as he did; and the thousandth sheep
shall be found impetuously vaulting over air,
as the first did over an otherwise impassable
barrier." Reader, wouldst thou understand
Society, ponder well those ovine proceedings;
thou wilt find them all curiously significant.

Now if sheep always, how much more must
men always, have their Chief, their Guide!
Man, loo, is by nature quite thoroughly grega-
rious : nay, ever he struggles to be something
more, to be social; not even when Society has
become impossible, does that deep-seated ten-
dency and effort forsake him. Man, as if by
miraculous magic, imparts his Thoughts, his
Mood of mind to man; an unspeakable com-
munion binds all past, present, and future men
into one indissoluble whole, almost into one
living individual. Of which high, mysterious
Truth, this disposition to imitate, to lead and
be led, this impossibility not to imitate, is the
most constant, and one of the simplest mani-
festations. To " imitate !" which of us all can
measure the significance that lies in that one
word? By virtue of which the infant Man,
born at Woolsthorpe, grows up not .0 be a
hairy Savage, and chewer of Acorns, but an
Isaac Newton, and Discoverer of Solar Sys-
tems ! — Thus both in a celestial and terrestrial
sense, are we a Flock, such as there is no
other: nay, looking away from the base an'',
ludicrous to the sublime and sacred side of the
matter, (since in every matter there are two
sides,) have not we also a Shephehd, " if w«;
will but hear his voice?" Of those stupui
multitudes there is no one but has an immor
tal Soul within him ; a reflex, and living imago
of God's whole Universe: strangely, from its
dim environment, the light of the Highest
looks through him ; for which reason, indeed,
2E

328

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

it is that we claim a brotherhood with him,
and so love to know his History, and come
into clearer and clearer union with all that he
feels, and says, and does.

However, the chief thing to be noted was
this : Amid those dull millions, who, as a dull
flock, roll hither and thither, whithersoever they
are led, and seem all sightless and slavish, ac-
complishing, attempting little save what the
animal instinct (in its somewhat higher kind)
might teach, (to keep themselves and their
young ones alive,) — are scattered here and
there superior natures, whose eye is not desti-
tute of free vision, nor their heart of free voli-
tion. These latter, therefore, examine and
determine, not what others do, but what it is
right to do; towards which, and which only,
will they, with such force as is given them,
resolutely endeavour: for if the Marchine,
living or inanimate, is merely fed, or desires
to be fed, and so works ; the Person can will,
and so do. These are properly our Men, our
Great Men ; the guides of the dull host, — which
follows them as by an irrevocable decree.
They are the chosen of the world: they had
this rare faculty not only of " supposing" and
"inclining to think," but oi knowing and believ-
ing; the nature of their being was, that they
lived not by Hearsay but by clear Vision ;
while others hovered and swam along, in the
grand Vanity-fair of the World, blinded by the
mere " Shows of things," these saw into the
Things themselves, and could walk as men
having an eternal load-star, and with their feet
on sure paths. Thus was there a Realdy in
their existence; something of a perennial
character ; in virtue of which indeed it is that
the memory of them is perennial. Whoso
belongs only to his own age, and reverences
only Us gilt Popinjays or soot-smeared Mum-
bojumbos, must needs die with it: though he
have been crowned seven times in the Capitol,
or seventy and seven times, and Rumour have
blown his praises to all the four winds, deafen-
ing every ear therewith, — it avails not; there
was nothing universal, nothing eternal in him;
he must fade away, even as the Popinjay-
gildings and Scarecrow-apparel, which he
could not see through. The great man does,
in good truth, belong to his own age ; nay,
more so than any other man ; being properly
the synopsis and epitome of such age with its
interests and influences : but belongs likewise
to all ages, otherwise he is not great. What
was transitory in him passes away; and an
immortal part remains, the significance of
which is in strict speech inexhaustible, — as
that of every real object is. Aloft, conspicuous,
on his enduring basis, he stands there, serene,
unaltering; silently addresses to every new
generation a new lesson and monition. Well
is his Life worth writing, worth interpreting ;
and ever, in the new dialect of new times, of
re-writing and re-interpreting.

Of such chosen men was Samuel Johnson:
not ranking among the highest, or even the
high, yet distinctly admitted into that sacred
band; whose existence was no idle Dream,
but a Reality which he transacted awake; no-
wise a Clothes-horse and Patent Digester, but
a genuine Man. By nature he was gifted for

the noblest of earthly tasks, that of Priesthood,
and Guidance of mankind ; by destiny, more-
over, he was appointed to this task, and did
actually, according to strength, fulfil the same:
so that always the question. How; in tohat
spirit ; wider what shape ? remains for us to be
asked and answered concerning him. For as
the highest Gospel was a Biography, so is the
Life of every good man still an indubitable
Gospel, and preaches to the eye and heart and
whole man, that Devils even must believe and
tremble, these gladdest tidings: "Man is
heaven-born ; not the thrall of Circumstances,
of Necessity, but the victorious subduer
thereof: behold how be can become the
'Announcer of himself and of his Freedom;'
and is ever what the Thinker has named him,
'the Messias of Nature!'" — Yes, Reader, all
this that thou hast so often heard about " force
of circumstances," " the creature of the time,."
" balancing of motives," and who knows what
melancholy stuff to the like purport, wherein
thou, as in a nightmare Dream, sittest jxiralyz-
ed, and hast no force left, — was in very truth,
if Johnson and waking men are to be credited,
little other than a hag-ridden vision of death-
sleep : some half-f&ct, more fatal at times thaa
a whole falsehood. Shake i.l off; awake; up
and be doing, even as it is given thee !

The Contradiction which yawns wide enough
in every Life, which it is the meaning and task
of Life to reconcile, was in Johnson's wider
than in most. Seldom, for any man, has the
contrast between the ethereal heavenward side
of things, and the dark sordid earthwrard, been
more glaring: whether we look at Nature's
work with him or Fortune's, from first to last,
heterogeneity, as of sunbeams and miry clay,
is on all hands manifest. Whereby indeed,
only this was declared, That much Life had
been given him ; many things to triumph over,
a great Avork to do. Happily also he did it;
better than the most.

Nature had given him a high, keen-visioned,
almost poetic soul ; yet withal imprisoned it in
an inert, unsightly body: he that could never
rest had not limbs that would move with hiin,
but only roll and waddle: the inward eye, all-
penetrating, all embracing, must look through
bodily windows that were dim, half-blinded;
he so loved men, and " never once saw the
human face divine !" Not less did he prize the
love of men ; he was emJnently social; the
approbation of his fellows was dear to him,
" valuable," as he owned, " if from the meanest
of human beings :" yet the first impression he
produced on every man was to be one of aver-
sion, almost of disgust. By Nature it was
farther ordered that the imperious Johnson
should be born poor: the ruler-soul, strong in
its native royalty, generous, uncontrollable,
like the lion of the woods, was to be housed,
then, in such a dwelling-place: of Disfigure-
ment, Disease, and lastly of a Poverty which
itself made him the servant of servants. Thus
was the born King likewise a born Slave : the
divine spirit of Music must awake imprisoned
amid dull-croaking universal Discords; the
Ariel finds himself encased in the coarse hulls
of a Caliban. So is it more or less, we know,
(and thou, 0 Reader, knowest andfeelestevea

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

327

Bow,) with all men : yet with the fewest men
in any such degree as with Johnson.

Fortune, moreover, which had so managed
his first appearance in the world, lets not her
hand lie idle, or turn the other wa}'', but works
unweariedly in the same spirit, while he is
journeying through the world. What such a
mind, stamped of Nature's noblest metal,
though in so ungainly a die, was specially
and best of all fitted for, might still be a ques-
tion. To none of the world's few Incorporated
Guilds could he have adjusted himself without
ditficui'y, without distortion; in none been a
Guild-Brother well at ease. Perhaps, if we
look to the strictly practical nature of his
faculty, to the strength, decision, method that
manifests itself in him, we may say that his
calling was rather towards Active than Specu-
\ative life ; that as Statesman, (in the higher,
low obsolete sense,) Lawgiver, Ruler: in
shori, as Doer of the Work, he had shone even
more than as Speaker of the Word. His hon-
esty of heart, his courageous temper, the value
he set on things outward and material, might
have made him a King among Kings. Had
the golden age of those new French Prophets,
when it shall be : .A chacnn scion sa capacile ; a
chaqtt£ C2paci'e scion ses auvrcs, but arrived ! In-
jleedeven in cur brazen and Birmingham-lacker
jtge, he himself regretted that he had not be-
come a Lawyer, and risen to be Chancellor,
;7hich he might well have done. However, it
vi^s otherwise appointed. To no man does
Fo Tane throw open all the kingdoms of this
woi 'd, and say : It is thine ; choose where thou
wilt Iwell .' To the most she opens hardly the
small "-St cranny oi doghutch, and says, not
withoL': asperity There, that is thine whilst
(hou CL :3t keep il : nestle thyself there, and
bless Heaven ! Alas, men must fit themselves
into many things : some forty years ago, for
instance, the noblest and ablest man in all the
British lands might be seen not swaying the
royal sceptre, or the pontiff's censer, on the
pinnacle of the World, but gauging ale-tubs in
the little burgh of Dumfries ! Johnson came a
little nearer the mark than Burns : but with
him too, "Strength was mournfully denied its
arena;" he too had to fight Fortune at strange
odds, all his life long.

Johnson's disposition for royalty, (had the
Fates so ordered it,) is well seen in early boy-
hood. " His favourites," says Boswell, "used
to receive very liberal assistance from him ;
and such was the submission and deference
with which he was treated, that three of the
boys, of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes one,
used to come in the morning as his humble
attendants, and carry him to school. One in
the middle stooped, while he sat upon his back,
and one on each side supported him ; and thus
was he borne triumphant." The purlly, sand-
blind lubber and blubber, with his open mouth
and his face of bruised honeycomb: yet al-
ready dominant, imperial, and irresistible ! Not
in ihe " King's chair" (of human arms) as we
see, do his three satellites carry him along:
rather on the TyranCs-saddle, the back of his
fellow-creature, must he ride prosperous ! —
The child is father of the man. He who had
seen fif'v vears into coming Time, would have

felt that little spectacle of mischievous school-
boys to be a great one. For us, who look back
on it, and what followed it, now from afar, there
arise questions enough : How looked these
urchins'? What jackets and galligaskins had
they; felt headgear, or of dogskin leather ? What
was old Lichfield doing then ; what thinkingi
— and so on, through the whole series of Cor-
poral Trim's " auxiliary verbs." A picture of
it all fashions itself together ; — only unhappily
we have no brush, and no fingers.

Boyhood is now past; the ferula of Peda-
gogue waves harmless, in the distance : Sam-
uel has struggled up to uncouth bulk and
youthhood, wrestling with Disease and Pov-
erty, all the way ; which two continue still his
companions. At College we see little of him:
yet thus much, that things went not well. A
rugged wild-man of the desert, awakened to
the feeling of himself; proud as the proudest,
poor as the poorest : stoically shut up, silently
enduring the incurable : what a world of black-
est gloom, with sun-gleams, and pale, tearful
moon-gleams, and flickerings of a celestial and
an infernal splendour, was this that now opened
for him ! But the weather is wintry; and the
toes of the man are looking through his shoes.
His muddy features grow of a purple and sea-
green colour; a flood of black indignation
mantling beneath. A truculent, raw-boned
figure! Meat he has probably little ; hope he
has less ; his feet, as we said, have come into
brotherhood with the cold mire.

" Shall I be particular," inquires Sir John
Hawkins, " and relate a circumstance of his
distress, that cannot be imputed to him as an
effect of his own extravagance or irregularity,
and consequently reflects no disgrace on his
memory 1 He had scarce any change of rai-
ment, and, in a short time after Corbet left him,
but one pair of shoes, and those so old that his
feet were seen through them: a gentleman of
his college, the father of an eminent clergy-
man now living, directed a servitor one morn-
ing to place a new pair at the door of Johnson's
chamber; who seeing them upon his first
going out, so far forgot himself and the spirit
which must have actuated his unknown bene-
factor, that, with all the indignation of an in-
sulted man, he threw them away."

How exceedingly surprising ! — The Rev. Dr
Hall remarks : " As far as we can judge from
a cursory view of the weekly account in the
buttery books, Johnson appears to have lived
as well as other commoners and scholars."
Alas! such "cursory view of the buttery
books," now from the safe distance of a cen-
tury, in the safe chair of a College Mastership,
is one thing ; the continual view of the empty
(or locked) buttery itself was quite a different
thing. But hear our Knight, how he farther
discourses. "Johnson," quoth Sir John, "could
not at this early period of his life divest him-
self of an idea that poverty was disgraceful;
and was very severe in his censures of that
economy in both our Universities, which ex
acted at meals the attendance of poor scholars,
under the several denominations of Servitors
in the one and Sizers in the other : he thought
that the Scholar's, like the Christian life, le-
\ veiled all distinctions of rank and worldly pre-

838

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

eminence ; but in this he was mistaken: civil
polity," &c., &c. — Too true ! it is man's lot to
err.

However, Destiny, in all ways, means to
prove the mistaken Samuel, and see what stuff
is in him. He must leave these butteries of
Oxford, Want like an armed man compelling
him ; retreat into his father's mean home ;
and there abandon himself for a season to in-
action, disappointment, shame, and nervous
melancholy nigh run mad ; he is probably the
wretchedest man in wide England. In all
ways, he too must " become perfect through
suffering." — High thoughts have visited him ;
his College Exercises have been praised
beyond the walls of College ; Pope himself
has seen that Translation, and approved of it :
Samuel had whispered to himself: I too am
"one and somewhat." False thoughts; that
leave only misery behind! The fever-fire of
Ambition is too painfully extinguished (but not
cured) in the frost-bath of Poverty. Johnson
has knocked at the gate, as one having a
right; but there was no opening: the world
lies all encircled as with brass ; nowhere can
he find or force the smallest entrance. An
ushership at Market Bosworth, and "a dis-
agreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixie,
the Patron of the school," yields him bread of
affliction and water of affliction ; but so bitter,
that unassisted human nature cannot swallow
them. Young Samson will grind no more in
the Philistine mill of Bosworth ; quits hold of
Sir Wolstan and the "domestic chaplaincy, so
far at least as to say grace at table," and also
to be " treated with what he represented as
intolerable harshness;" and so, after "some
months of such complicated misery," feeling
doubtless that there are worse things in the
world than quick death by Famine, " relin-
quishes a situation, which all his life after-
wards he recollected with the strongest aver-
sion, and even horror." Men like Johnson are
properly called the Forlorn Hope of the World :
judge whether his hope was forlorn or not, by
this letter to a dull oily Printer, who called
himself Sylvanus Urban:

"Sir, — As you appear no less sensible than
your readers, of the defect of your poetical
article, you will not be displeased if (in order
to the improvement of it) I communicate to
you the sentiments of a person who will under-
take, on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a
column.

"His opinion is, that the public would,"
Aic, &c.

" If such a correspondence will be agreeable
to you, be pleased to inform me in two posts,
what the conditions are on which you shall
expect it. Your late offer (for a Prize Poem)
gives me no reason to distrust your generosity.
If you engage in any literary projects besides
this paper, I have other designs to impart."

Reader, the generous person, to whom this
Letter goes addressed, is "Mr. Edmund Cave,
at St. John's Gate, London;" the addresser of
it is Samuel Johnson, in Birmingham, War-
wickshire.

Nevertheless, Life rallies in the man ; re-as-
serts its right to be lived, even to be enjoyed.
• Better a small bush," say the Scotch, " than

no shelter:" Johnson learns to be contented
with humble human things ; and is there not
already an actually realized human Existence,
all stirring and living on every hand of him 1
Go thou and do likewise ! In Birmingham
itself, with his own purchased goose-quiU, he
can earn " five pounds ;" nay, finally, the
choicest terrestrial good : a Friend, who will
be Wife to him ! Johnson's marriage with the
good Widow Porter has been treated with ridi-
cule by many mortals, who apparently had no
understanding thereof. That the purblind,
seamy-faced \Vildman, stalking lonely, wo-
stricken, like some Irish Gallow-glass with
peeled club, whose speech no man knew,
whose look all men both laughed at and shud-
dered at, should find any brave female heart,
to acknowledge, at first sight and hearing of
him, " This is the most sensible man lever
met with ;" and then, with generous courage,
to take him to itself, and say, Be thou mine ;
be thou warmed here, and thawed into life ! —
in all this, in the kind Widow's love and pity
for him, in Johnson's love and gratitude, there
is actually no matter fur ridicule. Their wed-
ded life, as is the common lot, was made up of
drizzle and dry weather; but innocence and
worth dwelt in it; and when death had ended
it, a certain sacredness : Johnson's deathless
afifection for his Tett}' was always venerable
and noble. However, be this as it might,
Johnson is now minded to wed ; and will live
by the trade of Pedagogy, for by this also may
life be kept in. Let the world therefore take
notice : " Jit Edial near Lichfidd, in Stafford-
shire, young gen:lemcn are boarded, and taught the
Latin and Greek languages, liy Samuel Johxson."
Had this Edial enterprise prospered, how dif-
ferent might the issue have been ! Johnson
had lived a life of unnoticed nobleness, or
swoln into some amorphous Dr. Parr, of no
avail to us ; Bozzy would have dwindled into
official insignificance, or risen by some other
elevation ; old Auchinleek had never been af-
flicted with " ane that kept a schule," or obliged
to violate hospitality by a " Cromwell do ? God,
sir, he gart kings ken that there was a litli in
their neck I" But the Edial entv^^rprise did not
prosper; Destiny had other work appointed for
Samuel Johnson ; and young gentlemen got
board where they could elsewhere find it.
This man was to become a TeacJier of grown
gentlemen, in the most surpri.- ng way; a
man of Letters, and Ruler of the British
Nation for some time, — not of iheir bodies
merely, but of their minds; ntt over them,
but m them.

The career of Literature could not, in John-
son's day, any more than now, be said to lie
along the shores of a Pactolus : whatever else
might be gathered there, gold-dust was nowise
the chief produce. The world, from the times
of Socrates, St. Paul, and far earlier, has al-
ways had its Teachers ; and always treated
them in a peculiar way. A shrewd Town-
clerk, (not of Ephesus,) once, in foundinjj
a Burgh-Seminary, when the question came,
How tlie Schoolmasters should be maintained ?
delivered this brief counsel : " D — n them,
keep them j;oor.'" Considerable wisdom may

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

329

lie in this aphorism. At all events, we see, the
world has acted on it long, and indeed im-
proved on it, — putting many a Schoolmaster
of its great Burgh-Seminary to a death, which
even cost it something. The world, it is true,
had for some time been too busy to go out of
its way, and /)«< any Author to death; however,
the old sentence pronounced against them was
found to be pretty sufficient. The first Writers
(being Monks) were sworn to a vow of Po-
verty; the modern Authors had no need to
swear to it. This was the epoch when an
Otway could still die of hunger: not to speak
of your innumerable Scrogginses, whom "the
Muse found stretched beneath a rug," with
"rusty grate unconscious of a fire," stocking-
nightcap, sanded tloor, and all the other es-
cutcheons of the craft, time out of mind the
heirlooms of Authorship. Scroggins, how-
ever, seems to have been but an idler ; not at all
so diligent as worthy Mr. Boyce, whom we
might have seen silting up in bed with his
wearing apparel of Blanket about him, and a
hole slit in the same, that his hand might be at
liberty to work in its vocation. The worst
was, that too frequently a blackguard reckless-
ness of temper ensued, incapable of turning
to account what good the gods even here had
provided : your Boyces acted on some stoico-
epicurean principle of carpe diem, as men do
in bombarded towns, and seasons of raging-
pestilence ; — and so had lost not only their
life, and presence of mind, but their status as
persons of respectability. The trade of Au-
thor was about one of its lowest ebbs, when
fohnson embarked on it.

Accordingly we find no mention of Illumi-
nations in the city of London, when this same
Ruler of the British nation arrived in it : no
cannon-salvoes are fired^ no flourish of drums
and trumpets greets his appearance on the
scene. He enters quite quietly, with some
copper half-pence in his pocket; creeps into
lodgings in Exeter Street, Strand ; and has a
Coronation PoniiflT also, of not less peculiar
equipment, whom, with all submissiveness, he
must wait upon, in his Vatican ofSt. John's Gale.
This is the dull oily Printer alluded to above.

"Cave's temper," says our Knight Hawkins,
"was phlegmatic: though he assumed, as the
publisher of the Magazine, the name of Syl-
vanus Urban, he had few of those qualities
that constitute urbanity. Judge of his want
of them by this question, which he once put

to an author : "Mr. , I hear you have just

published a pamphlet, and am told there is a
very good paragraph in it upon the subject of
music: did you write that yourself!" His
discernment was also slow ; and as he had
ilready at his command some writers of prose
s^nd verse, who, in the language of Booksellers,
are called good hands, he was the backwardcr
in malting advances, or courting an intimacy
with Johnson. Upon the first approach of a
stranger, his practice was to continue sitting ;
a posture in which he was ever to be found,
and for a few minutes to continue silent: if at
any time he was inclined to begin the discourse,
it was generally by putting a leaf of the Maga-
rine, then in the press, into the hand of his visi-
tor, and asking his opinion of it. » • *
42

" He was so incompetent a judge of John
son's abilities, that meaning at one time to
dazzle him with the splendourof some of those
luminaries in Literature, who favoured him
with their correspondence, he told him that
if he would, in the evening, be at a certain
alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerken-
well, he might have a chance of seeing Mr.
Browne and another or two of those illustri-
ous contributors : Johnson accepted the invi-
tation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed
in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great
bushy wig as he constantly wore, to the sight
of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the
upper end of a long table, in a cloud of to-
bacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified." —
Haxvkins, 46 — 50.

In fact, if we look seriously into the condi-
tion of Authorship at that period, we shall find
that Johnson had undertaken one of the rug-
gedest of all possible enterprises; that here, as
elsewhere. Fortune had given him unspeaka-
ble Contradictions to reconcile. For a man
of Johnson's stamp, the Problem was twofold :
First, not only as the humble but indispensa-
ble condition of all else, to keep himself, if so
might be, ri/(i-e : but secondly, to keep himself
alive by speaking forth the Tm'h thai was in
him, and speaking it truly, that is, in the clear-
est and fittest utterance the Heavens had ena-
bled him to give it, let the earth say to this
what she liked. Of which twofold Problem
if it be hard to solve either member separate-
ly, how incalculably more so to solve it, when
both are conjoined, and work with endless
complication into one another! He that finds
himself already kept alive can sometimes un-
happily not always speak a little truth; he
that finds himself able and willing, to all
lengths, to speak lies, may, by watching how
the wind sits, scrape together a livelihood,
sometimes of great splendour: he, again, who
finds himself provided with neither endowment,
has but a ticklish game to play, and shall have
praises if he win it. Let us look a little at
both faces of the matter; and see what front
they then offered our Adventurer, what front
he offered them.

At the time of Johnson's appearance on the
field. Literature, in many senses, was in a
transitional state; chiefly in this sense, as
respects the pecuniary subsistence of its cul-
tivators. It was in the very act of passing
from the protection of Patrons into that of the
Public; no longer to supply its necessities by
laudatory Dedications to the Great, but by
judicious Bargains with the Booksellers. This
happy change has been much sung and cele-
brated; many a "lord of the lion heart and
eagle-eye" looking back with scorn enough on
the bygone system of Dependency : so that now
it were perhaps well to consider, for a moment,
what good might also be in it, what gratitude
we owe it. That a good was in it, admits not
of doubt. Whatsoever has existed has had its
value: without some truth and worth lying in
it, the thing could not have hung together, and
been the organ and sustenance, and method of
action, for men that reasoned and were alive.
Translate a Falsehood which is wholly false
into Practice, the result comes out zero; the^H;

2£»

330

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

is no fruit or issue to be derived from it. That
in an age, when a Nobleman was still noble,
still, with ills wealth the protector of worthy
and humane thinpjs, and still venerated as such,
a poor man of Genius, his brother in noble-
ness, should, with unfeigned reverence, ad-
dress him and say: "I have found Wisdom
here, and would fain proclaim it abread ; wilt
thou, of thy abundance, afford me the means 1"
— in all this therf. was no baseness; it was
■wholly an honest proposal, which a free man
might make, and a free man listen to. So
might a Tasso, with a (kruaalcrmne in his hand
or in his head, speak to a Duke of Ferrara ;
so might a Shakspeare to his Southampton;
and Continental Artists generally to their rich
Protectors, — in some countries, down almost
to these days. It was only when the reverence
became feigned, that baseness entered into the
transaction on both sides; and, indeed, flou-
rished there with rapid luxuriance, till that be-
came disgraceful for a Dryden, which a Shak-
speare could once practise without offence.

Neither, it is very true, was the new way
of Bookseller Mcecenasship worthless; which
opened itself at this juncture, for the most im-
portant of all transport-trades, now when the old
way had become too miry and impassable. Re-
mark, moreover, how this second sort of Mccce-
nasship, after carrying us through nearly a cen-
tury of Literary Time, appears now to have
wellnigh discharged its functions also; and to
be working pretty rapidly towards some third
method, the exact conditions of which are yet
nowise visible. Thus all things have their
end; and we should part with them all, not in
anger but in peace. The Bookseller System,
during its peculiar century, the whole of the
eighteenth, did carry us handsomely along;
and many good Works it has left us, and
many good Men it maintained : if it is now
expiring, by Puffery, as the Patronage System
did by Flattf.ht, (for Lying is ever the fore-
runner of Death, nay is itself Death,) let us
not forget its benefits; how it nursed Litera-
ture through boyhood and school-years, as
Patronage had wrapped it in soft swaddling-
bands; — till now we see it about to put on the
toga virilis, could it hut Jhid any such!

There is tolerable travelling on the beaten
road run how it may; only on the new road,
not yet levelled and paved, and on the old
TOiid, all broken into ruts and quagmires, is
the travelling bad or impracticable. The
difHculty lies always in the transitioit from one
method to another. In which state it was that
Johnson now found Literature; and out of
which, let us also say, he manfully carried it.
What remarkable mortal first paid copyright in
England we have not ascertained ; perhaps
for almost a century before, some scarce visi-
ble or ponderable pittance of wages had occa-
sionally been yielded by the Seller of Books to
the Writer of them : the original Covenant,
stipulating to produce P«?-arft.sc Lost on the one
hand, and Five Pounds Slcrling on the other,
still lies, (we have been told,) in black-on-
white for inspection and purchase by the
curious, at a Bookshop in Chancery Lane.
Thus had the matter gone on, in a mixed, con-
fused way, for some threescore years ; — as

ever, in such things, the old system overlaps
the new, by some generation or two, and only
dies quite out when the new has got a com-
plete organization, and weather-worthy surface
of its own. Among the fir.--t authors, the very
first of any significance, who lived by the
day's wages of his craft, and composedly
faced the world on that basis, was Samuel
Johnson.

At the time of Johnson's appearance, there
were still two ways, on which an Author might
attempt proceeding; there were the Ma:cenases
proper in the West End of ]>ondoii ; and the
Mascenases virtual of St. John's Gate and
Paternoster Row. To a considerate man it
might seem uncertain which methods were
preferable: neither had very high attractions;
the Patron's aid was now wellnigh iieccssardy
polluted by sycophancy, before it could come
to hand ; the Bookseller's was deformed with
greedy stupidity, not to say entire wooden-
headedness and disgust, (so thai an Osborne
even required to be knocked down, by an
author of spirit,) and could barely keep the
thread of life together. The one was the
wages of suffering and poverty; the other,
unless you gave strict heed to it, the wages of
sin. In time, Johnson had opportunity of
looking into both methods, and ascertaining
what they were; but found, at first trial, that
the former would in no wise do for him. Lis-
ten, once again, to that far-famed Blast of
Doom, proclaiming into the ear of Lord Ches-
terfield, and, through him, of the listening
world, that Patronage should be no more!

" Seven years, my Lord, have now passed,
since I waited in your outward rooms, or was
repulsed from your door; during which time
I have been pushing on my work* through
difficulties, of which it is useless to complain,
and have brought it at last to the verge of
publication, without one act of assistance,-)-
one word of encouragement, or one smile of
favour.

"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last ac-
quainted with liOve, and found him a native
of the rocks.

"Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks
with unconcern on a man struggling for life
in the water, and when he has reached ground,
encumbers him with help ] The notice which
you have been pleased to take of my labours,
had it been early, had been kind: but it has
been delayed till I am indifierent and cannot
enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart
it; till I am known and do not want it. I
hope, it is no very cynical asperity, not to con-
fess obligations, where no benefit has been
received, or to be unwilling that the public
should consider me as owing that to a patron
which Providence has enabled me to do for
myself.

♦ Tlie Eiin-listi Dictinvarij.

f Were time and primer's space of no value, it were
easy to wasti awiiy certain fnolisti snot-stains dropped
liere as " Notes ;'* especiaJly two ? the one on this word
(and on Boswell's Note to it ;) ttie oilier on the para-
grapli wliicli follows. Let "Ed." look a second tijne ;
lie will find that Johnson's sacred regard for Truth is
the only thing to be " noted," in tlie former case ; also,
in the latter, that this of " Love's being a native of th«
roclts" actually has a "meaning."

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

331

"Having carried on my Work thus far with
so little obligation to any favourer of learning ;
I shall not be disappointed though I should
conclude it, if less be possible, with less: for
1 have long been awakened from that dream
of hope, in which I once boasted myself with
so much exultation.

" My Lord, your Lordship's most humble,
r>ost obedient servant,

"Sam. JoHNso.y."
And thus must the rebellious " Sam. Johnson"
turn him to the Bookselling guild, and the
wondrous chaos of " Author by trade ;" and,
though ushered into it only by that dull oily
Printer, " with loose horseman's coat, and such
a great bushy wig as he conslanlly wore," and
only as subaltern to some commanding-officer,
•' Browne, sitting amid tobacco-smoke at the
head of a long table in the alehouse at Clerk-
en well," — gird himself together for the war-
fare; having no alternative!

Little less contradictory was ihatother branch
of the two-fold Problem now set before John-
son : the speaking forth of Truth. Nay, taken
by Itself, it had in those days become so com-
plex as to puzzle strongest heads, with nothing
else imposed on them for solution ; and even
to turn high heads of that sort into mere hollow
vtzarfls, speaking neither truth nor falsehood,
nor any thing but what the Prompter and Player
(vTrcxgnk) put into them. Alas ! for poor
Johnson, Contradiction abounded ; in spirituals
and in temporals, within and without. Born
with the strongest unconquerable love of just
Insight, he must begin to live and learn in a
scene where Prejudice flourishes with rank
luxuriance. England was all confused enough,
sightless and yet restless, take it where you
would ; but figure the best intellect in England
nursed up to manhood in the idol-cavern of a
poor Tradesman's house, in the cathedral city
of Lichfield ! What is Truth 1 said jesting
Pilate; What is Truth 1 might earnest John-
son much more emphatically say. Truth, no
longer, like the Phcenlx, in rainbow plumage,
"poured, from her glittering beak, such tones
of sweetest melody as took captive every ear:"
the PhcEnix (waxing old) had wellnigh ceased
her singing, and empty wearisome Cuckoos,
and doleful monotonous Owls, innumerable
Jays also, and twittering Sparrows on the
housetop, pretended they were repealing her.

It was wholly a divided age, that of Johnson ;
Unity existed nowhere, in its Heaven, or in its
Earth. Society, through every fibre, was rent
asunder: all things, it was then becoming
visible, but could not then be understood, were
moving onwards, with an impulse received
ages before, yet now first with a decisive ra-
pidity, towards that great chaotic gulf, where,
whether in the shape of French Revolutions,
Reform Bills, or what shape soever, bloody or
bloodless, the descent and engulfment assume,
we now see them weltering and boiling. Al-
ready Cant, as once before hinted, had begun
to play its wonderful part (for the hour was
come) : two ghastly Apparitions, unreal simu-
lacra both, Hifi'OCRisT and Atheism, are al-
ready, in silence, parting the world. Opinion
and Action, which should live together as
wedded pair, " one flesh," more properly as

Soul and Body, have commenced their open
quarrel, and are suing for a separate mainte-
nance,— as if they could exist separately. To
the earnest mind, in any position, firm footing
and a life of Truth was becoming daily more
difficult: in Johnson's position, it was more
difiicult than in almost any other.

If, as for a devout nature was inevitable and
indispensable, he looked up to Religion, as to
the pole-star of his voyage, already there was
no fixed pole-star any longer visible ; but two
stars, a whole constellation of stars, each pro-
claiming itself as the true. There was the red
portentous comet-star of Infidelity; the dim-
mer and dimmer-burning fixed-star (uncertaia
now whether not an atmospheric mclenr) of
Orthodoxy : which of these to choose ] The
keener intellects of Europe had, almost with-
out exception, ranged themselves under the
former: for some half-century, it had been
the general effort of European Speculation to
proclaim that Destruction of Falsehood was
the only Truth ; daily had Denial ■waxed
stronger and stronger. Belief sunk more and
more into decay. From our Bolingbrokes and
Tolands, the skeptical fever had passed into
France, into Scotland; and already it smoul-
dered, far and wide, secretly eating out the
heart of England. Bayle had played his part;
Voltaire, on a wider theatre, was playing his, —
Johnson's senior by some fifteen years : Hume
and Johnson were children of the same year.
To this keener order of intellects did Johnson's
indisputably belong: was he to join them 1 Was
he to oppose them] A complicated question:
for, alas ! the Church itself is no longer, even to
him, wholly of true adamant, but of adamant
and baked mud conjoined : the zealously De-
vout must find his Church tottering; and
pause amazed to see, instead of inspired
Priest, many a swine-feeding Trulliber minis-
tering at her altar. It is not the least curious
of the incoherences which Johnson had to
reconcile, that, though by nature contemp-
tuous and incredulous, he was, at that time
of day, to find his safety and glory in defend-
ing, with his whole might, the traditions of the
elders.

Not less perplexingly intricate, and on both
sides hollow or questionable, was the aspect
of Politics. Whigs struggling blindly for-
ward, Tories holding blindly back; each with
some forecast of a half truth; neither with
any forecast of the whole ! Admire here this
other Contradiction in the life of Johnson :
that, though the most ungovernable, and in
practice the most independent of men, he must
be a Jacobite, and worshipper of the Divine
Right. In politics also there are Irreconcila-
bles enough for him. As, indeed, how could
it be otherwise] For when religion is torn
asunder, and the very heart of man's exist-
ence set against itself, then, in all subordinate
departments there must needs be hollowness,
incoherence. The English Nation had re-
belled against a Tyrant; and, by the hands of
religious tyrannicides, exacted stern vengeance
of him : Democracy had risen iron-sinewed,
and "like an infant Hercules, strangled ser-
pents in its cradle." But as yet none knew
the meaning or extent of the phenomenon.

332

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Europe was not ripe for it; not to be ripened
for it, but by the culture and various experi-
ence of another century and half. And now,
when the King-killers were all swept away,
and a milder second picture was painted over
the canvas of they?rs/, and betilled " Glorious
Revolution," who doubted but the catastrophe
was over, the whole business finished, and
Democracy gone to its long sleep 1 Yet was
it like a business finished and not finished; a
lingering uneasiness dwelt in all minds: the
deep-lying, resistless Tendency, which had
still to be obeyed, could no longer be recognised ;
tlius was there half-ness, insincerity, uncer-
tainty in men's ways ; instead of heroic Puritans
and heroic Cavaliers, came now a dawdling
set of argumentative Whigs, and a dawdling
set of deaf-eared Tories ; each half-foolish,
each half-false. The Whigs were false and
without basis; inasmuch as their whole object
was Resistance, Criticism, Demolition, — they
knew not why, or towards what issue. In
Whiggism, ever since a Charles and his
Jefl^ries had ceased to meddle with it, and to
have any Russel or Sidney to meddle with,
there could be no divineness of character; not
till, in these latter days, it took the figure of a
thorough-going, all-defying Radicalism, was
there any solid footing for it to stand on. Of
the like uncertain, half-hollow nature had
Toryism become, in Johnson's time; preaching
forth indeed an everlasting truth, the duty of
Loyalty ; yet now (ever since the final expul-
sion of the Stuarts), having no Person but only
an Office to be loyal to, no living Sonl to wor-
ship, but only a dead velvet-cushioned Chair.
Its altitude, therefore, was stiff-necked refusal
to move ; as that of Whiggism was clamorous
command to move, — let rhyme and reason, on
both hands, say to it what they might. The
consequence was: Immeasurable floods of
contentious jargon, tending nowhither ; false
conviction; false resistance to conviction;
decay (ultimately to become decease) of what-
soever was once understood by the words.
Principle, or Honesty of heart; the louder and
louder triumph of Half-ness and Plausibility
over U'hole-ness and Truth ; — at last, this all-
overshadowing efflorescence of Quackery,
which we now see, with all its deadening and
hilling fruits, in all its innumerable branches,
down to the lowest. How, between these jar-
ring extremes, wherein the rotten lay so inex-
tricably intermingled with the sound, and as
yet no eye could see through the ulterior
meaning of the matter, was a faithful and true
man to adjust himself!

That Johnson, in spite of all drawbacks,
adopted the Conservative side; stationed him-
eelf as the unyielding opponent of Innovation,
resolute to hold fast the form of sound words,
could not but increase, in no small measure,
the difficulties he had to strive with. We
mean, the moral difficulties; for in economical
respects, it might be pretty equally balanced ;
the Tory servant of the Public had perhaps
about the same chance of promotion as the
Whig: and all the promotion Johnson aimed
at was the privilege to live. But, for what,
though unavowed, was no less indispensable,
tor his peace of conscience, and the clear

ascertainment and feeling of his Duty as au
inhabitant of God's workl, the case was hereby
rendered much more complex. To resist In-
novation is easy enough on one condition : that
you resist Inquiry. This is, and was, the
common expedient of your common Conserva-
tives ; but it would not do for Johnson : he was
a zealous recommender and practiser of In-
quiry; once for all, could not and would not
believe, much less speak and act, a Falsehood;
the form of sound words, which he held fast,
must have a meaning in it. Here lay the diffi-
culty : to behold a portentous mixture of True
and False, and feel that he must dwell and
fight there; yet to love and defend only the
True. How worship, when you cannot and
will not be an idolater; yet cannot help dis-
cerning that the Symbol of your Divinity has
half become idolatrous? This was the ques-
tion, which Johnson, the man both of clear eye
and devout believing heart, must answer, — at
peril of his life. The Whig or Skeptic, on the
other hand, had a much simpler part to play.
To him only the idolatrous side of things,
nowise the divine one, lay visible: not worship,
therefore, nay in the strict sense not heart-
honesty, only at most lip, and hand-honesty, is
required of him. What spiritual force is his,
he can conscientiously employ in the work of
cavilling, of pulling down what is False. For
the rest, that there is or can be any Truth of a
higher than sensual nature, has not occurred
to him. The utmost, therefore, that he as man
has to aim at, is Respectakilitt, the suffrages
of his fellow-men. Such suffrages he may
weigh as well as count; or count only: ac-
cording as he is a Burke, or a Wilkes. But
beyond these there lies nothing divine for him ;
these attained, all is attained. Thus is his
whole world distinct and rounded in ; a clear*
goal is set before him ; a firm path, rougher or
smoother; at worst a firm region wherein to
seek a path: let him gird up his loins, and
travel on without misgivings ! For the honest
Conservative, again, nothing is distinct, nothing
rounded in: Respectability can nowise be
his highest Godhead; not one aim, but two
conflicting aims to be continually reconciled
by him, has he to strive after. A difficult posi-
tion, as we said ; which accordingly the most
did, even in those days, but half defend, — by
the surrender, namely, of their own too cum-
bersome honesty or even understanding : after
which the completest defence was worth little.
Into this difficult position Johnson, neverthe-
less, threw himself: found it indeed full of
difficulties ; yet held it out manfully, as an
honest-hearted, open-sighted man, while the
life was in him.

Such was that same "twofold Problem" set
before Samuel Johnson. Consider all these
moral difficulties ; and add to them the fearful
aggravation, which lay in that other circum-
stance, that he needed a continual appeal to
the Public, must continually produce a certain
impression and conviction on the Public; that
if he did not, he ceased to have "provision for
the day that was passing over him," he could
not any longer live ! How a vulgar character,
once launched into this wild element; driven
onwards by Fear and Famine : without other

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON".

33s

aim than to clutch what Provender (of Enjoy-
ment in any kind) he could get, always if pos-
sible keeping quiie clear of the Gallows and
Pillory, (that is to say, minding lieedfully both
" person" and " character,") — would have
floated hither and thither in it ; and contrived to
eat some three repasts daily, and wear some
three suits yearly, and then to depart, and dis-
appear, having consumed his last ration: all
this might be worth knowing, but were in
itself a trivial knowledge. How a noble man,
res "lute for the Truth, to whom Shams and
Lies were once for all an abomination, — was
to act in it: here lay the mystery. By what
methods, by what gifts of eye and hand, does
a heroic Samuel Johnson, now when cast forth
into that -waste Chaos of Authorship, maddest
of things, a mingled Phlegethon and Fleet-
ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens,
and mud-spectres, — shape himself a voyage;
of the /ruiisient driftwood, and the ciuh<riiig iron,
built him a seaworthy Life-boat, and sail there-
in, undrowned, unpolluted, through the roaring
"mother of dead dogs," onwards to an Eternal
Landmark, and City that hath foundations?
This liigh question is even the one answered
in Boswell's Book ; which Book we, therefore
not so falsely, have named a Heroic Poem: for
in it there lies the whole argument of such.
Glory to our brave Samuel ! He accomplished
this wonderful Problem ; and now through
long generations, we point to him, and say:
Here also was a Man ; let the world once more
have assurance of a Man!

ILid there been in Johnson, now when afloat
on that confusion worse confounded of grandeur
and squalor, no light but an earthly outward
one, he too must have made shipwreck. With
his diseased body, and vehement voracious
heart, how easy for him to become a carpe-diem
Philosopher, like the rest, and live and die as
miserably as any Boyce of that Brotherhood !
But happily there was a higher light for him ;
shining as a lamp to his path; which, in all
paths, would leach him to act and walk not as
a fool, but as wise in those evil days also,
"redeeming the time." Under dimmer or
clearer manifestations, a Truth had been re-
vealed to him : I also am a Man ; even in this
unutterable element of Authorship, I may live
as beseems a Man I That Wrong is not only
difl"erent from Right, but that it is in strict
scientific terms, infinitehj difl'erent; even as the
gaining of the whole world set against the
losing of one's own soul, or (as Johnson had
it) a Heaven set against a Hell ; that in all
situations (out of the Pit of Tophet). wherein
a living Man has stood or can stand, there is
actually a Prize of quite wfini/c value placed
M'ithin his reach, namely a Dutij for him to do:
this highest Gospel, which forms the basis and
worth of all other Gospels whatsoever, had
been revealed to Samuel Johnson ; and the
man had believed it, and laid it faithfully to
heart. Such knowledge of the traDsrcvdental, im-
measurable character of Duly, we call the basis
of all Gospels, the essence of all Religion : he
who with his whole soul knows not this, as yet
knows nothing, as yet in properly nothing.

This, happily for him, Johnson was one of
those that knew: under a certain authentic

Symbol, it stood for ever present to his ey«3:
a Symbol, indeed, waxing old as doth a gar-
ment; yet which had guided forward, as their
Banner and celestial Pillar of Fire, innumer-
able saints and witnesses, the fathers of our mo-
dern world; and for him also had still a sacred
significance. It does not appear that, at any
lime, Johnson was what we call irreligious:
but in his sorrows and isolation, when hope
died away, and only a long vista of suflTering
and toil lay before him to the end, then first
did Religion shine forth in its meek, everlast-
ing clearness ; even as the stars do in black
night, which in the daytime and dusk were
hidden by inferior lights. How a true man,
in the midst of errors and uncertainties, shall
work out for himself a sure Life-truth ; and
adjusting the transient to the eternal, amid
the fragments of ruined Temples build up,
with toil and pain, a little Altar for himself,
and worship there; how Samuel Johnson, in
the era of Voltaire, can purify and fortify his
soul, and hold real communion with the High-
est, " in the Church of St. Clement Danes:"
this too stands all unfolded in his Biography,
and is among the most touching and me-
morable things there; a thing to be looked
at with pity, admiration, awe. Johnson's
Religion was as the light of life to him ; with-
out it, his heart was all sick, dark, and had
no guidance left.

He is now enlisted, or impressed, into that
unspeakable shoe-black seraph Army of Au-
thors ; but can feel hereby that he fights under
a celestial flag, and will quit him like a man.
The first grand requisite, an assured heart,
he therefore has : what his outward equip-
ments and accoutrements are, is the next
question ; an important, though inferior one.
His intellectual stock, intrinsically viewed, is
perhaps inconsiderable : the furnishings of an
English School and English University; good
knowledge of the Latin tongue, a more uncer-
tain one of Greek : this is a rather slender
stock of Education wherewith to front the
world. But then it is to be remembered that
his world was England; that such was the
culture England commonly supplied and ex-
pected. Besides, Johnson has been a vora-
cious reader, though a desultory one, and often-
est in strange scholastic, too obsolete Libra-
ries ; he has also rubbed shoulders with the
press of actual Life, for some thirty years
now: views or hallucinations of innumerable
things are weltering to and fro in him. Above
all, be his weapons what they may, he has an
arm that can wield them. Nature has given
him her choicest gift: an open eye and heart.
He will look on the world, wheresoever he
can catch a glimpse of it, with eager curi-
osity: to the last, we find this a striking cha-
racteristic of him : for all human interests he
has a sense; the meanest handicraftsman
could interest him, even in extreme age, by
speaking of his craft: the ways of men are
all interesting to him ; any human thing, that
he did not know, he wished to know. Reflec-
tion, moreover. Meditation, was what he prac-
tised incessantly, with or without his will: for
the mind of the man was earnest, deep as well
as humane. Thus would the world, such

334

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

fragments of it as he could survey, form itself,
or continually tend to form itself, into a cohe-
rent Whole ; on any and on all phases of which,
his vote and voice must be well worth listen-
ing to. As a Speaker of the Word, he will
speak real words ; no idle jargon, no hollow
triviality will issue from him. His aim too is
clear, attainable, that of working for his tvagcs ;
let him do this honestly, and all else will fol-
low of its own accord.

With such omens, into such a warfare, did
Johnson go forth. A rugged, hungry Kerne,
or Gallowglass,as we called him : yet indomi-
table ; in whom lay the true spirit of a Soldier.
With giant's force he toils, since such is his
appointment, were it but at hewing of wood
and drawingof water for old sedentary, bushy-
wigged Cave ; distinguishes himself by mere
quantity, if there is to be no other distinction.
He can write all things ; frosty Latin verses,
if these are the saleable commodity; Book-
prefaces, Political Philippics, Review Articles,
Parliamentary Debates : all things he does
rapidly ; still more surprising, all things he
does thoroughly and well. How he sits there,
in his rough-hewn, amorphous bulk, in that
upper room at St. John's Gate, and trundles
off sheet after sheet of those Senate-of-Lilliput
Debates, to the clamorous Printer's Devils
waiting for them, with insatiable throat, down
stairs ; himself perhaps i/npransus all the
while! Admire also the greatness of Litera-
ture ; how a grain of mustard-seed cast into
its Nile-waters, shall settle in the teeming
mould, and be found, one day, as a Tree, in
whose branches all the fowls of heaven may
lodge. Was it not so with these Lilliput De-
bates 1 In that small project and act, began
the stupendous Fourth Estate ; whose wide
world-embracing influences what eye can take
in; in whose boughs are there not already
fowls of strange feather lodged] Such things,
and far stranger, were done in that wondrous
old Portal, even in latter times. And then
figure Samuel dining "behind the screen,"
from a trencher covertly handed in to him, at a
preconcerted nod from the "great bushy wig;"
Samuel, too ragged to show face, yet " made a
happy man of" by hearing his praise spoken.
If to Johnson himself, then much more to us,
may that St. John's Gate be a place we can
" never pass without veneration."*

♦ All Johnson's places of resort and abode are vene-
rable, and now indeed to the many as well as to the
few ; for his name has berome jireat : and, as we must
often with a kind of sad admiration recognise, there is,
even to the rudest man, no greatness so veneralile as
intellectual, as spiritual greatness; nay properly there
is no other venerable at all. For example, what soul-
suhduins magic, for the very clown or craftsman of our
En'.'land, lies in the word "Scholar !" "He is a Scho-
lar :" he is a uian itise.r than we ; of a wisdom to us
boundless, infinite : who shall speak his worth ! Such
things, we say, fill us with a certain pathetic admira-
tion of deficed and obstructed yet glorious man ; arch-
angel though in ruins,— or rather, though in rubbish, of
encumbtances and mud-incrustations, which also are
not to be perpetual.

Nevertheless, in this mad-whirling all-forgetting Lon-
don, the hsMntsof the mighty tli:it were, can seldom
without a stranL'e ditficulty lie di;5Covert'(l. Will any
man. lor instance, tell us which brirks it was in I>in-
colu's Inn Buildings, that Con Jonson's hand and
trowel laid? No man. it is to h^- feared. — and also
grumbled at. With Samuel Johnson may it p'rove other-
wise ! A Gentleman of the British Museum is said to

Poverty, Distress, and as yet Obscurity, are
his companions: so poor is he that his Wife
must leave him, and seek shelter among other
relations ; Johnson's household has accom-
modation for one inmate only. To all his
ever-varying, ever-recurring troubles, more-
over, must be added this continual one of ill
health, and its concomitant depressiveness • a
galling load, which would have crushed most
common mortals into desperation, is his ap-
pointed ballast and life-burden; he "could not
reinember the day he had passed free from
pain." Nevertheless, Life, as we said before,
is always Life: a healthy soul, imprison it as
you will, in squalid garrets, shabby coat,
bodily sickness, or whatever else, will assert
its heaven-granted indefeasible Freedom, its
right to conquer difficulties, to do work, even
to feel gladness. Johnson does not whine over
his existence, but manfully makes the most
and best of it. "He said, a man might live in
a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people
would inquire where he lodged; and if they
did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found
at such a place.' By spending threepence in
a cofl!ee-house, he might be for some hours
every day in very good company; he might
dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk
for a penny, and do without supper. On
rleaii-shirt-day he went abroad, and paid visits."
Think by whom, and of whom this was uttered,
and ask then. Whether there is more pathos
in it than in a whole circulating-library of
Giaours and Harolds, or less pathos ] On
another occasion, " when Dr. Johnson, one day,
read his own Satire, in which the life of a
scholar is painted with the various obstruc-
tions thrown in his way to fortune and to fame,
he burst into a passion of tears : Mr. Thrale's
family and Mr. Scott only were present, who,
in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and
said, 'What's all this, my dear sirl Why
you, and I, and Hercules, you know, were all
troubled with melancholy.' He was a very
large man, and made out the triumvirate with
Johnson and Hercules comically enough."
These were sweet tears ; the sweet victorious
remembrance lay in them of toils indeed fright-
ful, yet never flinched from, and now triumphed
over. "One day it shall delight you to re-
have made drawings of all his residences : the blessing
of Old Mortality be upon him ! We ourselves, not
without labour and risk, lately discovered GouoH
Squ.^nic, between Fleet Street and Ilolborn (adjoining
both to Bolt Coiinr and Johnson's Coi'iit;) and,
on the second day of search, the very House there,
wherein tlie Eni^lish Diciinnari/ was composed. It 13
the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter
through the arched way from the North-west. The ac-
tual occupant, an elderly, well-washed, decent-looking
man, invited us to enter; and courteously undertook to
he ciceriive ; though in his memory lay nothing but the
foolish»st jumlile and hallucination. It is a stout nld-
fishioned, oak-baluslraded house : " I have spent many
a pound and penny on it since then," said the worthy
Landlord : " here, you see, this Bedroom was the Doc-
tor's study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved
ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) "where he
walked for exercise ; these three garret Bedrooms"
(where his three Copyists sat and wrote) " were the
[ilace he kept Ma— Pupils in I" Temjuis cdnx rerum !
Yet fenix also: for our friend now added, with a wist-
ful look, which strove to seem merely historical : "I let
it all in LodL'inL's, to res|iectal)le gentlemen ; by the
quarter, or the iimnth ; it 's all one to me "--"To me
also," whispered the Ghost of Samuel, as we went pen*
sively our ways.

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

335

member labour done !" — Neither, though John-
son is obscure and poor, need the highest
enjoyment of existence, that of heart freely
communing with heart, be denied him. Sa-
vage and he wander homeless through the
streets ; without bed, yet not without friendly
converse; such another conversation not, it is
like, producible in the proudest drawing-room
of London. Nor, under the void Night, upon
the hard pavement, are their own woes the
only topic : nowise; they "will stand by their
country," the two "Back-woods-men" of the
Brick besart !

Of all outward evils Obscurity is perhaps in
itself the least. To Johnson, as to a healthy-
minded man, the fantastic article, sold or given
under the title of Fame, had little or no value
but its intrinsic one. He prized it as the
means of getting him employment and good
wages ; scarcely as any thing more. His light
and guidance came from a loftier source; of
■which, in honest aversion to all hypocrisy or
pretentious talk, he spoke not to men ; nay,
perhaps, being of a henltlty mind, had never
spoken to himself. We reckon it a striking
fact in Johnson's history, this carelessness of
his to Fame. Most authors speak of their
"Fame" as if it were a quite priceless matter;
the grand ultimatum, and heavenly Constan-
tine's-Banner they had to follow, and conquer
under. — Thy " Fame !" Unhappy mortal, where
will it and thou both be in some fifty years T
Shakspeare himself has lasted but two hun-
dred; Homer (partly by accident) three thou-
sand : and does not already an Etkrnity
encircle every Me and ever}'^ Thee? (Jease,
then, to sit feverishly hatching on that "Fame"
of thine; and flapping, and shrieking with
fierce hisses, like brood-goose on her last egg,
if man shall or dare approach it! Quarrel
not with me, hate me not, my Brother: make
what thou canst of thy egg, and welcome : God
knows, I will not steal it ; I believe it to be
addle. — Johnson, for his part, was no man to
be killed "by a review;" concerning which
matter, it was said by a benevolent person :
"If any author can be reviewed to death, let it
be, with all convenient despatch, done." John-
son thankfully receives any word spoken in
his favour ; is nowise disobliged by a lampoon,
but will look at it, if pointed out to him, and
show how it might have been done better: the
lampoon itself is indeed nothiuc, a soap-bubble
that, next moment, will become a drop of sour
suds ; but in the meanwhile, if it do any thing,
it keeps him more in the world's eye, and the
next barsiain will be all the richer: "Sir, if
they should cease to talk of me, I must starve."
Sound heart and understanding head ! these
fail no man, not even a man of Letters.

Obscurity, however, was, in .fohnson's case,
whether a light or heavy evil, likely to be no
lasting one. He is animated by the spirit of a
true icnrkman, resolute to do his Avork well ;
and he docs his work well; all his work, that
of writing, that of living. A man of this
stamp is unhappily not so common in the|feedin
literary or in any other department of the 1 VVira/i

few; at last disclosed, in his real proportions,
to the eye of the whole world, and encircled
with a " light-nimbus" of glory, so that whoso
is not blind must and shall behold him. By
slow degrees, we said; for this also is notable
slow but sure: as his fame waxes not by ex-
aggerated clamour of what he seems to be, but
by better and better insight of what he is, so it
will last and stand wearing, being genuine.
Thus indeed is it always, or nearly always,
with true fame. The heavenly Luminary rises
amid vapours : star-gazers enough must scan
it, with critical telescopes; it makes no blaz-
ing, the world can either look at it, or forbear
looking at it ; not till after a time and limesj,
does its celestial, eternal nature become indu-
bitable. Pleasant, on the other hand, is the
blazing of a Tarbarrel ; the crowd dance
merrily round it, with loud huzzaing, universal
ihree-times-three, and, like Homer's peasants,
"bless the useful light:" but unhappily it so
soon ends in darkness, foul choking smoke,
and is kicked into the gutters, a nameless
imbroglio of charred staves, pitch-cinders, and
vomissemcnt dii Diable!

But indeed, from the old, Johnson has enjoyed
all or nearly all that Fame can yield any man :
the respect, the obedience of those that are
about him and inferior to him ; of those whose
opinion alone can have any forcible impres-
sion on him. A little circle galhei-s round the
Wise man; which gradually enlarges as the
report thereof spreads, and more can come to
see, and to believe; for Wisdom is precious,
and of irresistible attraction to all. "An in-
spired-idiot," Goldsmith, hangs strangely about
him ; though, as Hawkins says, " he loved not
Johnson, but rather envied him for his parts ;
and once entreated a friend to desist from
praising him, 'for in doing so,' said he, 'you
harrow up my very soul !' " Yet on the whole,
there is no evil in the "gooseberry-fool;" but
rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker,
sort than Johnson's; and all the more genuine
that he himself could never become ronsnivis
of it, — though unhappily never cease aitcmp'ing
to become so : the Author of the genuine i7'(.T
of Wakefield, nill he, will he, must needs fly
towards such a mass of genuine Manhood;
and Dr. Minor keep gyrating round Dr. Majni',
alternately attracted and repelled. Then there
is the chivalrous Topham Beauclerk, with his
sharp wit, and gallant, courtly ways : there is
Bennet Langton, an orthodox gentleman, and
worthy ; though Johnson once laughed, louder
almost than mortal, at his last will and testa-
ment; and " could not stop his merriment, but
continued it all the way till he got without the
Temple-gale; then bui-st into such a fit of
laughter that he appeared to be almost in a
convulsitui ; and, in order to support hiinse'f,
laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the
foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud
that, in the silence of the night, his voice
seemed to resound from Temple-bar to I^lf^et-
ditch !" Lastly comes his s<ilid-thinking, solid-
Thrale, the well-beloved man; with
a bright papilionaceous creature,

world, that he can continue always unnoticed. | whom the elephant loved to play with, and
By slow degrees, Johnson emerges ; looming.' wave to and fro upon his trunk. Not to speak
at first, huge and dim in the eye of an observant! of a reverent Bozzv. for what need is there

336

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

farther? — Or of the spiritual Luminaries, with
tongue or pen, who made that age remarkable;
or of Highland Lairds drinking, in fierce
usquebaugh, "Your health, Toctor Shonson!"
•^still less of many such as that poor "Mr. F.
Lewis," older in date, of whose birth, death,
and whole terrestrial res gcsice, this only, and
strange enough this actually, survives : " Sir,
he lived in London, and hung loose upon
society !" slat Pauvi no/iiinis vmbra. —

In his fifty-third year, he is beneficed, by the
royal bounty, with a Pension of three hundred
poundi:. Loud clamour is always more or less
insane: but probably the insanest of all loud
clamours in the eighteenth century, was this
that was raised about Johnson's Pension. Men
seem to be led by the noses ; but in reality, it
is by the ears, — as some ancient slaves were,
who had their ears bored ; or as some modern
quadrupeds may be, whose ears are long. Very
falsely was it said, "Names do not change
Things ;" Names do change Things; nay for
most part they are the only substance, which
mankind can discern in Things. The whole
sum that Johnson, during the remaining twenty-
two years of his life, drew from the public
funds of England, would have supported some
Supreme Priest for about half as many weeks;
it amounts very nearly to the revenue of our
poorest Church-Overseer for one twelvemonth.
Of secular Administrators of Provinces, and
Horse-subduers, and Game-destroyers, we shall
not so much as speak : but who were the
Primates of England, and the Primates of all
England, during Johnson's days] No man
has remembered. Again, is the Primate of
all England something, or is he nothing]
If something, then what but the man who,
in the supreme degree, teaches and spiritu-
ally edifies, and leads towards Heaven by
guiding wisely through the Earth, the living
souls that inhabit England] We touch here
upon deep matters; which but remotely con-
cern us, and might lead us into still deeper:
clear, in the meanwhile, it is that the true
SpiVitual Edifier and Soul's-Father of all Eng-
land was, and till very lately continued to be,
the man named Samuel Johnson, — whom this
scot-and-lol-paying world cackled reproachfully
to see remunerated like a Supervisor of Excise !

If Destiny had beaten hard on poor Samuel,
and did never cease to visit him too roughly,
yet the last section of his Life miijht be pro-
nounced victorious, and on the whole happy. He
was not Idle; but now no longer goaded on by
want; the light which had shone irradiating the
dark haunts of Povert}% now illuminates the
circles of Wealth, of a certain culture and ele-
gant intelligence; he who had once been ad-
mitted to speak v/ith Edmund Cave and To-
bacco Browne, now admits a Reynolds and a
Burke to speak with him. Loving friends are
there; Listeners, even Answerers: the fruit
of his long labours lies round him in fair
legible Writings, of Philosophy, Eloquence,
Morality, Philology; some excellent, all worthy
and gjenuine Works; for which, too, a deep,
earnest murmur of thanks reaches him from
all ends of his Fatherland. Nay, there are
works of Goodness, of undying Mercy, which
fvcn he has possessed the power to do :

"What I gave I have; what I spent I had !"
Early friends had long sunk into the grave;
yet in his soul they ever lived, fresh and clear,
with soft pious breathings towards them, not
without a still hope of one day meeting them
again in purer union. Such was Johnson's
Life : the victorious Battle of a free, true
Man. Finally he died the death of the free
and true: a dark cloud of Death, solemn, and
not untinged with haloes of immortal Hope
" took him away," and our eyes could no longer
behold him; but can still behold the trace and
impress of his courageous, honest spirit, deep-
legible in the World's Business, wheresoever
he walked and was.

To estimate the quantity of Work that John-
son performed, how much poorer the World
were had it wanted him, can, as in all such
cases, never be accurately done; cannot, till
after some longer space, be approximately
done. All work is as seed sown ; it grows
and spreads, and sows itself anew, and so, in
endless palingenesia, lives and works. To
Johnson's Writings, good and solid, and still
profitable as they are, we have already rated
his Lite and Conversation as superior. By the
one and by the other, who shall compute what
effects have been produced, and are still, and
into deep Time, producing]

So much, however, we can already see : It is
now some three quarters of a century that
Johnson has been the Prophet of the English;
the man by whose light the English people,
in public and in private, more than by any
other man's, have guided their existence.
Higher light than that immediately practical
one; higher virtue than an honest Phudence,
he could not then communicate; nor perhaps
could they have received : such light, such
virtue, however, he did communicate. How to
thread this labyrinthic 'J'ime, the fallen and
falling Ruin of Times; to silence vain Scru-
ples, hold firm to the last the fragments of old
Belief, and with earnest eye still discern some
gliiupses of a true path, and go forward there-
on, " in a world where there is much to be done,
and little to be known:" this is what Samuel
Johnson, by act and word, taught his nation,
what his nation received and learned of him,
more than of any other. We can view him as
the preserver and transmitter of whatsoever
was genuine in the spirit of Toryism ; which
genuine spirit, it is now becoming manifest,
must again imbody itself in all new forms of
Society, be what they may, that are to exist,
and have continuance — elsewhere than on
Paper. The li<st in many things. Johnson was
the last genuine Tory; the last of Englishmen
who, with strong voice, and wholly-believing
heart, preached the Doctrine of Standing still;
who, without selfishness or slavishness, reve-
renced the existing Powers, and could assert
theprivilegesof rank, though himself poor, neg-
lected, and plebeian ; who had heart-devout-
ness with heart-hatred of cant, was orthodox-
religious with his eyes open ; and in all things
and everywhere spoke out in plain English,
from a soul wherein Jesuitism could find no
harbour, and with the front and tone hot of a
diplomatist but of a man.

BOSWELL'S LFFE OF JOHNSON.

337

This last of the Tories was Johnson : not
Burke, as is often said; Burke was essentially
a Whig, and only, on reaching the verge of the
chasm towards which Whiggism from the first
was inevitably leading, recoiled; and, like aman
vehement rather than earnest, a resplendent far-
sighted Rhetorician rather than a deep sure
Thinker, recoiled with no measure, convul-
sively, and damaging what he drove hack
with him.

In a world which exists by the balance of
Antagonisms, the respective merit of the Con-
servator and the Innovator must ever remain
debateable. Great, in the meanwhile, and un-
doubted, for both sides, is the merit of him who,
in a day of Change, walks wisely, honestly.
Johnson's aim was in itself an impossible one;
this of stemming the eternal Flood of Time;
of clutching all things, and anchoring them
down, and saying. Move not! — how could it, or
should it, ever have success 1 The simngest
man can but retard the current partially and
for a short hour. Yet even in such shortest
retardation, may not an estimable value liel If
England has escaped the blood-bath of a French
Revolution; andmay yet, in virtue of this delay
and of the experience it has given, work out her
deliverance calmly into a new Era, let Samuel
Johnson, beyond all contemporary or succeed-
ing men, have the praise for it. We said above
that he was appointed to be Ruler of the British
nation fora season: whoso will look beyond the
surface, into the heart of the world's movements,
may find that all Pitt Administrations, and Con-
tinental Subsidies, and Waterloo victories, rest-
ed on the possibility of making England, yet a
little while, Tonjish, Loyal to the Old; and this
again on the anterior reality, that the Wise had
found such Loyalty still practicable, and recom-
mendable. England had its Hume, as France
had its Voltaires and Diderots ; but the John-
son was peculiar to us.

If we ask now by what endowment it mainly
was that Johnson realized such a Life for him-
self and others ; what quality of character the
main phenomena'of his Life may be most na-
turally deduced from, and his other qualities
most na'urally subordinated to, in our concep-
tion of him, perhaps the answer were: The
quality of Courage, of Valour ; that Johnson was
a Brave Man. The Courage that can go forth,
once and away, to Chalk-Farm, and have itself
shot, and snuffed out, with decency, is nowise
wholly what we mean here. Such Courage
we indeed esteem an exceeding small matter;
capabl J of coexisting with a life full of false-
hood, feebleness, poltroonery, and despicability.
Nay oftener it is Cowardice rather that pro-
duces the result: for consider. Is the Chalk-
Farm Pistoleer inspired with any reasonable
I Belief and Determination ; or is he hounded on
by haggard, indefinable Fear, — how he will be
tut at public p-acj^i, aad 'piucteigsfss tl \m
neighbourhood" will wag their tongues at him
I a plucked goose 1 If he go then, and be shot
without shiieking, or audible uproar, it is well
for him : nevertheless there is nothing amazing
in it. Courage to manage all this has not per-
haps been denied to any man, or to any woman.
Thus, do not recruiting sergeants drum through
43

the streets of manufacturing towns, and collect
ragged losels enough ; every one of whom, if
once dressed in red, and trained a little, will re-
ceive fire cheerfully for the small sum of one
shilling per diem, and have the soul blown out
of him at last, with perfect propriety. The
Courage that dares only die, is on the whole no
sublime affair; necessary indeed, yet univer-
sal: pitiful when it begins to parade itself. On
this Globe of ours, there are some thirty-six
persons that manifest it, seldom with the small-
est failure, during every second of time. Nay
look at Newgate: do not the offscourings of
Creation, when condemned to the gallows, as
if they were not men but vermin, walk thither
with decency, and even to the scowls and hoot-
ings of the whole Universe give theirstern good-
night in silence] What is to be undergone
only once, we may undergo; what must be,
comes almost of its own accord. Considered
as Duelist, what a poor figure does the fiercest
Irish Whiskerando make, compared with any
English Game-cock, such as you may buy for
fifteen-pence !

The Courage we desire and prize is not the
Courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
This, when by God's grace it has been given,
lies deep in the soul ; like genial heat, fosters
all other virtues and gifts; without it they
could not live. In spite of our innumerable
Waterloos and Peterloos, and such campaign-
ing as there has been, this Courage we allude
to, and call the only true one, is perhaps rarer
in these last ages, than it has been in any
other since the Saxon Invasion under Hengist.
Altogether extinct it can never be among men ;
otherwise the species Man were no longer for
this world: here and there, in all times, under
various guises, men are sent hither not only
to demonstrate but exhibit it, and testify, as
from heart to heart, that it is still possible,
still practicable. '

Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as
Man of Letters, was one of such ; and, in good
truth, " the bravest of the brave." What mortal
could have more to war with 1 Yet, as we
saw, he yielded not, faltered not; he fought,
and even, such was his blessedness, prevailed.
Whoso will understand what it is to have a
man's heai-t, may find that, since the time of
John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any
English bosom than Samuel Johnson now
bore. Observe too that he never called him-
self brave, never felt himself to be so; the
more completely ■iivjs so. No Giant Despair,
no Golgotha-Death-dance or Sorcerer's-Sab-
baih of "Literary Life in London," appals this
pilgrim; he works resolutely for deliverance ;
in still defiance, steps stoutly along. The thing
that is given him to do he can make himself do ;
what is to be endured he can endure in silence.

How the great soul of old Samuel, consum-
ing daily his own bitter unalleviable allotment
of misery and toil, shows beside the poor flimsy
little sou.of young Boswell ; one day flaunting
in the ring of vanity, tarrying by the wine-cup,
and crying. Aha, the wine is red; the neat
day deploring his downpressed, night-shaded,
quite poor estate; and thinking it unkind
that the whole movement of the Universe
should go on, while Ids digestive-apparatus had

2r

338

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

stopped! We reckon Johnson's "talent of si-
lence" to be among his great and too rare gifts.
Where there is nothing farther to be done, there
shall nothing farther be said : like his own poor
blind Welshv/oman, he accomplished some-
what, and also "endured fifty years of wretched-
ness with unshaken fortitude." How grim was
Life to him ; a sick Prison-house and Doubt-
ing-castle ! "His great business," he would
profess, " was to escape from himself." Yet
towards all this he has taken his position and
resolution; can dismiss it all "with frigid m-
difference, having little to hope or to fear."
Friends are stupid and pusillanimous and parsi-
monious ; " wearied of his stay, yet offended at
his departure :" it is the manner of the world.
"By popular delusion," remarks he with a
gigantic calmness, "illiterate writers will rise
into renown:" it is portion of the History of
English Literature ; a perennial thing, this
same popular delusion ; and will — alter the
character of the Language.

Closely connected with this quality of Valour,
partly as springing from it, partly as protected
by it, are the more recognisable qualities of
Truthfulness in word and thought, and Hones-
ty in action. There is a reciprocity of in-
fluence here: for as the realizing of Truthful-
ness and Honesty is the Life-light and great
aim of Valour, so without Valour they cannot,
in anywise, be realized. Now, in spite of all
practical shortcomings, no one that sees into
the significance of Johnson, will say that his
prime object was not Truth. In conversation,
doubtless, you may observe him, on occasion,
fighting as if for victory; — and must pardon
these ebulliences of a careless hour, which
were not without temptation and provocation.
Remark likewise two things; that such prize-
arguings were ever on merely superficial debat-
able questions ; and then that they were argued
generally by the fair laws of battle, and
logic-fence, by one cunning in that same. If
their purpose was excusable, their effect was
harmless, perhaps beneficial : that of taming
noisy mediocrity, and showing it another side
of a debatable matter ; to see boHi sides of
which was, for the first time, to see the Truth
of it. In his Writings themselves, are errors
enough, crabbed prepossessions enough, yet
these also of a quite extraneous and accidental
nature; nowhere a wilful shutting of the eyes
to the Truth. Nay, is there not everywhere
a heartfelt discernment, singular, almost ad-
mirable, if we consider through what confused
conflicting lights and hallucinations it had to
be attained, of the highest everlasting Truth,
and beginning of all Truths: this, namely, that
man is ever, and even in the age of Wilkes
and Whitfield, a Revelation of God to man ;
and lives, moves, and has his being in Truth
only; is either true, or, in strict speech, is not
at alii

Quite spotless, on the other hand, is John-
son's love of Truth, if we look at it as ex-
pressed in Practice, as what we have named
Honesty of action. " Clear your mind of Cant ;"
clear it, throw Cant utterly away : such was
his emphatic, repeated precept ; and did not he
himself faithfully conform to iti The Life of
this man has been, as it were, turned inside

out, and examined with micioscopes by friend
and foe ; yet was there no Lie found in him.
His Doings and Writings are not shmvs but;^cr-
forrnances : you may weigh them in the balance,
and they will stand weight. Not a line, not a
sentence is dishonestly done, is other than it
pretends to be. Alas ! and he wrote not out
of inward inspiration, but to earn his wages :
and with that grand perennial tide of" popular
delusion" flowing by ; in whose waters he
nevertheless refused to fish, to whose rich
oyster-beds the dive was too muddy for him.
Observe, again, with what innate hatred of
Cant, he take§ for himself, and offers to others
the lowest possible view of his business, which
he followed with such nobleness. Motive for
writing he had none, as he often said, but
money; and yet he wrote so. Into the region
of Poetic Art he indeed never rose ; there was
no ideal without him avowing itself in his
work: the nobler was that unavowed ideal
which lay within him, and commanded, saying,
Work out thy Artisanship in the spirit of an
Artist! They who talk loudest about the dig-
nity of Art, and fancy that they too are Artistic
guild-brethren, and of the Celestials, — let them
consider well what manner of man this was,
who felt himself to be only a hired day-labourer
A labourer that was worthy of his hire; that
has laboured not as an eye-servant, but as one
found faithful ! Neither was Johnson in those
days perhaps wholly a unique. Time was
when, for money, you might have ware : and
needed not, in all departments, in that of the
Epic Poem, in that of the Blacking Bottle, to
rest content with the meye persuasion that you
had ware. It was a happier time. But as yet
the seventh Apocalyptic Bladder (of Puffkry)
had not been rent open, — to whirl and grind, as
in a West-Indian Tornado, all earthly trades
and things into wreck, and dust, and consum-
mation,— and regeneration. Be it quickly, since
it must be ! —

That Mercy can dwell only with Valour, is
an old sentiment or proposition ; which, in
Johnson, again receives confirmation. Few
men on record have had a more merciful, ten-
derly affectionate nature than old Samuel. He
was called the Bear; and did indeed too often
look, and roar, like one ; being forced to it in
his own defence: yet within that shaggy ex-
terior of his, there beat a heart warm as a
mother's, soft as a little child's. Nay general-
ly, his very roaring was but the anger of
affection : the rage of a Bear, if you will ; but
of a Bear bereaved of her whelps. Touch his
Religion, glance at the Church of England, or
the Divine Right; and he was upon you!
These things were his Symbols of all that was
good, and precious for men ; his very Ark of
the Covenant: whoso laid hand on them tore
asunder his heart of hearts Not out of hatred
to the opponent, but of love to the thing opposed,
did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contradictory:
this is an important distinction ; never to be
forgotten in our censure of his coriVLrsational
outrages. But observe also with what hu-
manity, what openness of love, he can attach
himself to all things: to a blind old woman, to
a Doctor Levett, to a Cat " Hodge." " His
thoughts in the latter part of his life were

BOSWELL'S LITE OF JOHNSON.

339

frequently eniployed on his deceased friends ;
he often muttered these or such-like sentences :
" Poor man ! and then he died." How he
patiently converts his poor home into a Laza-
retto; endures, for long years, the contradic-
tion of the miserable and unreasonable; with
him unconnected, save that they had no other
to yield them refuge ! Generous old man !
Worldly possession he has little; yet of this
he gives freely; from his own hard-earned
shilling, the half-pence for the poor, that
"waited his coming out," are not withheld:
the poor " waited the coming out" of one not
quite so poor! A Sterne can write sentiment-
alities on Dead Asses : Johnson has a rough
voice; but he finds the wretched Daughter of
Vice fallen down in the streets ; carries her
home, on his own shoulders, and like a good
Samaritan, gives help to the help-needing,
worthy or unworthy. Ought not Charity, even
in that sense, to cover a multitude of Sinsl
No Penny-a-week Committee-Lady, no man-
ager of Soup-Kitchens, dancer at Charity Balls,
was this rugged, stern-visaged man: but where,
in all England, could there have been found
another soul so full of Pity, a hand so heaven-
like bounteous as his? The widow's mite, we
know, was greater than all the other gifts.

Perhaps it is this divine feeling of Affection,
throughout manifested, that principally attracts
us towards Johnson. A true brother of men
is he ; and filial lover of the Earth ; who, with
little bright spots of Attachment, " where lives
and works some loved one," has beautified
"this rough solitary Earth into a peopled gar-
den." Litchfield, with its mostly dull and
limited inhabitants, is to the last one of the
sunny islets for him : Salve magna parens.' Or
read those Letters on his Mother's death : what
a genuine solemn grief and pity lies recorded
there; a looking back into the Past, unspeak-
ably mournful, unspeakably tender. And yet
calm, sublime ; for he must now act, not look :
his venerated Mother has been taken from
him; but he must now write a Rasselas to de-
fray her interment ! Again in this little inci-
dent, recorded in his Book of Devotion, are not
the tones of sacred Sorrow and Greatness
deeper than in many a blank-verse Tragedy;
as, indeed, " the fifth act of a Tragedy" (though
unrhymed) does " lie in every death-bed, were
it a peasant's, and of straw:"

"Sunday, October 18, 1767. Yesterday, at
about ten in the morning, I took my leave for
ever of my dear old friend, Catherine Cham-
bers, who came to live with my mother about
1724, and has been but little parted from us
since. She buried my father, my brother, and
my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old.

"I desired all to withdraw; then told her
that we were to part for ever; that as Chris-
tians, we should part with prayer; and that
I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer
beside her. She expressed great desiie to hear
me; and held up her poor hands as she lay in
bed, with great fervour, while I prayed kneel-
'ng by her. « * »

" I then kissed her. She told me that to part
was the greatest pain she had ever felt, and
that she hoped we should meet again in a bet-
Mr place. I expressed with swelled eyes, and

great emotion of tenderness, the same hopes.
We kissed and parted ; I humbly hope, to meet
again, and to part no more."

Tears trickling down the granite rock: a
soft swell of Pity springs within ! Still more
tragical is this other scene: "Johnson men-
tioned that he could not in general accuse
himself of having been an undutiful son.
"Once indeed," said he, "I was disobedient:
I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter mar-
ket. Pride was the source of that refusal, and
the remembrance of it was painful. A few
years ago I desired to atone for this fault." —
But by what method 1 — What method was now
possible 1 Hear it ; the words are again given
as his own, though here evidently by a less
capable reporter :

" Madam, I beg your pardon for the abrupt-
ness of my departure in the morning, but I
was compelled to do it by conscience."" Fifty
years ago, Madam, on this day, I committed a
breach of filial piety. My father had been in
the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and
opening a stall there for the sale of his Books.
Confined by indisposition, he desired me, that
day, to go and attend the stall in his place.
My pride prevented me; I gave my father a
refusal. — And now to-day I have been at Ut-
toxeter; I went into the market, at the time of
business, uncovered my head, and stood with
it bare, for an hour, on the spot where my
father's stall used to stand. In contrition I
stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory."

Who does not figure to himself this specta-
cle, amid the " rainy weather, and the sneers,"
or wonder, "of the by-standers 1" The me-
mory of old Michael Johnson, rising from the
far distance ; sad-beckoning in the " moonlight
of memory:" how he had toiled faithfully
hither and thither; patiently among the lowest
of the low; been bufl^etled and beaten down,
yet ever risen again, ever tried it anew- --And
oh ! when the wearied old man, as Bookseller,
or Hawker, or Tinker, or whatsoever it was
that Fate had reduced him to, begged help of
thee for one day, — how savage, diabolic, was
that mean Vanity, which answered. No ! He
sleeps now; after life's fitful fever, he sleeps:
but thou, 0 Merciless, how now wilt thou still
the sting of that remembrance 1 — The picture
of Samuel Johnson standing bareheaded in the
market there, is one of the grandest and saddest
we can paint. "Repentance! Repentance!"
he proclaims, as with passionate sobs: — but
only to the ear of Heaven, if Heaven will give
him audience: the earthly ear, and heart, that
should have heard it, are now closed, unre-
sponsive for ever.

That this so keen-loving, soft-trembling
Afl"ectionateness, the inmost essence of his
being, must have looked forth, in one form or
another, through Johnson's whole chara^'ter,
practical and intellectual, modifying both, is
not to be doubted. Yet through what singular
distortions and superstitions, moping melan-
cholies, blind habits, whims about "entering
with the right foot," and " touching every post
as he walked along;" and all the other mad
chaotic lumber of a brain that, with sun-clear
intellect, hoveed for ever on the verge of in
sanity, — must that same inmost essence have

849

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

looked forth; unrecognisable to all but the
most observant! Accordingly it was not re-
cognised ; Johnson passed not for a fine nature,
but for a dull, almost brutal one. Might not,
for example, the first-fruit of such a Loving-
ness, coupled with his quick Insight, have
been expected to be a peculiarly courteous
demeanour as man among menl In John-
son's " Politeness," which he often, to the
wonder of some, asserted to be great, there was
indeed somewhat that needed explanation.
Nevertheless, if he insisted always on handing
lady-visitors to their carriage ; though with the
certainty of collecting a mob of gazers in Fleet
Street, — as might well be, the beau having on,
by way of court dress, " his rusty brown morn-
ing suit, a pair of old shoes for slippers, a little
shrivelled wig sticking on the top of his head,
and the sleeves of his shirt and the knees of
his breeches hanging loose:" — in all this we
can see the spirit of true Politeness, only
shining through a strange medium. Thus
again, in his apartments, at one time, there
were unfortunately no chairs. "A gentleman
•who frequently visited him whilst writing his
Idlers, constantly found him at his desk, sitting
on one with three legs; and on rising from it,
he remarked that Johnson never forgot its
defect; but would either hold it in his hand, or
place it with great composure against some
support; taking no notice of its imperfection
to his visitor," — who meanwhile, we suppose,
sat upon folios, or in the sartorial fashion.
•' It was remarkable in Johnson," continues
Miss Reynolds, ("Renny dear,") "that no ex-
ternal circumstances ever prompted him to
make any apology, or to seem even sensible
cf their existence. Whether this was the
effeat of philosophic pride, or of some partial
notion of his respecting hig;h breeding, is doubt-
ful." That it was, for one thing, the effect of
genuine Politeness, is nowise doubtful. Not of
the Pharisaical Brummellian Politeness, which
would sufl^er crucifixion rather than ask twice
for soup: but the noble universal Politeness
of a man, that knows the dignity of men, and
feels his own ; such as may be seen in the
patriarchial bearing of an Indian Sachem ;
such as Johnson himself exhibited, when a
sudden chance brought him into dialogue with
his King. To us, with our view of the man,
it nowise appears "strange" that he should
have boasted himself cunning in the laws of
Politeness; nor "stranger still," habitually
attentive to practise them.

More legibly is this influence of the Loving
heart to be traced in his intellectual character.
vVhat, indeed, is the beginning of intellect, the
first inducement to the exercise thereof, but
attraction towards somewhat, njfertinn for it?
Thus too, who ever saw, or will see, any true
talent, not to speak of genius, the foundation
of which is not goodness, love? From John-
son's strength of Affection, we deduce many
of his intellectual peculiarities; especially that
threatening array of perversions, known under ;
the name of "Johnson's Prejudices." Looking
well into the root from which these sprung, we
have long ceased to view them with hostility,
can pardon and reverently pity them. Con-
i ider with what force early-imbibed opinions

must have clung to a soul of this Affection.
Those evil-famed Prejudices of his, that
Jacobitism, Church-of-Englandism, hatred of
the Scotch, belief in Witches, and such like,
what were they but the ordinary beliefs of
well-doing, well-meaning provincial English*
men in that day? First gathered by his
Father's hearth; round the kind "country
fires" of native Staflfordshire ; they grew with
his growth and strengthened with his strength:
they were hallowed by fondest sacred recollec-
tions : to part with them was parting with his
heart's blood. If the man who has no strength
of Afieciion, strength of Belief, have no strength
of Prejudice, let him thank Heaven for it, but
to himself take small thanks.

Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble
Johnson could not work himself loose from
these adhesions; that he could only purify
them, and wear them with some nobleness.
Yet let us understand how they grew out from
the very centre of his being: nay, moreover,
how they came to cohere in him with what
firmed the business and worth of his Life, the
sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavour. For it
is on the same ground that he became through-
out an Edifier and Repairer, not, as the others
of his make were, a Puller-down ; that in an age
of universal Skepticism, England was still to
produce its Believer. Mark too his candour
even here; while a Dr. Adams, with placid
surprise, asks, "Have we not evidence enough
of the soul's immortality ?" Johnson answers,
"I wish for more." But the truth is, in Pre-
judice, as in all things, Johnson was the pro-
duct of England ; one of those s^ood yeomen
whose limbs were made in England : alas, the
last of such Invincibles, their day being now
done ! His culture is wholly English ; that not
of a Thinker but of a " Scholar :" his interests
are wholly English; he sees and knows no-
thing but England; he is the John Bull of
Spiritual Europe: let him live, love him, as he
was and could not but be! Pitiable it is, no
doubt, that a Samuel Johnson must confute
Hume's irreligious Philosophy by some " story
from a Clergyman of the Bishopric of Dur-
ham;'' should see nothing in the great Fred-
erick bnt "Voltaire's lackey ;" in Voltaire him-
self but a man am-rimi ingenii, pauainrm lilcra-
rum : in Rousseau but one worthy to be hanged ;
and in the universal, long-prepared, inevitable
Tendency of Enropean Thought but a green-
sick milkmaid's crotchet of (for variety's sake)
"milking the Bull." Our good, dear John!
Observe too what it is that he sees in the citj
of Paris: no feeblest glimpse of those D'Alem-
berts and Diderots, or of the strange question-
able work they did; solely some Benedictine
Priests, to talk kitchen-latin with them about
Edivniea Priiiripcs. "■ Moiishccr NoriQ;toiigpiiii).'"
— Our dear, foolish John ; yet is there a lion's
heart within hinj ! — Pitiable all these things |

were, we say; yet nowise inexcusable; nay, as |

basis or as foil to much else that was in John-
son, almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed,
to honour England, and English Institutions
and Way of Life, that they could slill equip
such a man; could furnish him in heart and
head to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love
them, and unyieldingly fight for them? What

DEATH OF GOETHE.

341

truth and living vigour must such Institutions
once have had, when, in the middle of the
Eighteenth century, there was still enough left
in them for this !

It is worthy of note that, in our little British
Isle, the two grand Antagonisms of Europe
should have stood imbodied, under their very
highest concentration, in two men produced
simultaneously among ourselves. Samuel
Johnson and David Hume, as was observed,
were children of the same year: through life
they were spectators of the same Life-move-
ment; often inhabitants of the same city.
Greater contrast, in all things, between two
great men, could not be. Hume, well-born,
competently provided for, whole in body and
mind, of his own determination forces a way
into Literature: .Johnson, poor, moonstruck,
diseased, forlorn, is forced into it " with the
bayonet of necessity at his back." And what
a part did they severally play there ! As John-
son became the father of all succeeding Tories ;
so was Hume the father of all succeeding
Whigs, for his own Jacobitism was but an
accident, as worthy to be named Prejudice as
any of Johnson's. Again, if Johnson's culture
was exclusively English; Hume's, in Scotland,
became European; — for which reason too we
find his influence spread deeply over all quar-
ters of Europe, traceable deeply in all specula-
tion, French, German, as well as domestic;
while Johnson's name, out of England, is hardly
anywhere to be met with. In spiritual stature
they are almost equal; both great, among the
greatest: yet how unlike in likeness! Hume
has the widest methodizing, comprehensive
eye; Johnson the keenest for perspicacity and
minute detail: so had, perhaps chiefly, their
education ordered it. Neither of the two rose
into Poetry; yet both to some approximation
thereof: Hume to something of an Epic clear-
ness and method, as in his delineation of the
Commonwealth Wars; Johnson to many a
deep Lyric tone of plaintiveness, and impetu-
ous graceful power, scattered over his fugitive
compositions. Both, rather to the general sur-
prise, had a certain rugged Humour shining
through their earnestness: the indication, in-

deed, that they were earnest men, and had sub-
dued their wild world into a kind of temporary
home, and safe dwelling. Both were, by prin-
ciple and habit. Stoics: yet Johnson with the
greater merit, for he alone had very much to
triumph over; farther, he alone ennobled his
Stoicism into Devotion. To Johnson Life was
as a Prison, to be endured with heroic faith:
to Hume it was little more than a foolish Bar-
tholomew-Fair Show-booth, with the foolish
crowdings and elbowings of which it was not
worth while to quarrel; the whole would break
up, and be at liberty, so soon. Both realized
the highest task of Manhood, that of living like
men ; each died not unfitly, in his way : Hume
as one, with factitious, half-false gayety, taking
leave of what was itself wholly but a Lie:
Johnson as one, with awe-struck, yet resolute
and piously expectant heart, taking leave of a
Reality, to enter a Reality still higher. John-
son had the harder problem of it, from first to
last: whether, with some hesitation, we can
admit that he was intrinsically the better-gifted,
— may remain undecided.

These two men now rest; the one in West-
minster Abbey here ; the other in the Calton
Hill Churchyard of Edinburgh. Through Life
they did not meet: as contrasts, "like in un-
like," love each other ; so might they two have
loved, and communed kindly, — had not the
terrestrial dross and darkness, that was in
them, withstood ! One day their spirits, what
truth was in each, will be found working, liv-
ing in harmony and free union, even here be-
low. They were the two half-men of their
time : whoso should combine the intrepid Can-
dour, and decisive scientific Clearness of
Hume, with the Reverence, the Love, and de-
vout Humility of Johnson, were the whole
man of a new time. Till such whole man ar-
rive for us, and the distracted lime admit of
such, might the heavens but bless poor Eng-
land with half-men worthy to tie the shoe-
latchets of these, resembling these even from
afar! Be both attentively regarded, let the
true Effort of both prosper ; — and for the pre-
sent, both take our affectionate farewell !

DEATH OF GOETHE.

lNew Monthly Magazine, 1832.]

Is the obituary of these days stands one
article of quite peculiar import; the time, the
place, and particulars of which will have to
be often repeated, and re-written, and continue
in remembrance many centuries: this, namely,
that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died at
Weimar, on the 22d March, 1832. It was
about eleven in the norning; "he expired,"
says the record, "without any apparent suffer-
ing, having a few minutes previously, called
for paper for the purpose of writing, and ex-
pressed his delight at the arrival of spring."

A beautiful death; like that of a soldier found
faithful at his post, and in the cold band his
arms still grasped! The Poet's last vcrds are
a greeting of the new-awakened earth ; his
last movement is to work at his appointed
task. Beautiful : what we might call a Clas-
sic, sacred death ; if it were not rather an
Elijah-translation, — in a chariot, not of fire
and terror, but of hope and soft vernal sun-
beams ! It was at Frankfort on the Mayn, on
the 28th of August, 1749, that this man entered
the world — and now, gently welcoming the
2e2

342

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WKITINGa

birth-day of his eighty-second spring, he closes
bis eyes, and takes farewell.

So then, our greatest has departed. That
melody of life, with its cunning tones, which
took captive ear and heart, has gone silent;
the heavenly force that dwelt here victorious
over so much, is here no longer; thus far, not
farther, by speech and by act, shall the wise
man utter himself forth. The End ! What
solemn meaning lies in that sound, as it peals
mournfully through the soul, when a living
friend has passed away ! All now is closed,
irrevocable ; the changeful life-picture, grow-
ing daily into new coherence, under new
touches and hues, has suddenly become com-
pleted and unchangeable ; there, as it lay, it is
dipped, from this moment, in the aether of the
Heavens, and shines transfigured, to endure
even so — for ever. Time and Time's Empire ;
stern, wide devouring, yet not without their
grandeur! The week-day man, who was one
of us, has put on the garment of Eternity, and
become radiant and triumphant; the present
is all at once the past ; Hope is suddenly cut
away, and only the backward vistas of Me-
mory remain, shone on by a light that pro-
ceeds not from this earthly sun.

The death of Goethe, even for the many
hearts that personally loved him, is not a thing
to be lamented over ; is to be viewed, in his
own spirit, as a thing full of greatness and
sacredness. " For all men it is appointed
once to die." To this man the full measure
of a man's life had been granted, and a course
and task such as to only a few in the whole
generations of the world ; what else could we
hope or require but that now he should be
called hence and have leave to depart, "hav-
ing finished the work that was given him to
dol" If his course, as we may say of him
more justly than of any other, was like the
Sun's, so also was his going down. For in-
deed, as the material Sun is the eye and re-
vealer of all things, so is Poetry, so is the
World-Poet in a spiritual sense. Goethe's
life, too, if we examine it, is well represented
in that emblem of a solar Day. Beautifully
rose our summer sun, gorgeous in the red
fervid East, scattering the spectres and sickly
damps (of both of which there were enough
to scatter) — strong, benignant in his noon-day
clearness, walking triumphant through the up-
per realms ; and now, mark also how he sets !
So Stirbt ein Held : anbetungsvoll ! " So dies a
hero ; sight to be worshipped."

And yet, when the inanimate, material sun
has sunk and disappeared, it will happen that
we stand to gaze into the slill glowing West;
and here rise great, pale, motionless clouds,
like coulisses or curtains, to close the flame-
theatre within ; and then, in that death-pause
of the Day, an unspeakable feeling will come
over us; it is as if the poor sounds of Time,
those hammerings of tired Labour on his an-
vils, those voices of simple men, had become
awful and supernatural ; as if in listening, we
could hear them " mingle with the ever-pealing
»ones of old Eternity." In such moments the
secrets of Life lie opener to us; mysterious
things flit over the soul ; Life itself seems ho-
lier, Hfonderful, and fearful. How much more

when our sunset was of a living sun ; and it$
bright countenance and shining return to us,
not on the morrow, but " no more again, at all,
for ever !" In such a scene, silence, as over
the mysterious great, is for him that has some
feeling thereof, the fittest mood. Nevertheless
by silence, the distant is not brought into com-
munion : the feeling of each is without re-
sponse from the bosom of his brother. There
are now, what some years ago there were not,
English hearts that know something of what
those three words, "Death of Goethe," mean ;
to such men, among their many thoughts on
the event, which are not to be translated into
speech, may these few, through that imperfect
medium, prove acceptable.

"Death," says the Philosopher, "is a com-
mingling of Eternity with Time ; in the death
of a good man, Eternity ' is seen looking
through Time." With such a sublimity here
oflTered to eye and heart, it is not unnatural
to look with new earnestness before and be-
hind, and ask, what space in those years and
Beons of computed Time, this man with his
activity may influence ; what relation to the
world of change and mortality, which the
earthly name Life, he who is even now called
to the Immortals has borne and may bear.

Goethe, it is commonly said, made a new
era in Ijitcrature; a Poetic era began with
him, the end or ulterior tendencies of which
are yet nowise generally visible. This com-
mon saying is a true one, and true with a far
deeper meaning than, to the most, it conveys
Were the Poet but a sweet sound and singer,
solacing the ear of the idle with pleasant songs,
and the new Poet one who could sing his idle,
pleasant song, to a new air, we should account
him a small matter, and his perlbrmance
small. But this man, it is not unknown to many,
was a Poet in such a sense as the late genera-
tions have witnessed no other; as it is, in this
generation, a kind of distinction to believe in
the existence of, in the possibility of. The
true Poet is ever, as of old, the Seer; whose
eye has been gifted to discern the godlike mys-
tery of God's universe, and decipher some
new lines of its celestial writing; we can slill
call him a Vaies and Seer; for he sees into this
greatest of secrets " the open secret ;" hidden
things become clear; how the future (both
resting on Eternity) is but another phasis of
the present ; thereby are his words in very
truth prophetic ; what he has spoken shall be
done.

It begins now to be everywhere surmised
that the real Force, which in this world all
things must obey, is Insight, Spiritual Vision,
and Determination. Th? Thought is parent
of the Deed, nay, is living soul of it, and last
and continual, as well as first mover of it; is
the foundation, and beginning, and essence,
therefore, of man's whole existence here be-
low. In this sense, it has been said, the woud
of man (the uttered thoughts of man) is still
a magic formula, whereby he rules the world.
Do not the winds and waters, and all tumultu-
ous powers, inanimate and animate, obey him 1
A poor, quite mechanical. Magician speaks—
and fire-winged ships ctoss the ocean at his
bidding. Or mark, above all, that " raging of

DEATH OF GOETHE.

343

the nations," wholly in contention, despera-
tion, and dark chaotic fury ; how the meek
voice of a Hebrew Martyr and Redeemer stills
it into order, and a savage Earth becomes
kind and beautiful, and the " habitation of
horrid cruelty" a temple of peace. The true
sovereign of the world, who moulds the world
like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he
who lovingly sees into the world ; the " inspired
Thinker," whom in these days we name Poet.
The true sovereign is the Wise Man.

However, as the Moon, which can heave up
the Atlantic, sends not in her obedient billows
at once, but gradually ; and, for example, the
Tide, which swells to-day on our shores, and
washes every creek, rose in the bosom of the
great ocean (astronomers assure us) eight and
forty hours ago; and indeed all world-move-
ments, by nature deep, are by nature calm, and
flow and swell onwards with a certain majes-
tic slowness — so, too, with the impulse of a
Great Man, and the effect he has to manifest
on other men. To such an one we may grant
some generation or two before the celestial
impulse he impressed on the world will uni-
versally proclaim itself, and become (like the
working of the moon) if still not intelligible,
yet palpable, to all men; some generation or
two more, wherein it has to grow, and expand,
and envelop all things, before it can reach its
acme ; and thereafter mingling with other
movements and new impulses, at length cease
to require a specific observation or designa-
tion. Longer or shorter such period may be,
according to the nature of the impulse itself,
and of the elements it works in; according,
above all, as the impulse was intrinsically
great and deep-reaching, or only wide-spread,
superficial, and transient. Thus, if David
Hume is at this hour pontiff of the world, and
rules most hearts, and guides most tongues,
(the hearts and tongues, even in those that in
vain rebel against him,) there are, nevertheless,
symptoms that his task draws towards com-
pletion; and now in the distance his succes-
sor becomes visible. On the other hand, we
have seen a Napoleon, like some gunpowder
force (with which sort he, indeed, was appoint-
ed chiefly to work) explode his whole virtue
suddenly, and thunder himself out and silent,
in a space of five-and-twenty years. While
again, for a man of true greatness, working
with spiritual implements, two centuries is no
uncommon period; nay, on this Earth of ours,
there have been men whose impulse had not
completed its development till after fifteen
hundred years, and might, perhaps, be seen
still individually subsistent after two thousand.
But, as was once written, " though our clock
strikes when there is a change from hour to
hour, no hammer in the horologe of lime peals
through the universe to proclaim that there is
a change from era to era." The true begin-
ning is oftenest unnoticed, and unnoticeable.
Thus do men go wrong in their reckoning;
and grope hither and thither, not knowing
where they are, in what course their history
runs. Within this last century, for instance,
with its wild doings and destroyings, what
hope, grounded in miscalculation, ending in
disappointment ! How many world-famous

victories were gained and lost, dynasties
founded and subverted, revolutions accom-
plished, constitutions sworn to ; and ever the
" new era" was come, was coming, yet still it
came not, but the time continued sick! Alas,
all these were but spasmodic convulsions of
the death-sick time ; the crisis of cure and re-
generation to the time was not there indicated.
The real new era was when a Wise Man came
into the world, with clearness of vision and
greatness of soul to accomplish this old high
enterprise, amid these new difficulties, yet
again: A Life of Wisdom. Such a man be-
came, by Heaven's pre-appointment, in very
deed, the Redeemer of the time. Did he not
bear the curse of the time 1 He was filled full
with its skepticism, bitterness, hollowness, and
thousandfold contradictions, till his heart was
like to break; but he subdued all this, rose
victorious over this, and manifoldly by word
and act showed others that come af^ter, how to
do the like. Honour to him who first, " through
the impassable, paves a road !" Such indeed
is the task of every great man ; nay, of every
good man in one or the other sphere, since
goodness is greatness, and the good man, high
or humble, is ever a martyr, and a " spiritual
hero that ventures forward into the gulf for
our deliverance." The gulf into which this
man ventured, which he tamed and rendered
habitable, was the greatest and most perilous
of all, wherein truly all others lie included:
The whole distraded Existence of man in an age
of unbelief. Whoso lives, whoso with earnest
mind studies to live wisely in that mad element,
may yet know, perhaps, too well, what an en-
terprise was here ; and for the chosen of our
time, who could prevail in that same, have the
higher reverence, and a gratitude such as be-
long to no other.

How far he prevailed in it, and by what
means, with what endurances and achieve-
ments, will in due season be estimated; those
volumes called Gneihc's li'orks, will receive no
further addition or alteration; and the record
of his whole spiritual Endeavour lies written
there, — were the man or men but ready who
could read it rightly! A glorious record;
wherein he that would understand himself and
his environment, and struggles for escape out
of darkness into light, as for the one thing
needful, will long thankfully study. For the
whole chaotic time, what it has suffered, at-
tained, and striven after, stands imaged there;
interpreted, ennobled into poetic clearness.
From the passionate longings and wailings of
" Werter" spoken as from the heart of all
Europe ; onwards through the wild unearthly
melody of "Faust" (like the spirit song of
falling worlds ;) to that serenely smiling wis-
dom of " Meisters Lehrjahre," and the "Ger-
man Hafiz," — what an interval ; and all en-
folded in an ethereal music, as from unknown
spheres, harmoniously uniting all ! A long
interval; and wide as well as long; for this
was a universal man. History, Science, Art,
human Activity under every aspect; the lav,rs
of light in his " Farbenlehre ;" the laws of
wild Italian life in his " Benvenuto Cellini;" — .
nothing escaped him, nothing that he did not
look into, that he did no^ jce into. Consider

344

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

too the genuineness of whatsoever he did ; hi'3
hearty, idiomatic way; simplicity with loftiness,
and nobleness, and aerial grace. — Pure works
of art, completed with an antique Grecian
polish as " Torquato Tasso," as " Iphigenie,"
Proverbs; "Xenien;" Patriarclial Sayings,
which, since the Hebrew Scriptures were closed,
we know not where to match; in whose homely
depths lie often the materials for volumes.

To measure and estimate all this, as we
said, the time is not come; a century hence
will be the fitter time. He who investigates it
best will find its meaning greatest, and be the
readiest to acknowledge that it transcends
him. — Let the reader have seen, before he at-
tempts to oversee. A poor reader, in the mean-
while were he, who discerned not here the
authentic rudiments of that same New Era,
whereof we have so often had false warning.
Wondrously, the wrecks and pulverized rub-
bish of ancient things, institutions, religions,
forgotten noblenesses, made alive again by the
breath of Genius, lie here in new coherence
and incipient union, the spirit of Art working
creative through the mass : that chaos, into
which the eighteenth century with its wild war
of hypocrites and skeptics had reduced the
Past, begins here to be once more a ivorU. —
This, the highest that can be said of written
books, is to be said of these ; there is in them
a new time, the prophecy and beginning of a
new time. The corner stone of a new social
edifice for mankind is laid there; firmly, as
before, on the natural rock, far extending traces
of a ground-plan we can also see, which future
centuries may go on to enlarge, amend, and
work into reality. These sayings seem strange
to some; nevertheless they are not empty ex-
aggerations, but expressions, in their way, of
a belief, which is not now of yesterday ; per-
haps when Goethe has been read and medi-
tated for another generation, they will not seem
so strange.

Precious is the new light of knowledge
which our teacher conquers for us; yet small
to the new light of Love which also we derive
from him; the most important element of any
man's performance is the life he has accom-
plished. Under the intellectual union of man
and man, which works by precept, lies a holier
union of afiection, working by example : the
influences of which latter, mystic, deep-reach-
ing, all-embracing, can still less be computed.
For Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge,
as fire is of light; works also more in the
manner of fre. That Goethe was a great
teacher of men, means already that he was a
good man; that he himself learned; in the
school of experience had striven and proved
victorious. To how many hearers languish-
ing, nigh dead, in the airless dungeon of Un-
belief (a true vacuum and nonentity) has the
assurance that there was such a man, that such
a man was still possible, come like tidings of
great joy ! He who would learn to reconcile
Reverence with clearness, to deny and defy
what is false, yet believe and worship what is
true; amid raging factions, bent on what is
either altogether empty or has substance in it
only for a day, which stormfully convulse and
tear hither and thither a distracted, expiring

system of society, to adjust himself arighi:
and, working for the world, and in the world,
keep himself unspotted from the world,— let
him look here. This man, we may say, be-
came morally great, by being in his own age
what in some other ages many mij-lil have
been — a genuine man. His grand excellency
was this, that he was genuine. As hir. primary
faculty, the foundation of all others, was Intel-
lect, depth and force of Vision, so his primary
virtue was Justice, was the courage to be 'ust.
A giant's strength we admired in hini; yet,
strength ennobled into softest mildness; even
like that "silent rock-bound strength of a
world," on whose bosom, that rests on the
adamant, grow flowers. The greatest of hearts
was also the bravest: fearless, unwearied,
peacefully invincible. A completed man; the
trembling sensibility, the wild enthusiasm of a
Mignon, can assort with the scornful world-
mockery of a Mephistophiles ; and each side
of many-sided life receives its due from him.

Goethe reckoned Schiller happy that he died
young, in the full vigour of his days: that he
could " figure him as a youth for ever." To
himself a diflerent, higher destiny was ap-
pointed. Through all the changes of man's
life, onwards to its extreme verge, he was to
go; and through them all nobly. In youth,
flatterings of fortune, uninterrupted outward
prosperity cannot corrupt him; a wise ob-
server must remark, " only a Goethe, at the
sum of earthly happiness, can keep his Phoenix-
wings unsinged." — Through manhood, in the
most complex relation, as poet, courtier, poli-
tician, man of business, man of speculation;
in the middle of revolutions and counter-revo-
lutions, outward and spiritual ; with the world
loudly for him, with the world loudly or si-
lently against him ; in all seasons and situa-
tions, he holds equally on his way. Old age
itself, which is called dark and feeble, he was
to render lovely : who that looked upon him
there, venerable in himself, and in the world's
reverence, ever the clearer, the purer, but
could have prayed that he too were such an
old man ] And did not the kind Heavens con-
tinue kind, and grant to a career so glorious
the worthiest end 1

Such was Goethe's life ; such has his de-
parture been — he sleeps now beside his Schil-
ler and his Carl August : so had the Prince
willed it, that between these two should be his
own final rest. In life they were united, in
death they are not divided. The unwearied
Workman now rests from his labours; the
fruit of these is left growing, and to grow.
His earthly years have been numbered and
ended: but of his activity (for it stood rooted
in the Eternal) there is no end. All that we
mean by the higher Literature of German}',
which is the higher Literature of Europe, al-
ready gathers round this man, as its creator;
of which grand object, dawning mysterious on
a world that hoped not for it, who is there that
can assume the significance and far-reaching
influences? The Literature of Europe will
pass away; Europe itself, the Earth itself will
pass away; this little life-boat of an Earth,
with its noisy crew of Mankind, and all their
troubled History, will one day have vanished.

DEATH OF GOETHE.

315

faded like a cloud-speck from the azure of the
All ! What then is man! What then is man 1
He endures but for an hour, and is crushed
before the moth. Yet in the being and in the
working of a faithful man is there already (as
all faith, from the beginning, gives assurance)
a something that pertains not to this wild
dpath-element of time; that triumphs over
Time, and is, and will be, when Time shall be
no more.

And now we turn back into the world, with-

drawing from this new made grave. The man
whom we love lies there : but glorious, worthy:
and his spirit yet lives in us with an autnentic
life. Could each here vow to do his little task,
even as the Departed did his great one; in the
manner of a true man, not for a Day, but
for Eternity! To live, as he counselled and
commanded, not commodiously in the Repu-
table, the Plausible, the Half, but resolutely ia
the Whole, the Good, the True:

" Im Ganien, Gutcn, fVahren rcsolut ;u teben ;

GOETHE'S works;

[FOEEIGN QUAKTERLY ReVIEW, 1832.]

It is now four years since we specially in-
vited attention to this Book; first in an essay
on the graceful little fantasy-piece of Helena,
then in a more general one on the merits and
workings of Goethe himself: since which time
two important things have happened in refe-
rence to it; for the publication, advancing with
successful regularity, reached its fortieth and
last volume in 1830; and now, still more em-
phatically to conclude both this "completed
final edition," and all other editions, endeavours
and attainments of one in whose hands lay so
much, come tidings that the venerable man has
been recalled from our earth, and of his long
labours and high faithful stewardship we have
had what was appointed us.

The greatest epoch in a man's life is not
always his death ; yet for bystanders, such as
contemporaries, it is always the most notice-
able. All other epochs are transition-points
from one visible condition to another visible;
the days of their occurrence are like any other
days, from which only the clearer-sighted will
distinguish them; bridges they are, over which
the smooth highway runs continuous, as if no
Rubicon were there. But the day in a mortal's
destinies which is like no other, is his death-
day : here too is a transition, what we may call
a bridge, as at other epochs ; but now from the
keystone onwards half the arch rests on in-
visibility; this is a transition out of visible
Time into invisible Eternity.

Since death, as the palpable revelation (not
to be overlooked by the dullest) of the mystery
of wonder, and depth, and fear, which every-
where from beginning to ending through its
whole course and movement lies under life, is
in any case so great, we find it not unnatural
that hereby a new look of greatness, a new in-
terest should be impressed on whatsoever has
preceded it and led to it; that even towards
some man, whose history did not then first
become significant, the world should turn, at
his departure, with a quite peculiar earnest-

• Ooethes li'erke. VoUstiindige ^usgahe letzer Hand,
(Goethe's Works. Completeil, final edition,) 40 veil.
Btuttgard and Tubingen. 1827-30.
44

ness, and now seriously ask itself a question,
perhaps never seriously asked before : What
the purport and character of his presence here
was : now when he has gone hence, and is not
present here, and will remain absent for ever-
more. It is the conclusion that crowns the
work; much more the irreversible conclusion
wherein all is concluded: thus is there no life
so mean but a death will make it memorable.

At all lykewakes, accordingly, the doings
and endurances of the Departed are the theme :
rude souls, rude tongues grow eloquently busy
with him ; a whole septuagint of beldames are
striving to render, in such dialect as they have,
the small bible, or apochrypha,of his existence,
for the general perusal. The least famous of
mankind will for once become public, and have
his name printed, and read not without interest:
in the Newspaper obituaries; on some frail
memorial, under which he has crept to sleep.
Foolish lovesick girls know that there is one
method to impress the obdurate, false Lovelace,
and wring his bosom ; the method of drowning :
foolish ruined dandies, whom the tailor will no
longer trust, and the world turning on its heel
is about forgetting, can recall it to attention by
report of pistol ; and so, in a worthless death,
if in a worthless life no more, re-attain the top-
gallant of renown, — for one day. Death is
ever a sublimity, and supernatural wonder,
were there no other left: the last act of a most
strange drama, which is not dramatic but has
now become real : wherein, miraculously, Fu-
ries, god-missioned, have in actual person
risen from the abyss, and do verily dance
there in that terror of all terrors, and wave
their dusky-glaring torches, and shake their
serpent-hair! Out of which heart-thrilling, so
authentically tragic fifth act there goes, as we
said, a new meaning over all the other four:
making them likewise tragic and authentic,
and memorable in some measure, were they
formerly the sorriest pickle-herring farce.

But above all, when a Great Man dies, then
has the time come lor putting us in mind that
he was alive : biographies and biographic
sketches, criticisms, characters, anecdote.s

34R

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

reminiscences, issue forth as from opened
springing fountains ; the world, with a passion
whetted b}' impossibility, will yet a while retain,
yet a while speak with, though only to the un-
answering echoes, what it has lost without
remedy : thus is the last event of life often the
loudest ; and real spiritual Appnr'dumf, (who
have been named Men,) as false imaginary
ones are fabled to do, vanish in thunder.

For ourselves, as regards the great beauty, if
not seeking to be foremost in this natural move-
ment, neither do we shun to mingle in it. The
life and ways of such men as he, are, in all sea-
sons, a matter profitable to contem plate, to speak
of; if in this death season, long with a sad reve-
rence looked forward to, there has little increase
of light, little change of feeling arisen lor the
writer, a readier attention, nay a certain expect-
ance, from some readers is call sufiicient. In-
numerable meditations and disquisitions on this
subject must yet pass through the minds of
men ; on all sides must it be taken up, by
various observers, by successive generations,
and ever a new light may evolve itself: why
should not this observer, on this side, set down
what he partially has seen into, and the neces-
sary process thereby be forwarded, at any rate,
continued "?

A continental Humourist, of deep-piercing,
resolute, though strangely perverse faculty,
whose works are as yet but sparingly if at all
cited in English literature, has written a
chapter, somewhat in the nondescript manner
of metaphysico-rhetorical, homiletic-exegetic
rhapsody, on the Greatness of great men; which
topic we agree with him in reckoning one of
the most pregnant. The lime, indeed, is come
when much that was once found visibly sub-
sistent Without must anew be sought for With-
in ; many a human feeling, indestructible, and to
man's well-being indispensable, which once
manifested itself in expressive forms to the
Sense, now lies hidden in the formless depths
of the Spirit, or at best struggles out obscurely
in forms become superannuated, altogether
inexpressive, and unrecognisable; from which
paralysed, imprisoned state, often the best
effort of the thinker is required, and moreover
were well applied, to deliver it. For if the
Present is to be the " living sum-total of the
whole Past," nothing that ever lived in the
Past must be let wholly die; whatsoever was
done, whatsoever was said or written aforetime,
was done and written for our edification. In
such state of imprisonment, paralysis and un-
recognisable defacement, as compared with its
condition in the old ages, lies this our feeling to-
wards great men; wherein, and in the much that
else belongs to it, some of the deepest human
interests will be found involved. A few words
from Herr Professor Teufelsdreck, if they help
to set this preliminary matter in a clearer
light, may be worth translating here. Let us
first remark with him, however, " how wonder-
ful in all cases, great or little, is the importance
of man to man :"

" Deny it as he will," says Teufelsdreck,
"man reverently loves man, and daily by ac-
tion evidences his belief in the divineness of
man. What a more than regal mystery en-
circles the poorest of living souls for us ! The

highest is not independent of him ; his sufirage
has value: could the highest monarch con-
vince himself that the humblest beggar with sin-
cere mind despised him, no serried ranks of
halberdiers and body-guards could shut out
some little twinge of pain ; some emanation
from the low had pierced into the bosom of the
high. Of a truth, men are mystically united ; a
mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.

"Thus too has that fierce hunting after Popu-
larity, which you often wonder at, and laugh at,
a basis on something true : nay, under the other
aspect, what is that wonderful spirit of Inter-
ference, were it but manifested as the paltriest
scandal and tea-table backbiting, other than,
inversely or directly, a heartfelt indestructibL
sympathy of man with man ] Hatred itself is
but an inverse love. The philosopher's wife
complained to the philosopher that certain two-
legged animals without feathers spake evil of
him, spitefully criticised his goings out and
comings in; wherein she too failed not of her
share : ' Light of my life,' answered the philo-
sopher, ' it is their love of us, unknown to
themselves, and taking a foolish shape; thank
them for it, and do thou love them more wisely.
Were we mere steam-engines working here
under this rooftree, they would scorn to speak
of us once in a twelve-month.' The last stage
of human perversion, it has been said, is when
sympathy corrupts itself into envy; and the
indestructible interest we take in men's doings
has become a joy over their faults and mis-
fortunes: this is the last and lowest stage;
lower than this we cannot go: the absolute
petrifaction of indifference is not attainable on
this side total death.

" And now," continues the Professor, " rising
from these lowest tea-table regions of human
communion into the higher and highest, is
there not still in the world's demeanour to-
wards Great Men, enough to make the old
practice o'i Hero-u-or^hip intelligible, nay, signi-
ficant] Simpleton! I tell thee Hero-worship
still continues; it is the only creed which
never and nowhere grows or can grow obso-
lete. For always and everywhere this remains
a true saying: // y a dans le cirur hiimain un fibre
religieiix. Man always wjrships something;
always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in
something finite; and indeed can and must so
see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well
to fix his eyes thereon. Yes, in practice, be
it in theory or not, we are all Supernaturalists ;
and have an infinite happiness or an infinite
wo not only waiting us hereafter, but looking
out on us through any pitifullest present good
or evil; — as, for example, on a high poetic
Byron through his lameness; as on all young
souls through their first lovesuit; as on older
souls, still more foolishly, through many a law-
suit, paper-battle, political horse-race or ass-
race. Atheism, it has oeen said, is impossi-
ble ; and truly, if we will consider it, no
Atheist denies a Divinity, but only some Naimb
(Aomen, Niirncn) of a Divinity: the God is still
present there, working in that benighted heart,
were it only as a god of darkness. Thousands
of stern Sansculottes, to seek no other instance,
go chanting martyr hymns to their guillotine;
these spuni at the name of a God; yet worship

GOETHE'S WORKS.

d47

one (as hapless 'Proselytes without the Gate')
under the new pseudonym of Freedom. What
indeed is all this that is called political fanati-
cism, revolutionary madness, force of hatred,
force of love, and so forth ; but merely under
new designations, that same wondrous, won-
der-working reflex from the Infinite, which in
all tinges has given the Finite its empyrean or
tartarean hue, thereby its blessedness or cursed-
ness, its marketable worth or unworth ?

" Remark, however, as illustrative of several
tilings, and more to the purpose here, that man
does in strict speech always remain the clearest
symbol of the Divinity to man. Friend Nova-
lis, the devoutest heart I knew, and of purest
depth, has not scrupled to call man what the
Divine Man is called in Scripture, a ' Revela-
tion in the Flesh.' 'There is but one temple
in the world,' says he, ' and that is the body
of man. Bending before men is a reverence
done to this revelation in the flesh. We touch
heaven when we lay our hand on a human
body.' In which notable words, a reader that
meditates them, may find such meaning and
scientific accuracy as will surprise him.

"The age of superstition, it appears to be
sufficientiy known, are behind us. To no
man, were he never so heroic, are shrines any
more built, and vows offered as to one having
supernatural power. The sphere of the tran-
scEXDENTAL canuot now, by that avenue of
heroic worth, of eloquent wisdom, or by any
other avenue, be so easily reached. The
worth that in these days could Iravfcend all
estimate or survey, and lead men willingly cap-
tive into ivfini'c admiration, into worship, is
still waited for (with little hope) from the un-
seen Time. All that can be said to offer itself
in that kind, at present, is some slight house-
hold devotion, (Hmis-Jlndaclit,) whereby this or
the other enthusiast, privately in all quietness,
can love his hero or sage without measure,
and idealize, and, so in a sense, idolize him;
— which practice, as man is by necessity an
idol-worshipper, (no offence in him so long as
idol means accurately vision, clear symbol,) and
all wicked idolatry is but a ntorc idolatrous
worship, may be excusable, in certain cases,
praiseworthy. Be this as it will, let the curious
eye gratify itself in observing how the old ante-
diluvian feeling still, though now struggling
out so imperfectly, and forced into unexpected
shapes, asserts its existence in the newest
man : and the Chaldeans or old Persians, with
their Zerdusht, differ only in vesture and
dialect from the French, with their Voltaire
e'oiijfe sons des roses"*

This, doubtless, is a wonderful phraseology,
but referable, as the Professor urges, to that
capacious reservoir and convenience, "the
nature of the time:" "A time," says he, " when
as in some Destruction of a Roman Empire,
wrecks of old things are everywhere confusedly
jumbled with rudiments of new; so that, till
once the mixture and amalgamation be com-
plete, and even have long continued complete,
and universally apparent, no grammatical lan-
gue d'oc or langue d'oiii can establish itself, but

• Die Kleider : ihr U'erden und U'irken Von D. Teii-
FELsDRECK. Weissnichtwo. Stillschweign'sche Buch-
bandluiig, 1830.

only some barbarous mixed lingua rustxta, more
like a jargon than a language, must prevail; and
thus the deepest matters be either barbarously
spoken of, or wholly omitted and lost sight of,
which weje still v/orse." But to let the homily
proceed:

" Consider, at any rate," continues he else-
where, " under how many categories, down to
the most impertinent, the world inquires con-
cerning Great Men, and never wearies striving
to represent to itself their whole structure,
aspect, procedure, outward and inward ! Blame
not the world for such minutest curiosity about
its great ones: this comes of the world's old-
established necessity to worship: and, indeed,
whom but its great ones, that " like celestial
fire-pillars go before it on the march," ought
it to worship? Blame not even that mistaken
worship of sham great ones, that are not
celestial fire-pillars, but terrestrial glass-lan-
terns with wick an,d tallow, under no guidance
but a stupid fatuous one; of which worship
the litanies, and gossip-homilies are, in some
quarters of the globe, so inexpressibly unin-
teresting. Blame it not; pity it rather, with a
certain loving respect.

" Man is never, let me assure thee, altogether
a clothes-horse; under the clothes there is
always a body and a soul. The Count von
Biigeleisen, so idolized by our fashionable
classes, is not, as the English Swift asserts,
created wholly by the Tailor: but partially, also,
by the supernatural Powers. His beautifully
cut apparel, and graceful expensive tackle and
environment of all kinds, are but the symbols
of a beauty and gracefulness supposed to be
inherent in the Count himself; under which
predicament come also our reverence for his
counthood, and in good part that other notable
phenomenon of his being worshipped, because
he is worshipped, of one idolater, sheep-like,
running after him, because many have already
run. Nay, on what other principle but this
latter hast thou, O reader, (if thou be not one
of a thousand,) read, for example, thy Homer,
and found some real jo}' therein 1 All these
things, I say, the apparel, the counthood, the
existing popularity, and whatever else can com-
bine them, are symbols ; — bank notes, which,
whether there be gold behind them, or only
bankruptcy and empty drawers, pass current
for gold. But how, now, could they so pass,
if gold itself were not prized, and believed and
known to be somewhere extant 1 Produce the
actual gold visibly, and mark how, in these
distrustful days, your most accredited bank-
paper stagnates in the market ! No holy Alli-
ance, though plush, and gilding, and genealo-
gical parchment, to the utmost that the time
yields, be hung round it, can gain for itself a
dominion in the heart of any man ; some thirty
or forty millions of men's hearts being, on the
other hand, subdued into loyal reverence by a
Corsican Lieutenant of Artillery. Such is the
difference between God-creation and Tailor-
creation. Great is the tailor, but not the
greatest. So, too, in matters spiritual, what
avails it that a man oe Doctor of the Sorbonne,
Doctor of Laws, of Both Laws, and can cover
half a square foot in pica-type with the list of
his fellowships, arranged as equilateral Iriang'e,

348

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

at the vertex an '&c.' over and above, and
with the parchment of his diplomas could
thatch the whole street he lives in: What
avails it? The man is btit an owl; of pre-
possessing gravity indeed ; much respected by
simple neighbours ; but to i/hose sorrowful
hootings no creature hasten? , eager to listen.
While, again, let but some rid.ng ganger arrive
under cloud of night at a Scottish inn, and
word oe whispered that it is Robert Burns ; in
few instants all beds and truckle-beds, from
garret to cellar, are left vacant, and gentle and
simple, with open eyes and erect ears, are
gathered together."

Whereby, at least, from amid this question-
able Ihioua, "more like a jargon than a lan-
guage," so much may have become apparent:
What unspeakable importance the world at-
taches, has ever attached, (expressing the same
by all possible methods,) and will ever attach,
to its great men. Deep and venerable, whether
looked at in the Teufeisdreck manner or other-
wise, is this love of men for great men, this
iheir exclusive admiration of great men ; a
quality of vast significance, if we consider it
well ; for, as in its origin it reaches up into the
highest and even holiest provinces of man's
nature, so, in his practical history it will be
found to play the most surprising part. Does
not, for one example, the fact of such a temper
indestructibly existing in all men, point out
man as an essentially governable and teach-
able creature, and for ever refute that calumny
of his being by nature insubordinate, prone to
rebellion 1 Men seldom, or rather never for a
length of time and deliberately, rebel against
any thing that does not deserve rebelling against.
Ready, ever zealous is the obedience and de-
votedness they show to the great, to the really
high ; prostrating their whole possession and
self, body, heart, soul, and spirit, under the feet
of whatsoever is authentically above them.
Nay, in most times, it is rather a slavish de-
votedness to those who only seem and pretend
to be above them that constitutes their fault.

But why seek special instances ? Is not
Love, from of old, known to be the beginning
of all things 1 And what is admiration of the
great but love of the truly loveable 1 The
first product of love is imitalion, that all-
important peculiar gift of man, whereby Man-
kind is not only held socially together in the
present time, but connected in like union with
the past and the future ; so that the attainment
of the innumerable Departed can be conveyed
down to the Living, and transmitted with in-
crease to the Unborn. Now great men, in
particular spiritually great men, for all men
have a spirit to guide, though all have not
kingdoms to govern and battles to fight, are
the men universally imitated and learned of,
the glass in which whole generations survey
and shape themselves.

Thus is the Great Man of an age, beyond
comparison, the most important phenomenon
therein ; all other phenomena, were they Water-
loo Victories, Constitutions of the year One,
glorious revolutions, new births of the golden
age, in what sort you will, are small and trivial.
Alas, ail these pass away, and are left extinct
behind, like the tar-barrels they were celebrated

with, and the new-born golden age proves
always to be still-born : neither is there, was
there, or will there, be any other golden age pos-
sible, save only in this: in new increase of
worth and wisdom ; — that is to say, therefore, in
the new arrival among us of wise and wurthy
men. Such arrivals are the great occurrences,
though unnoticed ones ; all else that can occur,
in what kind soever, is but the road, up hill or
down hill, rougher or smoother: nowise the
power that will nerve us for travelling forward
thereon. So little comparatively can fore-
thought or the cunningest mechanical pre-con-
trivance do for a nation, for a world ! Ever
must we wait on the bounty of Time, and see
what leader shall be born for us, and whither he
will lead. Thus too, in defect of great men,
noted men become important : the Noted Man
of an age is the emblem and living summary
of the Ideal which that age has fashioned for
itself: show me the noted man of an age, you
show me the age that produced him. Such
figures walk in the van, for great good, or for
great evil ; if not leading, then driven and still
farther misleading. The apotheosis of Beau
Brummel has marred many a pretty youth;
landed him not at any, £;o./Z where oak garlands,
earned by faithful labour and valour, carry
men to the immortal gods ; but, by a fatal in-
version, at the King's Bench gaol, where he
that has never sowed shall not any longer reap,
still less any longer burn his barn, but scrape
himself with potsherds among the ashes
thereof, and consider with all deliberation
" what he wanted, and what he wants."

To enlighten this principle of reverence for
the great, to teach us reverence, and whom we
are to revere and admire, should ever be a chief
aim of Education, (indeed it is nerein that in-
struction properly both begins and ends ;) and
in these late ages, perhaps more than ever, so
indispensable is now our need of clear reve-
rence, so inexpressibly poor our supply. " Clear
reverence!" it was once responded to a seeker
of light: "all want it, perhaps thou thyself."
What wretched idols, of Leeds cloth, stuffed
out with bran of one kind or other, do men
either worship, or being tired of worshipping,
(so expensively without fruit.) rend in pieces
and kick out of doors, amid loud shouting and
crowing, what they call " tremendous cheers,"
as if the feat were miraculous I In private
life, as in public, delusion in this sort does its
work; -the blind leading the blind, both fall into
the ditch.

" For alas !" cries Teufeisdreck on this oc-
casion, " though in susceptive hearts it is felt
that a great man is unspeakably great, the
specific marks of him are mournfully mistaken:
thus must innumerable pilgrims journey, in
toil and hope, to shrines where there is no
healing. On the fairer half of the creation,
above all, such error presses hard. Women
are born worshippers ; in their good little
hearts lies the most craving relish for great-
ness: it is even said, each chooses her hus-
band on the hypothesis of his being a great
man — in his way. The good creatures, yet the
foolish ! For their choices, no insight, or next
to none, being vouchsafed them, are unutter-
able. Yet how touching, also to see, for ex-

GOETHE'S WOKKS.

34»

ample, Parisian ladies of quality, all rustling
in silks and laces, visit the condemned-cell of
a fierce Cartouche, and in silver accents, and
with the looks of angels, beg locks of hair
from him ; as from the greatest, were it only
in the pn^fession of highwayman ! Still more
fatal is that other mistake, the commonest of
all, whereby the devotional youth, seeking for
a great man to worship, finds such within his
own worthy person, and proceeds with all zeal
to worship (here. Unhappy enough ! to realize,
in an age of such gas-light illumination, this
basest superstition of the ages of Egyptian
darkness.

"Remark, however, and not without emo-
tion, that of all rituals, and divine services,
and ordinances ever instituted for the worship
of any god, this of Self-worship is the ritual
most faithfully observed. Trouble enough
has the Hindoo devotee, with his washings,
and cookings, and perplexed formularies,
tying him up at every function of his exist-
ence : but is it greater trouble than that of his
German self-worshipping brother; is it trouble
even by the devoutest Fakir, so honestly un-
dertaken and fulfilled 1 I answer. No; for the
German's heart is in it. The German wor-
shipper, for whom does he work, and scheme,
and struggle, and fight, at his rising up and
lying down, in all times and places, but for his
god only? Can he escape from that divine
presence of Self; can his heart waver, or his
hand wax faint in that sacred service? The
Hebrew Jonah, prophet as he was, rather than
take a message to Nineveh, took ship to Tarsh-
ish, hoping to hide there from his Sender; but
:n what ship-hull or whale's belly, shall the
madder German Jonah cherish hope of hiding
from — Himself! Consider too the temples he
builds, and the services of (shoulder-knotted)
priests he ordains and maintains; the smoking
sacrifices, thrice a day or oftener, with per-
haps a psalmist or two, of broken-winded lau-
reats and literators, if such are to be had.
Nor are his votive gifts wanting, of rings,
and jewels, and gold embroideries, such as
our Lady of Loretto might grow yellower to
look upon. A toilsome, perpetual worship,
heroically gone through ; and then with what
issue? Alas, with the worst. The old Egyp-
tian leek-w&rshipper had, it is to be hoped,
seasons of light and faith : his leek-god seems
to smile on him ; he is humbled, and in humi-
lity exalted, before the majesty of something,
were it only that of germinative Physical Na-
ture, seen through a germinating, not unnou-
rishing potherb. The Self-worshipper, again,
has- no seasons of light, which are not of blue
sulphur-light; hungry, envious pride, not hu-
mility in any sort, is the ashy fruit of his wor-
ship; his self-god growls on him with the
perpetual wolf-cry, Give ! Give ! and your de-
vout Byron, as the Frau Hunt, with a wise
simplicity (geUtreirh naiv,) once said, 'must sit
sulking like a great schoolboy, in pet because
they have given him a plain bun and not a
spiced one.' — His bun was a life-rent of God's
universe, with the tasks it offered, and the
tools to do them with; d priori, one might
ha%'e fancied it could be put up with for once."
After which wondrous glimpses into the

Teufelsdreck Homily on the Greatmss of Great
Men, it may now be high time to proceed with
the matter more in hand ; and remark that
our much calumniated age, so fruitful in noted
men, is also not without its great. In noted
men, undoubtedly enough, we surpass all ages
since the creation of the world; and from two
plain causes: First, that there has been a
French Revolution, and that there is now
pretty rapidly proceeding a European Revolu-
tion ; whereby every thing, as in the Term-
day of a great city, when all mortals are re-
moving, has been, so to speak, set out into
the street; and many a foolish vessel of dis-
honour, unnoticed, and worth no notice in its
own dark corner, has become universally re-
cognisable when once mounted on the summit
of some furniture-wagon, and tottering there —
(as committee-president, or other head-direc-
tor,) with what is put under it, slowly onwards
to its new lodging and arrangement, itself,
alas, hardly to get thither without breakage.
Secondly, that the Printing Press, with stitched
and loose leaves, has now come into full ac-
tion ; and makes, as it were, a sort of univer-
sal day-light for removal and revolution, and
every thing else, to proceed in, far more com-
modiously, yet also far more conspicuously.
A complaint has accordingly been heard that
famous men abound, that Me are quite overrun
with famous men : however, the remedy lies
in the disease itself; crowded succession al-
ready means quick oblivion. For wagon after
wagon rolls ofl^, and either arrives or is over-
set; and so, in either case the vessel of disho-
nour, which, at worst, we saw only in crossing
some street, will afiiict us no more.

Of great men, among so many millions of
noted men, it is computed that in our time
there have been two; one in the practical, an-
other in the speculative province : Napoleon
Bonaparte and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
In wiiich dual number, inconsiderable as it is,
our time may, perhaps, specially pride itself,
and take precedence of many others ; in par-
ticular, reckon itself the flower-time of the
whole last century and half. Every age will,
no doubt, have its superior man or men : but
one so superior as to take rank among the
high of all ages ; this is what we call a great
man; this rarely makes his appearance, such
bounty of nature and accident must combine
to produce and unfold him. Of Napoleon
and his works all ends of the world have
heard ; for such a host marched not in silence
through the frighted deep : few heads there
are in this Planet which have not formed to
themselves some featured or featureless image
of him; his history has been written about,
on the great scale and on the small, some
millions of times, and still remains to be writ-
ten : one of our highest literary problems.
For such a "light-nimbus" of glory and re-
nown encircled the man; the environment he
walked in was itself so stupendous that the
eye grew dazzled and mistook his proportions;
or quite turned away from him in pain and
temporary blindness. Thus even among the
clear-sighted there is no unanimity about Na-
poleon ; and only here and there does his own
greatness beein to be interpreted, and accu-
2G

850

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

rately separated from the mere greatness of
his fame and fortune.

Goethe, again, though of longer continuance
in the world, and intrinsically of much more
unquestionable greatness, and even import-
ance there, could not be so noted by the world :
for if the explosion of powder-mines and ar-
tillery-parks naturally attracts every eye and
ear; the approach of a new-created star
(dawning on us in new-created radiance,
from the eternal Deeps!) though this, and not
the artillery-parks, is to shape our destiny and
rule the lower earth, is notable at first onlj^
to certain star-gazers and weather-prophets.
Among ourselves, especially, Goethe had little
recognition : indeed, it was only of late that
his existence, as a man and not as a mere
sound, became authentically known to us;
and some shadow of his high endowments
and endeavours, and of the high meaning that
might lie therein, arose in the general mind
of England, even of intelligent England. Five
years ago, to rank him with Napoleon, like
him as rising unattainable beyond his class,
like him and more than he of quite peculiar
moment to all Europe, would have seemed a
wonderful procedure; candour even, and
enlightened liberality, to grant him place
beside this and the other home-born ready-
writer, blessed with that special privilege of
" English cultivation," and able thereby to
write novels, heart captivating, heart-rending,
or of enchaining interest.

Since which time, however, let us say, the
progress of clearer apprehension has been
rapid and satisfactory: innumerable unmu-
sical voices have already fallen silent on this
matter; for in fowls of every feather, even in
the pertest choughs and thievish magpies,
there dwells a singular reverence of the eagle;
no Dullness is so courageous, but if you once
show it any gleam of a heavenly Resplen-
dence, it will, at lowest, shut its eyes and say
nothing. So fares it here with the " old estab-
lished British critic ;" who, indeed in these
days of ours, begins to be strangely situated;
so many new things rising on his horizon,
black indefinable shapes, magical or not ; the
old brickfield (where he kneaded insufficient
marketable bricks) all stirring under his feet ;
preternatural, mad-making tones in the earth
and air : — with all which what shall an old-
established British critic and brickmaker do,
but, at wisest, put his hands in his pockets,
and, with the face and heart of a British mas-
tilT, though amid dismal enough forebodings,
see what it will turn to 1

In the younger, more hopeful minds, again,
in most minds that can be considered as in a
state of growth, German literature is taking its
due place : in such, and in generations of other
such that are to follow them, some thankful
appreciation of the greatest in German litera-
ture cannot fail; at all events this feeling that
he is great and the greatest, whereby apprecia-
tion, and, what alone is of much value, appro-
priation, first becomes rightly possible. To
forward such on their way towards appropriat-
ing what excellence this man realized and
treated for them, somewhat has already been
doue, yet not much ; much still waits to be I

done. The field, indeed, is large: there ar«
forty volumes of the most significant Writing
that has been produced for the last two cen-
turies ; there is the whole long Life and heroic
Character of him who produced them ; all this
to expatiate over and inquire into; in both
which departments the deepest thinker, and
most far-sighted, may find scope enough.

Nevertheless, in these days of the ten-pound
franchise, when all the world (perceiving now
like the Irish innkeeper, that "death and de-
struction are just coming in ") will have itself
represented in parliament; and the wits of so
many are gone in this direction to gather wool,
and must needs return more or less shorn; it
were foolish to invite either young or old into
great depths of thought on such a remote mat-
ter; the tendency of which is neither for the
Reform Bill nor against it, but quietly through
it and beyond it; nowise to prescribe this or
that mode of e/ec/iu;^ members, but only to pro-
duce a few members worth electing. Not for
many years (who knows how many!) in ihese
harassed, hand-to-mouth circumstances, can
the world's bleared eyes open themselves to
study the true import of such topics; of this
topic the highest of such. As things actually
stand, some quite cursory glances, and con-
siderations close on the surface, to remind a
few (unelected, unelective) parties interested,
that it lies over for study, are all that can be
attempted here: could we, by any method, in
any measure, disclose for such the wondrous
wonder-working cUment it hovers in, the light
it is to be studied and inquired after in, what
is needfullest at present were accomplished.

One class of considerations, near enough
the surface, we avoid; all that partakes of an
elegiac character. True enough, nothing can
be done or suflTered, but there is something to
be said, wisely or unwisely. The departure
of our Greatest contemporary Man could not
be other than a great event ; fitted to awaken,
in all who with understanding beheld it, feel-
ing sad, but high and sacred, of mortality
and immortality, of mourning and of tri-
umph; far lookings into the Past and into
the Future; so many changes, fearful and
wonderful, of fleeting Time; glimpses too of
the Eternity these rest on, which knows no
change. At the present date and distance,
however, all this pertains not to us; has been
uttered elsewhere, or may be left for utterance
there. Let us consider the Exequies as past;
that the high Rogus, with its sweet scented
wood, amid the wail of music eloquent to
speechless hearts, has flamed aloft, heaven-
kissing, in sight of all the Greeks ; and that
now the ashes of the Hero are gathered into
their urn, and the host has marched onwards
to new victories and new toils; ever to be
mindful of the dead, not to mourn for him any
more. The host of the Greeks, in this case,
was all thinking Europe : whether their funeral
games were appropriate and worthy we stop
not to inquire; the time, in regard to such
things, is empty or ill provided, and this was
what the time could conveniently do. All
canonization and solemn cremation are gone
by; and as yet nothing suitable, nothing that
does not border upon parody, has appeared m

GOETHE'S WORKS.

351

their room, A Bentham bequeaths his re-
mains to be lectured over in a school of ana-
tomy; -and perhaps, even in this way, finds, as
chief of the Utilitarians, a really nobler funeral
than any other, which the prosaic age, rich
only in crapes and hollow scutcheons, (of tim-
ber as of words,) could have afforded him.

The matter in hand being Goelhc^s Works,
and the greatest work of every man, or rather
the summary and net amount of all his works,
being the Life he has led, we ask, as the first
question: — How it went with Goethe in that
matter; what was the practical basis, of want
and fulfilment, of joy and sorrow, from which
his spiritual productions grew forth ; the char-
acters of which they must more or less legibly
bear? In which sense, those Volumes entitled
by him Dichtung und Wahrhcit, wherein his
personal history, what he has thought fit to
mike known of it, stands delineated, will long
be valuable. A noble commentary, instructive
in many ways, lies opened there, and yearly
increasing in worth and interest; which all
readers, now when the true quality of it is
ascertained, will rejoice that circumstances
induced and allowed him to write: for surely
if old Cellini's counsel have any propriety, it
is doubly proper in this case; the autobiogra-
phic practice he recommends (of which the
last century in particular has seen so many
worthy and worthless examples) was never
so much in place as here. "All men, of what
rank soever,'' thus counsels the brave Ben-
venuto, "who have accomplished aught vir-
tuous or virtuous-like, should, provided they
be conscious of really good purposes, write
down their own life ; nevertheless, not put
hand to so worthy an enterprise till after they
have reached the age of forty." All which
ukase-regulations Goethe had abundantly ful-
filled— the last as abundantly as any, for he
had now reached the age of sixty-two.

"This year, 1811," says he, "distinguishes
itself for me by persevering outward activity.
Tiie Life of Philip Harkert went to press; the
papers committed to me all carefully elaborated
as '.he case required. By this task I was once
more attracted to the South : the occurrences
which, at that period, had befallen me there, in
Hackert's company or neighbourhood, became
alive in the imagination ; I had cause to ask,
"Why this which I was doing for another
should not be attempted for myself? I turned,
accordingly, before completion of that volume.
to my own earliest personal history; and, in
truth, found here that I had delayed too lonsr-
The work should have been undertaken while
my mother yet lived ; thereby had I got nigher
those scenes of childhood, and been, by her
great strength of memory, transported into the
mid-it of them. Now, however, must these
vanished apparitions be recalled by my own
help; and, first, with labour, many an incite-
ment to recollection, like a necessary magic-
apparatus be devised. To represent the de-
velopment of a child who had grown to be re-
markable, how this exhibited itself under given
circumstances, and yet how in general it could
content the student of human nature and his
jriews : such was the thing I had to do.

"In this sense, unpretendingly enough, to a

work treated, with anxious fidelity, I gave the
name Wahrheit vnd Dichtung, (Truth and Fic-
tion ;) deeply convinced that man, in immedi-
ate Presence, still more in Remembrance,
fashions and models the external world accord-
ing to his own peculiarities.

"The business, as, with historical studying,
and otherwise recalling of places and persons,
I had much time to spend on it, busied me
wheresoever I went or stood, at home and
abroad, to such a degree that my actual con
dition became like a secondary matter; though
again, on all hands, when summoned outwards
by occasion, I with full force and undivided
sense proved myself present." — I^■iT.^cxxxii. 62.

These Volumes, with what other supple-
mentary matter has been added to them, (the
rather as Goethe's was a life of manifold rela-
tion, of the widest connection with important
or elevated persons, not to be carelessly laid
before the world, and he had the rare good for-
tune of arranging all things that regarded even
his posthumous concernment with the existing
generation, according to his own deliberate
judgment,) are perhaps likely to be, for a long
time, our only authentic reference. By the
last will of the deceased, it would seem, all his
papers and effects are to lie exactly as they
are, till after another twenty years.

Looking now into these magically-recalled
scenes of childhood and manhood, the student
of human nature will, under all manner of
shapes, from first to last, note one thing: The
singularly complex Possibility offered from
without, A'et along with it the deep never-fail-
ing Force from within, whereby all this is
conquered and realized. It was as if accident
and primary endowment had conspired to ])ro-
duce a character on the great scale ; a will is
cast abroad into the widest, wildest element,
and gifted also in an extreme degree, to prevail
over this, to fashion this to its own form : in
which subordinating and self-fashioning of its
circumstances, a character properly consists.
In external situations, it is true, in occurrences
such as could be recited in the Newspapers,
Goethe's existence is not more complex than
other men's; outwardly rather a pacific smooth
existence: but in his inward specialities and
depth of faculty and temper, in his position
spiritual and temporal towards the world as it
was and the world as he could have wished it,
the observant eye may discern complexity,
perplexity enough ; an extent of data greater,
perhaps, than had lain in any life-problem for
some centuries. And now, as mentioned, the
force for solving this was, in like manner,
granted him in extraordinary measure; so that
we must say, his possibilities were faithfully
and with wonderful success turned into acqui-
sitions; and this man fought the good fight, not
only victorious, as all true men are, but victn-
rious wiihont dama;?e, and with an ever-in-
creasing strength for new victory, as only
sreat and happy men are. Not wounds and
loss (beyond fast-healing, skin-deep wounds)
has the unconquerable to suffer; only ever-
enduring toil; weariness — from whicli, aftei
rest, he will rise stronger than before.

Good fortune, what the world calls good for

852

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

tune, awaits him from beginning to end; but I
also a far deeper felicity than this. Such
■worldly gifts of good fortune are what we
called possibilities: happy he that can rule
over them ; but doubly unhappy he that cannot.
Only in virtue of good guidance does that same
good fortune prove good. Wealth, health, fiery
light with Proteus manysidedness of mind,
peace, honour, length of days: with all this
you may make no Goethe, but only some Vol-
taire; with the most that was fortuitous in all
this, make only some short-lived, unhappy,
unprofitable Byron.

At no period of the World's History can a
gifted man be born when he will not find
enough to do; in no circumstances come into
life but there will be contradictions for him to
reconcile, difficulties which it will task his
■whole strength to surmount, if his whole
strength suffice. Everywhere the human soul
stands between a hemisphere of light and
another of darkness ; on the confines of two
everlastingly hostile empires, Necessity and
Freewill. A pious adage says, " the back is
made for the burden:" we might with no less
truth invert it, and say, the burden was made
for the back. Nay, so perverse is the nature
of man, it has in all times been found that an
external allotment superior to the common
was more dangerous than one inferior; thus
for a hundred that can bear adversity, there is
hardly one that can bear pro?perity.

Of riches, in particular, as of the grossest
species of prosperity, the perils are recorded
by all 'moralists ; and ever, as of old, must the
sad observation from time to time occur:
"Easier for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle!" Riches in a cultured community
are the strangest of things: a power all-mov-
ing, yet which any the most powerless and
skilless can put in motion ; they are the readiest
of possibilities ; the readiest to become a great
blessing or a great curse. " Beneath gold
•hi-ones and mountains," says Jean Paul, " who
Knows how many giant spirits lie entombed!"
The first fruit of riches, especially for the man
born rich, is to teach him faith in them, and all
but hide from him that there is any other faith :
thus is he trained up in the miserable eye-ser-
vice of what is called Honour, Respectability;
instead of a man we have but a gigman, — one
who " always kept a gig," two-wheeled or four-
wheeled. Consider too what this same gig-
manhood issues in; consider that first and
most stupendous of gigmen. Phaeton, the son
of Sol, who drove the brightest of all conceiv-
able gigs, yet with the sorrowfullest result.
Alas, Phaeton was his father's heir; born to
attain the highest fortune without earning it:
he had bitill no sun-chariot, (could not build the
simplest wheelbarrow,) but could and would
insist on driving one ; and so broke his own
stiff neck, sent gig and horses spinning through
infinite space, and set the universe on fire! —
Or, to speak in more modest figures. Poverty,
we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made
barriers, which, if they mournfully gall and
hamper, do at least prescribe for him and force
on him a sort of course and goal; a safe and
beaten though a circuitous course; great part
of his guidance is secure against fatal error, is

withdrawn from his control. The rich, again,
has his whole life to guide, without goal or
barrier, save of his own choosing ; and, tempted
as we have seen, is too likely to guide it ill;
often, instead of M'alking straight forward, as
he might, does but, like Jeshurun, wax fat and
kick; in which process, it is clear, not the
adamantine circle of Necessity whereon the
World is built, but only his own limb-bones
must go to pieces ! — Truly, in plain prose, if
we bethink us what a road many a Byron and
Miraheau, especially in these latter generations,
have gone, it is proof of an uncommon inward
wealth in Goethe; that the outward wealth,
whether of money or other happiness which
Fortune offered him, did in no case exceed the
power of Nature to appropriate and whole-
somely assimilate; that all outward blessed-
ness grew to inward strength, and produced
only blessed effects for him. Those "gold
mountains" of Jean Paul, to the giant that ran
rise above them, are excellent, both fortified
and speculalory, heights; and do in fact be-
come a throne, where happily they have not
been a tomb.

Goethe's childhood is' throughout of riant,
joyful character: kind plenty, in every sense,
security, afl^ection, manifold excitement, in-
struction, encircles him: wholly an element
of sun and azure, wherein the young spirit,
awakening and attaining, can on all hands
richly unfold itself. A beautiful boy, of earnest,
lucid, serenely deep nature, with the peaceful
completeness yet infinite incessant expansive-
ness of a boy, has, in the fittest environment,
begun to be: beautiful he looks and moves;
rapid, gracefully prompt, like the son of Maia;
wise, noble, like Latona's son : nay (as all men
may now see) he is, in very truth, a miniature
incipient world-poet; of all heavenly figures
the beautifullest we know of that can visit this
lower earth. Lovely enough shine for us
those young years in old Teutonic Frankfort;
mirrored in the far remembrance of the Self-
historian, real yet ideal, they are among our
most genuine poetic Idyls. No smallest mat-
ter is too small for us, when we think who it
was that did it or sufl^ered it. The little long-
clothed urchin, mercurial enough with all his
stillness, can throw a whole cargo of new-
marketed crockery, piece by piece, from the
balcony into the street, (once the feat is sug-
gested to him ;) and comically shatters cheap
delf-ware with the same right hand, which
tragically wrote and hurled forth the demonic
scorn of Mephistophiles, or as "right hand" of
Faust, " smote the universe to ruins." Neither
smile more than enough (if thou be wise) that
the gray-haired, all-experienced man remembers
how the boy walked on the Mayn bridge, and
" liked to look at the bright weather-cock" on
the barrier there. That foolish piece of gilt
wood, there glittering sun-lit, with its reltex
wavering in the Mayn waters, is awakening
quite another glitter in the young gifted soul:
is not this foolish sun-lit splendour also, now
when there is an eye to behold it, one of Na-
ture's doings ? The eye of the )a)ung seer is
here, through the paltriest chink, looking into
the infinite Splendours of Nature — where, one
day, himself is to enter and dwell.

GOETHE'S WORKS.

353

Goethe's, mother appears to have been the
more gifted of the parents ; a woman of alto-
gether genial character, great spiritual faculty
and worth; whom the son, at an after time,
put old family friends in mind of. It is grati-
fying for us that she lived to witness his ma-
turity in works and honours; to know that the
little infant she had nursed was grown to be a
mighty man, the first man of his nation and
time. In the father, as prosperous citizen of
Frankfort, skilled in many things, improved
by travel, by studies both practical and orna-
mental ; decorated with some diplomatic title,
but passing, among his books, paintings, col-
lections &.:d household possessions, social or
intellectual, spiritual or material, a quite undi-
plomatic independent life, we become ac-
quainted with a German (not country) but
city gentUman of the last century; a character
scarcely ever familiar in our Islands ; now
perhaps almost obsolete among the Germans
too. A positive, methodical man, sound-
headed, honest-hearted, sharp-tempered ; with
an uncommon share of volition, among other
things, so that scarcely any obstacle would
turn him back, but whatsoever he could not
mount over he would struggle round, and in
any case be at the end of his journey: many
or all of whose good qualities passed also over
by inheritance; and, in fairer combination, on
nobler objects, to the whole world's profit,
were seen a second time in action.

Family incidents; house-buildings, or re-
buildings; arrivals, departures; in any case,
new-year's-days and birth-days, are not want-
ing: nor city-incidents; many coh^ured tumult
of Frankfort fairs; Kaisers' coronations, ex-
pected and witnessed ; or that glorious cere-
monial of the yearly Pfeiffcrgericht, wherein the
grandfather himself plays so imperial a part.
World incidents too roll forth their billows into
the remotest creek, and alter the current there.
The Earthquake of Lisbon hurls the little
Franldbrt boy into wondrous depths of another
sort; enunciating dark theological problems,
which no theology of his will solve. Direction,
instruction, in like manner, awaits him in the
Great Frederic's Seven Years' War ; especi-
ally in that long billetting of King's Lieutenant
Comle de Thorane, with his Serjeants and
adjutants, with his painters and picture-easels,
his quicK precision and decision, his "dry
gallantry" and stately Spanish bearing; —
though collisions with the "house-father,"
whose German house-stairs (though he silently
endures the inevitable) were not new-built to
be made a French highway of; who besides
loves not the French, but the great invincible
Fritz they are striving to beat down. Think,
for example, of that singular congratulation on
the victory at Bergen :

"So then, at last, after a restless Passion-
week, Passion-Friday, 1759, arrived. A deep
stillness announced the approaching storm.
We children were forbidden to leave the
house; our father had no rest, and went out.
The battle began; I mounted to the top story,
where the field, indeed, was still out of my
sight, but the thunder of the cannon and the
volleys of the small arms could be fully dis-
cerned. After some hours, we saw the first
45

tokens of the battle, in a row of wagons,
whereon wounded men, in all sorts of sorrow-
ful dismemberment and gesture, were driven
sol'tly past us to the Liebfrauen-Kloster, which
had been changed into a hospital. The com-
passion of the citizens forthwith awoke. Beer,
wine, bread, money were given to such as had
still power of receiving. But when, ere long,
wounded and captive Germans also were
noticed in that train, the pity had no limits; it
seemed as if each were bent to strip himself
of whatever movable thing he had, to aid his
countrymen therewith in their extremity.

" The prisoners, meanwhile, were the symp-
tom of a battle unprosperous for the Allies.
My father, in his partiality, quite certain that
these would gain, had the passionate rashness
to go out to meet the expected visitors ; not
reflecting that the beaten side would in that
case have to run over him. He went first into
his garden, at the Friedberg Gate, where he
found all quiet and solitary; then ventured
forth to the Bornheim Heath, where soon,
however, various scattered outrunners and
baggage-men came in sight, who took the
satisfaction, as they passed, of shooting at the
boundary-stones, and sent our eager wanderer
the reverberated lead singing about his ears.
He reckoned it wiser, therefore, to come back;
and learned on some inquiry, what the sound
of the firing might already have taught him,
that for the French all went well, and no re-
treat was thought of. Arriving home full of
black humour, he quite, at sight of his wounded
and prisoner countrymen, lost all composure.
From him also many a gift went out for the
passing wagons, but only Germa.is were to
taste of it; which arrangement, as Fate had so
huddled friends and foes together, could not
always be adhered to.

"bur mother, and we children, who had
from the first built upon the Count's word, and
so passed a tolerably quiet day, were greatly
rejoiced, and our mother doubly comforted, as
she that morning, on questioning the oracle
of her jewel box by the scratch of a needle,
had obtained a most consolatory answer not
only for the present but for the future. We
wished our father a similar belief and disposi-
tion : we flattered him what we could, we en-
treated him to take some food, which he had
forborne all day; he refused our caresses and
every enjoyment, and retired to his room.
Our joy, in the meanwhile, was not disturbed;
the business was over: the King's Lieutenant,
who to-day, contrar}' to custom, had been on
horseback, at length returned ; his presence at
home was more needful than ever. We sprang
out to meet him, kissed his hands, testified our
joy. It seemed to please him greatly. ' Well !'
said he, with more softness than usual, 'I am
glad too for your sake, dear children.' He
ordered us sweetmeats, sweet wine, every thing
the best, and went to his chamber, where al-
ready a mass of importuners, solicitors, peti-
tioners, M'ere crowded.

" We held now a dainty collation ; deplored
our good father, who could not participate
therein, and pressed our mother to bring him
down ; she, however, knew better, and how
uncheering such gifts would be to him. Mean
2 o 2

SS4

cArlyle's miscellaneous writings.

while she had put some supper in order, and
would fain have sent him up a little to his
room ; but such irregularity was a thing he
never suffered, not in extremest cases; so the
sweet gifts being once put aside, she set about
entreating him to come down in his usual way.
He yielded at last, unwillingly, and little did
we know what mischief we were making
ready. The stairs ran free through the whole
house, past the door of every anti-chamber.
Our father, in descending, had to pass the
Count's apartments. His anti-chamber was
so full of people that he had at length resolved
to come out, and despatch several at once ; and
this happened, alas, just at the instant our
father was passing down. The Count slept
cheerfully out, saluted him, and said: 'You
will congratulate us and yourself that this
dangerous affair has gone off" so happily.' —
♦Not at all!' replied my father, with grim
emphasis: 'I wish they had chased you to the
Devil, had I myself gone too.' The Count held
in for a moment, then burst forth with fury :
'You shall repent this ! You shall not' "

Father Goethe, however, has "in the mean-
while quietly descended," and sat down to sup,
much cheerfuller than formerly ; he little
caring, "we little knowing, in what question-
able way he had rolled the stone from his
heart," and how official friends must interfere
and secret negotiations enough go on, to keep
him out of military prison, and worse things
that might have befallen there. On all which
may we be permitted once again to make the
simple reflection: What a plagued and plagu-
ing world, with its battles and bombardments,
wars and rumours of war, (which sow or reap
no ear of corn for any man,) this is ! The
boy, who here watches the musket-volleys and
cannon-thunders of the great Fritz, shall, as
man, witness the siege of Mentz; fly with
Brunswick Dukes before Doumonriez and his
Sansculottes, through a country champed into
one red world of mud, " like Pharaoh," (for
the carriage too breaks down,) " through the
Red Sea ;" and finally become involved in the
universal fire-consummation of Napoleon, and
by skill defend himself from hurt therein! —

The father, with occasional subsidiary pri-
vate tutors, is his son's schoolmaster; a some-
what pedantic pedagogue, with ambition
enough and faithful good will, but more of
rigour than of insight ; who, however, works
on a subject that he cannot spoil. Languages,
to the number of six or seven, with whatsoever
pertains to them; histories, syllabuses, know-
ledges-made-easy; not to speak of dancing,
drawing, music, or, in due time, riding and
fencing: all is taken in with boundless appe-
tite and aptitude ; all is but fuel, injudiciously
piled, and of wet quality, yet under which
works an unquenchable Greek-fire that will
feed itself therewith, that will one day make it
all clear and glowing. The paternal grand-
mother, recollected as a " pale, thin, ever white
and clean dressed figure," provides the children
many a satisfaction; and at length, on some
festive night the crowning one of a puppet-
show: whereupon ensues a long course of
theatrical speculatings and practisings, some-
what as delineated, for another party, in the

first book of Meisler's Appienticahiji; in which
work, indeed, especially in the earlier portion
of it, some shadow of the author's personal
experience and culture is more than once
traceable. Thus Meister's desperate burnt-
offering of his young "Poems on various Oc-
casions," was the image of a reality which
took place in Leipsic, made desperately enough,
"on the kitchen hearth, the thick smoke from
which, flowing through the whole house, filled
our good landlady with alarm."

Old " Imperial Freetown" Frankfort is not
without its notabilities, tragic or comic ; in any
case, impressive and didactic. The young
heart is filled with boding to look into the
Jurlen-gafse, (Jew-gate,) where squalid painful
Hebrews are banished to scour old clothes,
and in hate, and greed, and Old-Hebrew ob-
stinacy and implacability, work out a wonder-
ful prophetic existence, as " a people terrible
from the beginning;" manages, however, to
get admittance to their synagogue, and see a
wedding and a circumcision. On its spike,
aloft on one of the steeples, grins, for the last
two hundred years, the bleached skull of a
malefactor and traitor; properly, indeed, not
so much a traitor, as a Radical whose Reform
Bill could not be carried through. The future
book-writer also, on one occasion, sees the
execution of a book; how the huge printed
reams rustle in the flames, are stirred up with
oven-forks, and fly half-charred aloft, the sport
of winds ; from which half-charred leaves,
diligently picked up, he pieces himself a copy
together, as did many others, and with double
earnestness reads it.

As little is the old Freetown deficient in no-
table men ; all accessible to a grandson of the
Schullheiss,* who besides is a youth like no
other. Of which originals, curious enough,
and long since "vanished from the sale-cata-
logues," take only these two specimens :

"Von Reineck, of an old-noble house; able,
downright, but stiff-necked; a lean black-brown
man, whom I never saw smile. The misfor-
tune befel him that his only daughter was car-
ried ofl^by a friend of the family. He prosecuted
his son-in-law with the most vehement suit;
and as the courts, in their formality, would
neither fast enough, nor with force enough
obey his vengeance, he fell out with them ; and
there arose quarrel on quarrel, process on
process. He withdrew himself wholly into his
house and the adjoining garden, lived in a
spacious but melancholy under-room, where
for many years no brush of a painter, perhaps
scarcely the besom of a maid, had got admit-
tance. Me he would willingly endure; had
specially recommended me to his younger son.
His oldest friends, who knew how to humour
him, his men of business and agents, he often
had at table: and on such occasions failed not
to invite me. His board was well furnished,
his buflTet still better. His guests, however,
had one torment, a large stove smoking out of
many cracks. One of the most intimate ven-

* Schiiltlieiss is the litit' of the chief magistrate in some
free-towns and re|niblics, for instance, in Kerne. It
seems to derive itself from Scliuld-licixsen, and may
mean the teller of duty, him by whom what should be ia
liisht.

GOETHE'S WORKS.

355

turcd once to take notice of it, and ask the host
whether he could stand such an inconvenience
the whole winter. He answered, like a second
Timon, and Heautontimoruraenos : 'Would to
God this were the worst mischief of those that
plague nie !' Not till late would he be per-
suaded to admit daughter and grandson to his
sight: the son-in-law was never more to show
face before him.

"On this brave and unfortunate man my
presence had a kind effect; for as he gladly
spoke with me, in particular instructed me on
political and state concerns, he seemed him-
self to feel assuaged and cheered. Accordingly,
the few old friends who still kept about him,
would often make use of me when they wished
to soothe his indignant humour, and persuade
him to any recreation. In fact he now more
than once went out with us, and viewed the
neighbourhood again, on which, for so many
years, he had not turned an eye." * * *

"Hofrath Huisgen, not a native of Frank-
fort; of ihe Reformed religion, and thus inca-
pable of public ofUce, of advocacy among the
rest, which latter, however, as a man much
trusted for juristic talent, he, under another's
signature, contrived quite calmly to practise,
as well in Frankfort as in the Imperial Courts,
— might be about sixty when I happened to
have writing lessons along with his son, and
so came into the house. His figure was large;
tall without being bony, broad without corpu-
lency. His face, deformed not only by small-
pox, but wanting one of the eyes, you could
not look on, for the first time, without appre-
hension. On his bald head he wore always a
perfectly white bell-shaped cap, {GJockeimiiiize,')
tied at top with a ribbon. His night-gowns, of
calamanco or damask, were always as if new
washed. He inhabited a most cheerful suite
of rooms on the ground floor in the Mice, and
the neatness of every thing about him cor-
responded to it. The high order of his books,
papers, maps, made a pleasant impression.
His son, Heinrich Sebastian, who afterwards
became known by various writings on Art,
promised little in his youth. Good-natured
but heavy, not rude yet artless, and without
wish to instruct himself, he sought rather to
avoid his father, as from his mother he could
get whatever he wanted. I, on the other hand,
came more and more into intimacy with the
master the more I knew of him. As he med-
dled with none but important law-cases, he
had time enough to amuse and occupy himself
with other things. I had not long been about
him, and listened to his doctrine, till I came to
observe that in respect of God and the World
he stood on the opposition side. One of his
pet books was, j?g( i/)/'fl de Vanilnte Scicntiarvm;
this he particularly recommended me to read,
and did therewith set my young brain, for a
while, into considerable tumult. I, in the joy
of youth, was inclined to a sort of optimism,
and with God or the Gods had now tolerably
adjusted myself again ; fi>r, by a series of
years, I had got to experience that there is
many a balance against evil, that misfor-
tunes are things one recovers from, that in
danger?* one finds deliverance and does not
always break his neck. On what mer> did and

tried, moreover, I looked with tolerance, and
found much praiseworthy which my old gen-
tleman would nowise be content with. Nay,
once, as he had been depicting me the world
not a little on the crabbed side, I noticed in
him that he meant still to finish with a Irump-
cai-d. He shut, as in such cases his wont was,
the blind left eye close; looked with the other
broad out; and said, in a snufiing voice : ' Auch
in Got! entdeck'' ich Fchkr.' "

Of a gentler character is the reminiscence of
the maternal grandfather, old Schultheiss Tex-
tor; with his gift of prophetic dreaming,
"which endowment none of his descendants
inherited ;" with his kind, mild ways ; there as
he glides about in his garden, at evening, "in
black velvet cap," trimming "the finer sort of
fruit-trees," with aid of those antique embroid-
ered gloves or gauntlets, 3^early handed him at
the Pfeiffagcrvht: a soft, spirit-looking figure;
the farthest out-post of the Past, which behind
him melts into dim vapour. In Frau von
Klestenberg, a religious associate of the mo-
ther's,M'e become acquainted with the Srohne Seek
(Fair Saint) oi Mnsicr .- she, at an after period,
studied to convert her Philo, but only very par-
tially succeeded. Let us notice also, as a
token for good, how the young universal spirit
takes pleasure in the workshops of handicrafts-
men, and loves to understand their methods of
labouring and of living:

" My father had early accustomed me to
manage little matters for him. In particular,
it was often my commission to stir up the
craftsman he employed ; who were too apt to
loiter with him : as he wanted to have all accu-
rately done, and finally for prompt payment to
have the price moderated. I came in this way,
into almost all manner of work-shops ; and as
it lay in my nature to shape myself into the
circumstances of others, to feel every species of
human existence, and with satisfaction partici-
pate therein, I spent many pleasant hours in
such places ; grew to understand the procedure
of each, and what of joy and of sorrow, advan-
tage or drawback, the indispensable conditions
of this or that way of life brought with them.* * *
The household economy of the various crafts,
which took its figure and colour from the oc-
cupation of each, was also silently an object
of attention; and so unfolded, so confirmed
itself in me the feeling of the equality, if not of
all men, yet of all men's situations; existence
by itself appearing as the head condition, all the
rest as indifferent and accidental."

And so, amid manifold instructiveinfluences,
has the boy grown out of boyhood ; when now a
new figure enters on the scene, bringing far
higher revelations :

" As at last the wine was failing, one of them
called the maid ; but instead of her there came
a maiden of uncommon, and, to see her in this
environment, of incredible beauty. 'Whati*
iti' said she, after kindly giving us good-
evening: ' the maid is ill and gone to bed: can
■ I serve you r — 'Our wine is done,' said one;
! 'couldsl thou get us a couple of bottles over
the way, it were very good of thee.' — 'Do it,
Gretchen,' said another, ' it is but a cat's lean.'
— 'Surely!' said she; look a couple of empty
bottles from the table, and hastened out. Her

8S6

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

figure, when she turned away from you, was
almost pretlier than before: the htile cap sat
so neat on the litile liead, which a shm neck so
gracefully united vviih back and shoulders.
Everything about her seemed select; and you
could Aillow the whole form more calmly, as
attention was not now attracted ami arrested
by the true still eyes and the lovely mouth
alone."

It is at the very threshold of youth that this
episode of Gretchen (Margarete, Ma.v-^' lei'-kin)
occurs; the young critic of slim necks and
true still eyes shall now know something of
natural magic, and the importance of one mor-
tal to another; the wild-tlowing bottomless sea
of human Passion, glorious in Auroral light,
(which, alas, may become infernal lightning,)
unveils itself a little to him. A graceful little
episode we reckon it; and Gretchen better than
most first loves: wholly an innocent, wise,
dainty maiden; pure and poor, — who va-
nishes from us here; but, we trust, in some
quiet nook of the Rhineland, became wife and
mother, and was the joy and sorrow of some
brave man's heart, — according as it is appoint-
ed. To the boy himself it ended painfully and
almost fatally, had not sickness come to his
deliverance; and here too he may experience
how '-a shadow chases us in all manner of sun-
shine," and in this Whai-d'yc-cdU-it of Existence
the tragic element is not wanting. The name
of Gretchen, not he story, which had nothing
in it of that guilt and terror, has been made
world-iamous in the play of jp'-ms/. —

Leipsic University has the honour of matri-
culating him. The name of his " propitious
mother" she may boast of, but not of the reality:
alas, in these days, the University of the Uni-
verse is the only propitious mother of such ; all
other propitious mothers are but unpropitious
superannuated dry-nurses fallen bedrid, from
whom the famished nurseling has to s!cul even
bread and M'ater, if he will not die; whom for
most part he soon takes leave of, giving per-
haps, (as in Gibbon's case,) for farewell thanks,
some rough tweak of the ncise ; and rushes des-
perate into the wide world an orphan. The time
is advancing, slower or Aister, when the bedrid
dry-nur.se will decease, and be succeeded by a
walking and stirring wet one. Goethe's em-
ployments and culture at Leipsic lay in quite
other groves than the academic: he listened to
the Ciceronian Ernesti with eagerness, but the
life-giving word flowed not from his mouth; to
the sacerdotal, eclectic-sentimental Gellert, (the
divinity of all lea-table moral philosophers of
both sexes;) witnessed "the pure soul, the
genuine will of the noble man," heard '• his ad-
monitions, warnings, and entreaties, uttered
in a siimewhat hollow and melancholy tone,"
— and then the Frenchman say to it all, Laissez
le /■lire, U nous forme iks dupes. " In logic it
seemed to me very strange that I must now
take up those spiritual operations which from
of old I had executed with the utmost conveni-
ence, and tatter them asunder, insulate, and as
if destroy them, that their right employment
might become plain tome. Of the Thing of
the World, of God, I fancied I knew almost
about as much as the Doctor himself; and he

seemed to me, in more than one place, to hoh
ble dreadfully (irew iltig zii hupir.i)."

However, he studies to some picjfit with the
Painter Oeser; hears, one day, at the door, with
horror,that there is no lesson, for news of Wink-
elmann's assassination have come. With the
ancient Gottsched, too, he has an interview:
alas, it is a young Zeus come to dethrone old
Saturn, whose time in the literary heaven is
nigh run ; for cm Olympus itself, one Demiur-
gus passeth away and another cometh. Gott-
sched had introduced the reign of wahr, in all
shapes liquid and solid, and long gloriously
presided over the same ; but now there is
enough of it, and the " rayless majesty" (had
he been prophetic) here beheld the rayed one,
before whom he was to melt away;

"We announced ourselves. The servant
led us into a large room, and said his mastei
would come immediately. Whether we mis-
interpreted a motion he made I cannot say; at
any rate, we fancied he had beckoned us to ad-
vance into an adjoining chamber. We did ad-
vance, and to a singular scene; for, at the
same moment, Gottsched, the huge broad gi-
gantic man, entered from the opposite door, in
green damask nightgown, lined with red tutfetci;
but his enormous head was bald and without
covering. This, however, was the very want
to be now supplied : for the servant came
springing in at a side-door, with a full-bottomed
wig on his hand, (the locks fell down to his
elbows,) and held it out, with terrified gesture,
to his master. Gottsched, without uttering
the smallest complaint, lifted the head-gear
with his left hand from the servant's arm ; and
very deftly swinging it up to its place on the
head, at the same time, with his right hand,
gave the poor man a box on the ear, which, as
is seen in comedies, dashed him spinning out
of the apartment, whereupon the respectable-
looking Patriarch quite gravely desired us to be
seated, and with proper dignity went through
a tolerably long discourse."

In which discourse, however, it is likely,
little edification for the young inquirer could
lie. Already by multifarious discoursings and
readings he has convinced himself, to his de-
spair, of the watery condition of the Guttschedic
world, and how "the Koachide (Noaheid) of
Bodmer is a true symbol of the deluge that
has swelled up round the German Parnassus,"
and in literature as in philosophy there is
neither landmark nor loadstar. Here, too, he
resumes his inquiries about religion, falls into
" black scruples" about most things, and in
" the bald and feeble deliverances" propounded
him, has sorry comfort. Outward things, more-
over, go not as they should: the copious phi-
losophic harlequinades of that wag Beyrish,
"with the long nose," unsettle rather than
settle; as do, in many ways, other wise and
foolish mortals of both sexes : matters grow
worse and worse. He falls sick, becomes
wretched enough ; yet unfolds withal " an
audacious humour which feels itself superior
to the moment; not only fears no danger, but
even wilfully courts it." And thus, somewhat
in a wrecked state, he quits his propitioua
mother, and returns home.

GOETHE'S WORKS.

357

Nevertheless let there be no reflections:
he rnust now in earnest get forward with his
Law, and on to Strasburg to complete himself
therein; so has the paternal judgment arranged
it. A lawyer, the thing in these latter days
called Lawyer, of a man in whom ever bounte-
ous Nature has sent us a Poet for the World !
O blind mortals, blind over what lies closest
to ns, what we have the truest wish to see!
In this young colt that caprioles there in young
lustihood, and snuffs the wind with an "au-
dacious humour," rather dangerous looking,
no Sleswick Dobbin, to rise to dromedary
stature, and draw three tons avoirdupois, (of
street-mud or whatever else,) has been vouch-
safed; but a winged miraculous Pegasus to
carry us to the heavens ! — Whereon too (if we
consider it) many a hemic Bellerophon shall,
in times coming, mount and destroy Chimperas,
and deliver afflicted nations on the lower
earth.

Meanwhile, be this as it may, the youth is
gone to Strasburg to prepare for the c.ramcn
rigorosum; though, as it turned out, for quite a
different than the Law one. Confusion enough
is in his head and heart; poetic objects too
have taken root there, and will not rest till they
have worked themselves into form. "These,"
says he, "were Gotz von Berlichingen and
Faust. The written Life of the former had
seized my inmost soul. The figure of a rude
well-meaning self-helper, in wild anarchic time,
excited my deepest sympathy. The impressive
puppet-show Fable of the other sounded and
hummed through me many-toned enough." —
"Let us withdraw, however," subjoins he,
'' into the free air, to the high broad platform
of the Minster; as if the time were still here,
when we young ones often rendezvoused thither
to salute, with full rummers, the sinking sun."
They had good telescopes with them ; " and
one friend after another searched out the spot
in the distance which had become the dearest
to him ; neither was I without a little eye-
mark of the like, which, though it rose not
conspicuous in the landscape, drew me to it
beyond all else with a kindly magic." This
alludes, we perceive, to, that Alsatian Vicar of
Wa^iefield, and his daughter the fair Frederike ;
c^.icerning which matter a word may not be
useless here. Exception has been taken by
certain tender souls, of the all-for-love sort,
against Goethe's conduct in this matter. He
flirted with this blooming blue-eyed Alsatian,
she with him, innocently enough, thoughtless-
ly enough, till they both came to love each
other; and then, when the marrying point
began to grow visible in the distance, he stopt
short, and would no farther. Adieu, he cried,
and waved his lily hand. "The good Frede-
rike was weeping; I too was sick enough at
heart." Whereupon arises the question : Is
Goethe a bad man ; or is he not a bad man 7
Alas, worthy souls ! if this world M-ere all a
wedding dance, and tliou shall never come into
collision with thou wilt, what a new improved
time we had of it! It is man's miserable lot,
in the meanwhile to eat and labour as well a-^
wed ; alas, how often, like Corporal Trim, does
he spend the whole night; one moment divid-
* mg Mae world into two halves with his fair

Beguine ; next moment remembering that he
has only a knapsack and fifteen florins to
divide with an)' one! Besides, you do not con-
sider that our dear Frederike, whom we too
could weep fur if it served, had a sound Ger-
man heart within her stays ; had furthermore
abundance of u-ork to do, and not even leisure
to die of love; above all, that at this period,
in the country parts of Alsatia, there were no
circulating library novels.

With regard to the false one's cruelty of
temper, who, if we remember, saw a ghost in
broad noon that day he rode away from her,
let us, on the other hand, hear Jung iStilling,
for he also had experience thereof at th is vtTy
date. Poor Jung, a sort of German Dominie
Sampson, awkward, honest, irascible, " in old-
fashioned clothes and bag-wig," who had been
several things, charcoal-burner, and, in re-
pealed alternation, tailor and school-master,
was now come to Strasburg to study medicine;
with purse long-necked, yet with head that had
brains in it, and heart full of trust in God. A
pious soul, who if he did afterwards write
books on the Nature of Departed Spirits, also
restored to sight (by his skill in eye-opera-
tions) above two thousand jwor blind pcr.-ons,
without fee or reward, even supporting many
of them in the hospital at his own expense.

" There dined," says he, " at this table about
twenty people, whom the two comrades saw
one after the other enter. One especially, with
large eyes, magnificent brow, and fine stature,
walked (muthk) gallantly in. He drew Herr
Troost's and Stilling's eyes on him; Herr
Troost said, 'That must be a superior man.'
Stilling assented, yet thought they would both
have much vexation from him, as he looked
like one of your wild fellows. This did Stilling
infer from the frank style which the student
had assumed; but here he was far mistaken.
They found, meanwhile, that this distinguished
individual was named Herr Goethe.

"Herr Troost whispered to Stilling, 'Here
it were best one sat seven days silent.' Stilling
felt this truth; they sat silent, therefore, and
no one particularly minded them, except that
Goethe now and then hurled over (heruberu-nlzte)
a look : he sat opposite Stilling, and had the
govertiment of the table without aiming at it.

"Herr Troost was neat, and dressed in the
fashion; Stilling likewise tolerably so. He
had a dark brown coat with fustian undergar-
ments: only that a scratch-wig also remained
to him, which, among his bag-wigs, he would
wearout. This he had put on one day, and came
therewith to dinner. Nobody took notice of it
except Herr Waldberg of Vienna. That gentle-
man looked at him, and as he had alread}' heard
that Stilling was greatly taken up about re-
ligion, he began, and asked him, VVhelher he
thought Adam in Paradise had worn a scratch-
wig 7 All laughed heartily, except Salzman,
Goethe, and 'I'roosl ; these did not laugh. lu
Stilling wrath rose and burnt, and he answered :
'Be ashamed of this jest; such a trivial thing
is not worth laughing at !' But Goethe struck
in and added: 'Try a man first whether he
deserves mockery. It is devil-like to fall upon
an honest-hearted person who has injured no-
body, and make sport of him !' Frcm that

sst

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRiriNGS.

time Herr Goethe took up Stilling, visited him,
liked him, made friendship and brothership
with him, and strove by all opportunities to do
him kindness. Pity that so few are acquainted
■with this noble man in respect of his heart !"*
Here, indeed, may be the place to mention,
that this noble man, in respect of his heart,
and goodness and badness, is not altogether
easy to get acquainted with ; that innumerable
persons, of the man-milliner, parish-clerk, and
circulating-library sort, will find him a hard
nut to crack. Hear in what questionable
manner, so early as the year 1773, he expresses
himself towards Herr Sulzer, whose beautiful
hypothesis, that " Nature meant, by the con-
stant influx of satisfactions streaming in upon
us, to fashion our minds, on the whole, to soft-
ness and sensibility," he will not leave a leg
to stand on. " On tJie whole," says he, " she
does no such thing; she rather, God be thanked,
hardens her genuine children against the
pains and evils she incessantly prepares for
Ihem ; so that we name him the happiest man
who is the strongest to make front against
evil, to put it aside from him, and in defiance
of it go the road of his own will." " Man's
art in all situations is to fortify himself against
Nature, to avoid her thousand-fold ills, and only
to enjoy his measure of the good ; till at length
he manages to include the whole circulation
of his true and factitious wants in a palace,
and fix as far as possible all scattered beauty
and felicity within his glass walls, where ac-
cordingly he grows ever the weaker, takes to
' joys of the soul,' and his powers, roused to
their natural exertion by no contradiction,
melt away into" {horresco referens) — "Virtue,
Benevolence, Sensibility!" In Goethe's Writ-
ings, too, we all know the moral lesson is sel-
dom so easily educed as one would wish.
Alas, how seldom is he so direct in tendency
as his own plain-spoken moralist at Plunders-
weilern :

"Dear Christian People, one and all,

When will you cease your sinning 1

Else can your comfort be but small,

Good hap scarce have beginning ;

For Vice is hurtful unto man,

In Virtue lies the surest plan,"

or, to give it in the original words, the empha-
sis of which no foreign idiom can imitate :

" Die Tu^end ist das hochste Out,

Das taster TVeh dem Menschen thut !''

In Avhich emphatic couplet, does there not,
as the critics say in other cases, lie the essence
of whole volumes, such as we have read? —

Goethe's far most important relation in
Strasburg was the accidental temporary one
with Herder ; which issued, indeed, in a more
permanent, though at no time an altogether
intimate one. Herder, with much to give, had
always something to require ; living with him
seems never to have been wholly a sinecure.
Goethe and he moreover were fundamentally
different, not to say discordant ; neither could
the humour of the latter be peculiarly sweet-
ened by his actual business in Strasburg, that
of undergoing a surgical operation on "the

♦ Stilling'a tVanderschaft. Berlin and Leipsic, 1778.

lachrymatory duct," and, above all, an nnsae>
cessful one :

"He was attending the prince of Holstein-
Eutin, who laboured under mental distresses,
on a course of travel; and had arrived with
him at Strasburg. Our society, so soon as his
presence there was known, felt a strong wish
to get near him; which happiness, quite un-
expectedly and by chance, befel me first. J
had gone to the Inn zuni Geist, visiting I forget
what stranger of rank. Just at the bottom of
the stairs I came upon a man, like myself
about to ascend, whom by his look I could
take to be a clergyman. His powdered hair
was fastened up into a round lock ; the black
coat also distinguished him ; still more a long
black silk mantle, the end of which he had ga-
thered together and stuck into his pocket.
This in some measure surprising, yet on the
whole gallant and pleasing figure, of whom I
had already heard speak, left me no doubt but
it was the famed Traveller ; and my address
soon convinced him that he was known to
me. He asked my name, which could be of
no significance to him ; however my openness
seemed to give pleasure, for he replied to it in
friendly style, and as we stepped up stairs
forthwith showed himself ready for a lively
communication. Our visit also was to the
same party ; and before separation I begged
permission to wait upon himself, which he
kindly enough accorded me. I delayed not to
make repeated use of this preferment; and
was the longer the more attracted towards
him. He had something softish in his man-
ner, which was fit and dignified, without strictly
being bred. A round face ; a fine brow ; a
somewhat short blunt nose ; a somewhat pro-
jected, yet highly characteristic, pleasant, ami-
able mouth. Under black eye-brows, a pair
of coal-black eyes, which failed not of their
effect, though one of them was wont to be red
and inflamed."

With this gifted man, by five years his
senior, whose writings had already given him
a name, and announced the much that lay in
him, the open-hearted disciple could mani-
foldly communicate, learning and enduring.
Ere long, under that " softish manner," there
disclosed itself a "counter-pulse" of causti-
city, of ungentle, almost noisy banter; the
blunt nose was too often curled in an adunco-
suspensive manner. Whatsoever of self-com-
placency, of acquired attachment and insight,
of self-sufficiency well or ill grounded, lay in
the youth, was exposed, we can fancy, to the
severest trial. In Herder too, as in an expres-
sive microcosm, he might see imaged the
whole wild world of German literature, of Eu-
ropean Thought; its old workings and mis-
workings, its best recent tendencies and efforts;
what its past and actual wasteness, perplexity,
confusion worse confounded, was. In all
which, moreover, the bantered, yet impertur-
bably inquiring brave young man had quite
other than a theoretic interest, being himself
minded to dwell there. It is easy to conceive
that Herder's presence, stirring up in that
fashion so many new and old matters, would
mightily aggravate the former "fermentation;"

GOETHE'S WORKS.

35^

atd thereby, it is true, unintentionally or not,
forward the same towards clearness.

In fact, with the hastiest glance over the
then position of the world spiritual, we shall
find that as Disorder is never wanting, (and
for the young spiritual hero, who is there only
to destroy Disorder and make it order, can
least of all be wanting,) so, at the present
juncture, it specially abounded. Why dwell
on this often delineated Epoch 1 Over all
Europe the reign of Earnestness had now
wholly dwindled into that of Dilettantism.
The voice of a certain modern "closet logic,"
which called itself, and could not but call it-
self. Philosophy, had gone forth, saying, Let
there be darkness, and there was darkness.
No divinity any longer dwelt in the world ;
and as men cannot do without a divinity, a
sort of terrestrial upholstery one had been got
together, and named Taste, with medallic vir-
tuosi and picture cognoscenti, and enlightened
letter and belles-lettres men enough for priests.
To which worship, with its stunted formula-
ries and hungry results, must the earnest
mind, like the hollow and shallow one, adjust
itself, as best might be. To a new man, no
doubt the Earth is always new, never wholly
without interest. Knowledge, were it only
that of dead languages, or of dead actions, the
foreign tradiiion of what others had acquired
and done, was still to be searched after ; fame
might be enjoyed if procurable; above all, the
culinary and brewing arts remained in pris-
tine completeness, their results could be re-
lished with pristine vigour. Life Inmbered
along, better or worse, in pitiful discontent, not
yet in decisive desperation, as through a dim
day of languor, sultry and sunless. Already
too on the horizon might be seen clouds,
might be heard murmurs, which by and b}^
proved themselves of an electric character,
and were to cool and clear that same sultri-
ness in wondrous deluges.

Toaman standing in the midstof German lite-
rature, and looking out thither for his highest
good, the view was troubled perhaps with vari-
ous peculiar perplexities. For two centuries,
German literature had lain in the sere leaf. The
Luther, " whose words were half battles," and
such half battles as could shake and overset
half Europe wiih their cannonading, had long
since gone to sleep ; and all other words were
Dot the miserable bickering of (theological)
camp-suttlers in quarrel over the stripping of
the slain. Ulrich Hutten slept silent, in the
little island of the Zurich L^ke ; the weary
and heavy-laden had wiped the sweat from
his brow, and laid him down to rest there : the
valiant fire-tempered heart, with all its woes
and loves and loving indignations, mouldered,
cold, forgotten; with such a pulse no new
heart rose to beat. The lamer Opitzes and
Fleramings of a succeeding era had, in like
mamer, long fallen obsolete. One unhappy
gene-ation after another of pedants, " rhizo-
phagius," living on roots, Greek or Hebrew ;
of farje-writers, gallant verse-writers, journal-
' ists, and other jugglars of nondescript sort
wandered in nomadic wise, whither provender
was to be had; among whom, if a passionate
Gunlhsr go with some emphasis to ruin ; if

an illuminated Thomasius, earlier than the
general herd, deny witchcraft, we are to
esteem it a felicity. This too, however, has
passed ; and now, in manifold enigmatical
signs a new Time announces itself. Well-born
Hagedorns, munificent Gleims have again ren-
dered the character of Author honourable ; the
polish of correct, assiduous Rabeners and
Ramlers have smoothed away the old impuri-
ties; a pious Klopstock, to the general enthu-
siasm, rises anew into something of seraphic
music, though by methods wherein he can
have no follower; the brave spirit of a Les-
sing pierces, in many a life-giving ray, through
the dark inertness: Germany has risen to a
level with Europe, is henceforth participant
of all European influences ; nay it is now ap-
pointed, though not yet ascertained, that Ger-
many is to be the leader of spiritual Europe.
A deep movement agitates the universal mind
of Germany, though as yet no one sees to-
wards what issue ; only that heavings and
eddyings, confused, conflicting tendencies,
work unquietly everywhere ; the movement is
begun and will not stop, but the course of it is
yet far from ascertained. Even to the young
man now looking on with such anxious inten-
sity had this very task been allotted : To find
it a course and set it flowing thereon.

Whoever will represent this confused revo-
lutionary condition of all things, has but to
fancy how it would act on the most susceptive
and comprehensive of living minds; what a
Chaos he had taken in, and was dimly strug-
gling to body forth into a Creation. Add to
which his so confused, contradictory, personal
condition; appointed by a positive father to be
practitioner of Law, by a still more positive
mother (old Nature herself) to be practitioner
of Wisdom, and Captain of spiritual Europe;
we have confusion enough for him, doubts
ec(momic and doubts theologic, doubts moral
and cesthetical, a whole world of confusion and
doubt.

Nevertheless to the young Strasburg student
the gods had given their most precious gift,
which is worth all others, without which all
others are worth nothing — a seeing eye and a
faithful loving heart:

" Kr halt' ein .^uge treu und klug,
Und war auch liebevnll genug,
Zu schauen vinvclies Mar nnd rein,
Und vteder alles gut zu viachen sein ;
Ilatt' audi ehie Znvge die sich ergross,
Und leicht und fein in Worte floss ;
Dets ihnten die JUiisen sich erfreun,
WoUten ilin lum Meistersiinger tceihn."*

A mind of all-piercing vision, of sunny
strength, not made to ray out darker darkness,
but to bring warm sunlight, all purifying, all
uniting. A clear, invincible mind, and "con-
secrated to be Master-singer" in quite another
guild than that Nurnberg one.

His first literary productions fall in his
twenty-third year; Werlcr, the most celebrated
of these, in his twenty-fifth. Of which won-

* Ifavs Saehsens Poetische Sendiing, (Goethe's Werhe,
XIII.;) a beautiful piece, (a. very Hans Sachs beatified,
both in cliaracter and style,) whicli we wish there WM
any possibility of translating.

360

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

derful Book, and its now recognised character
as poetic (and prophetic) utterance of the
World's Despair, it is needless to repeat what
has elsewhere been written. This and Golz
von rerlirliingen, which also, as a poetic lookinp;
back into the past, was a word for the world,
have produced incalculable effects ; — which
now, indeed, however some departing echo of
them may linger in the wrecks of our own
Moss-trooper and Satanic Schools, do at length
all happily lie behind us. Some trifling inci-
dents at Wetzlar.and the suicide of an unhappy
acquaintance were the means of "crystallizing"
that wondrous, perilous stulT, which the young
heart oppressively held dissolved in it, into
this world-famous, and as it proved world-
medicative Wertcr. He had gone to Wetzlar
with an eye still to Law; which now, however,
was abandoned, never to be resumed. Thus
did he too, " like Saul the son of Kish, go out
to seek his father's asses, and instead thereof
find a kingdom."

With the completion of these two Works (a
completion in every sense, for they were not
only emitted, but speedily also o'fmitted, and
seen over, and left behind,) commences what
we can specially call his Life, his activity as
Man. The outward particulars of it, from this
point where his own Narrative ends, have
been briefly summed up in these terms :

" In 1776, the Heir-apparent of Weimar was
passing through Frankfort, on which occasion,
by the intervention of some friends, he waited
upon Goethe. The visit must have been mu-
tually agreeable; for a short time afterwards
the young author was invited to court; appa-
rently to contribute his assistance in various
literary institutions and arrangements then
proceeding or contemplated; and in pursu-
ance of this honourable call, he accordingly
settled at Weimar, with the title of Legations-
rath, and the actual dignity of a place in the
in the Collegium, (Council.) The connection
begun under such favourable auspices, and
ever afterwards continued under the like or
better, has been productive of important con-
sequences, Tiot only to Weimar but to all Ger-
many. The noble purpose undertaken by the
Duchess Amelia was zealously forwarded by
the young Duke on his accession ; under whose
influence, supported and directed by his new
Councillor, this inconsiderable state has gain-
ed for itself a fairer distinction than any of its
larger, richer, or more warlike neighbours.
By degrees whatever was brightest in the
genius of Germany had been gathered to this
little court; a classical theatre was under the
superintendence of Goethe and Schiller; here
Wieland taught and sung; in the pulpit was
Herder; and possessing such a four, the small
town of Weimar, some five-and-twenty years
ago, might challenge the proudest capital of
the world to match it in intellectual wealth.
Occupied so profitably to his country, and
honourably to himself, Goethe continued rising
in favour with his Prince; by degrees a poli-
tical was added to his literary trust; in 1779
he became Privy Councillor; President in
1782; and at length after his return from Italy,
where he had spent two years in varied studies

and observation, he was appointed ]\finister
a post which he only a few years ago resigned
on his final retirement from public affairs."

Notable enough that little Weimar should,
in this particular, have brought back, as it
were, an old Italian Commonwealth into the
nineteenth century! For the Peirarcas and
Bocaccios, though reverenced as Poets, were
not supposed to have lost their wits as men;
but could be employed in the highest services
of the state, not only as fit, but as the fittest, to
discharge these. Very difl'erent with us, where
Diplomatists and Governors can be picked up
from the highways, or chosen in the manner
of blindman's buff, (the first figure you clutch,
say rather that clutches yon, will make a
governor;) and, even in extraordinary times,
it is thought much if a Milton can become
Latin Clerk under some Bulstrode Whitelock,
and be called "one Mr. Milton." As if the
poet, with his poetry, were no other than a
pleasant mountebank, with faculty of a certain
ground-and-lofiy tumbling which would amuse;
for which you must throw him a few coins, a
little flattery, otherwise he would not amuse
you with it. As if there were any talent what-
soever ; above all, as if there were any talent
of Poetry, (by the consent of all ages the
highest talent, and sometimes pricelessly high,)
the first foundation of which were not even
these two things, (properly but one thing:) in-
tellectual Perspicacity, with force and honesty
of Will. Which two, do they not, in their
simplest, quite naked form, constitute the very
equipment a Man of Business needs ; the very
implements whereby all business, from that of
the delver and ditcher to that of the legislator
and imperator, is accomplished ; as in their
noblest concentration they are still the moving
faculty of the Artist and Prophet !

To Goethe himself, this connection with
Weimar opened the happiest course of life,
which probably the age he lived in could have
yielded him. Moderation yet abundance; ele-
gance without luxury or sumptuosity : Art
enough to give a heavenly firmament to his
existence; Business enough to give it a solid
earth. In his multifarious duties, he comes in
contact with all manner of men ; gains ex-
perience and tolerance of all men's ways. A
faculty like his, which could master the highest
spiritual problems, and conquer Evil Spirits in
their own domain, was not likely to be foiled
by such when they put on the simpler shape
of material clay. The greatest of Poets is also
the skilfullest of Managers: the little terrestrial
Weimar trust committed to him prospers ; and
one sees with a sort of smile, in which may lie
a deep seriousness, how the Jena Museums,
University arrangements, Weimar Art-exhibi-
tions and Palace-buildings, are guided smoothly
on, by a hand which could have worthily
swayed imperial sceptres. The world, could
it intrust its imperial sceptres to such hands,
were blessed: nay to this man, without the
world's consent, given or asked, a still higher
function had been committed. But o:) the
whole, we name his external life happy, among
the happiest, in this, that a noble princely
Courtesy could dwell in it based on the wor-
ship, by speech and practice, of Truth only.

GOETHE'S WORKS.

361

(for his victory, as wc said above, was so com-
plete, as almost to hide that there had been a
struggle,) and the worldly could praise him as
the most agreeable of men, and the spiritual as
the highest and clearest; but happy, above all,
in this, that it forwarded him, as no other
could have done, in his inward life, the good
or evil hap of which was alone of permanent
importance.

The inward life of Goethe, onwards from
this epoch, lies nobly recorded in the long
series of his Writings. Of these, meanwhile,
the great bulk of our English world has nowise
yet got to such understanding and mastery,
that we could, with much hope of profit, go
into a critical examination of their merits and
characteristics. Such a taslf can stand over
till the day for it arrive ; be it in this genera-
tion, or the next, or after the next. What has
been elsewhere already set forth suffices the
present want, or needs only to be repeated and
enforced; the expositor of German things
must say, with judicious Zanga in the play:
"First recover that, then shalt thou know
more." A glance over the grand outlines of
the matter, and more especially imder the
aspect suitable to these days, can alone be in
place here.

In Goethe's Works, Chronologically arranged,
we see this above all things: A mind working
itself into clearer and clearer freedom ; gaining
a more and more perfect dominion of its world.
The pestilential fever of Skepticism runs
through its stages : but happily it ends and dis-
appears at the last stage, not in death, not in
chronic malady (the commonest) way, but in
clearer, henceforth invulnerable health. Werter
we called the voice of the world's despair : pas-
sionate, uncontrollable is this voice; not yet
melodious and supreme, — as nevertheless we
at length hear it in the wild apocalyptic Faust :
like a death-song of departing worlds ; no
voice of joyful "morning stars singing to-
gether" over a Creation ; but of red nigh-
extinguished midnight stars, in spheral swan-
melody, proclaiming: It is ended !

What follows, in the next period, we might,
for want of a fitter term, call Pagan or Ethnic
in character; meaning thereby an anthropo-
morphic character, akin to that of old Greece
and Rome. UWichn Meister is of that stamp:
warm, hearty, sunny human Endeavour; a
free recognition of Life in its depth, variety,
and majesty; as yet no Divinity recognised
there. The famed Venetian Epigrams are of
the like Old-Ethnic tone : musical, joyfully
strong; true, yet not the whole truth, and
sometimes in their blunt realism, jarring on
the sense. As in this, oftener cited, perhaps,
by a certain class of wise men, than the due
proportion demanded:

" Why so busilelh the People and criethl Would find

ilselfvictiKil,
Children too would beget, feed on the best may be had :
Mark in Ihy notebooks. Traveller, this, and at home go

do likewise ;
Farther reacheth no man, make he what stretchinc he

will."

Doubt reduced into Denial, now lies pros-
trate under foot: the fire has done its work,
4rt

an old world is in ashes; but the smoke and
the liame are blown away, and a sun again
shines clear over the ruin, to raise therefrom
a new nobler verdure and flowerage. Till at
length, in the third, or final period, melodious
Reverence becomes triumphant; a deep all-
pervading Faith, with mild voice, grave as
gay, speaks forth to us in a Blcisiers Wuh'
derjnhre, in a Wcs'-OslUclirr Divnn : in many a
little Zdhmc Xoiic, and true-hearted little
rhyme, " which," it has been sail, "for preg-
nancy and genial significance, except in the
Hebrew Scriptures, you will nowhere match."
As here, striking in almost at a venture :

" Like as a Star,
Th:it niakelh not haste,
1 hat taketh not rest,
Be each one fulfillin'r
His god given Hest."*

* fVie das Gestirn,
Olive Hast,
.ffber olive linst,
Drelie sichjeiler
Urn die eigne Last.

So stands it in the original : hereby, however, hangs a
tale :

"A fact,'" says one of our fellow labourers in this
German vineyard, "has but now come to our knowledge,
which we talce pleasure and pride in statins. Fifteen
Englishmen, entertaining that high consideration for
the Good Goethe, which the labours and hish deserts of
a long life usefully employed so richly merit from all
mankind, have presented him with a highly wrouirlit
Seal, as a token of their veneration. We "must pnss
over the description of the gift, for it would be too
elaborate ;" suffice it to say, that amid tasteful carv-
ing and emblematic embossing enough, stood these
words engraven on a gold bell, on the four sides re-
spectively: T(i the German Master: Frniii friends in
Enirland: 'iStli Jiiirrust : 1831; finally, that the impres-
sion was a star encircled with a st-rpent-of-eternity,
and this motto : Oline Hast. Aber Olive Rast.

"The following is the letter which accompanied it :
"' To the Poet Goethe, on the 28th of August, 1831.

"'Sir, — Among the friends whom this so interesting
Anniversary calls round you, may we •' English friends,"
in thought and symbolically, since personally it is im-
possible, present ourselves to offer y(Hi our affectionate
congratulations. We hope you will do us the honour
to accept this little Birth-Uay Gift, which, as a true
testimony of our feelings, may not be without value.

" ' We said to ourselves : As it is always the highest
duty and pleasure to show reverence to whom reverence
is due, and our chief, perhaps our only benefactor is he
who by act and word instructs us in wisdom, — so we,
undersigned, feeling towards the Poet Goethe as the
spritually taught towards their spiritual teacher, are
desirous to e.xpress that sentiment openly and in coui-
nu)n ; for which end we have de'^rmined lo solicit his
acceptance of a small English gift, proceeding from us
all equally, on his approaching birth-day; that so,
while the venerable man still dwells among us, some
memorial of the gratitude we owe him, and think the
whole world owes him, may not be watiting.

'"And thus our little tribute, perhaps among the
purest that men could offer to man, now stands in visi-
ble shape, and begs to be received. May it be welcome,
and speak permanently of a most close relation, though
wide seas flow between the parties'.

" ' We pray that many years may be added to a life so

glorious, that all happiness may be yours, and strength

given to complete your hi'.'h task, even as it has hitherto

proceeded, like a star, without haste, yet without rest.

" ' We remain, Sir, your friends and Servants,

Fifteen Englishmen.

"The wonderful old man, to whom distant and un-
known friends had paid such homage, could not but be
moved at sentiments e.vpressed in such terms \Va
hear that he values the token highly, and has cond^
scended to return the following lines for answer; —

"'Den Funfzehn Englisciien Frevnuen.

IVortc die der Dichter spricht,

Treu, in hei iiiisclien Bezirken,
Wirken gleich, dock weiss er nifht

Ob sie 11 die Feme wirken.
2H

363

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Or this small Couplet, which the reader, if
lie will, may substitute for whole horse-loads
o{ Essay noil I he Origin of Evil : a spiritual manu-
facture, which in these enlightened times ought
ere now to have gone out of fashion :

" ' VVlcit shall 1 teach thee, the foremost thin-,' V
Couldst teach me nffmy t)wii Shadow to spring!"

Or the pathetic picturesqueness of this:
"A rampart-lireach is every Day,
Whii h many mortals are storming:
Fall in the gap who may.
Of the slain no heap is Corming."
Eine Bresche ist jeiler Tag.
Die viele Menschen erstilrnien ;
ffer (III auch f.illen man-,
Die Todten sich nieinals thiirmen.

In such spirit, and with an eye that takes in
all provinces of human Thought, Feeling, and
Activity, docs the Poet stand forth as the true
prophet of his time : victorious over its contra-
diction, possessor of its wealth; embodying the
nobleness of the past into a new whole, into a
new vital nobleness for the present and the
future. Antique nobleness in all kinds, yet
worn with new clearness ; the spirit of it is pre-
served and again revealed in shape, when the
former shape and vesture had become old, (as
vestures do,) and was dead and cast forth ; and
we mourned as if the spirit too were gone. This,
we are aware, is a high saying; applicable to
no other man living, or that has lived for some
two centuries; ranks Goethe, not only as the
highest man of his time, but as a man of uni-
versal Time, important for all generations —
one of the landmarks in the History of Men.

Thus from our point of view does Goethe
rise on us as the Uniter, and victorious Re-
conciler, of the distracted clashing elements of
the most distracted and divided age, that the
world has witnessed since the Introduction of
the Christian Religion ; to which old chaotic
Era, of world-confusion and world-jpfusion,
of blackest darkness, succeeded by a dawn of
light and nobler " dayspring from on high,"
this wondrous Era of ours is, indeed, often
likened. To the faithful heart let no era be a
desperate one ! It is ever the nature of Dark-
ness to be followed by a new nobler Light ; nay,
to produce such. The woes and contradictions
of an Atheistic time ; of a world sunk in wick-
edness and baseness and unbelief, wherein also
physical wretchedness, the disorganization and
broken-hearledness of whole classes struggling
in ignorance and pain will not fail: all this, the
view of all this, falls like a Sphinx-question on
every new-born earnest heart, a life-and-death
entanglement for every earnest heart to deliver
itself from, and the world from. Of Wisdom
i.ometh Strength: only when there is "no
vision" do the people perish. But, by natural
vicissitudes, the age oi Persifluoie goes out, and
that of earnest unconquerable Endeavour must

Britten I haht sie anf/refasst :

" Thiltj/ren Sinn, Jits Ttiun gezllgcU;
Stetig Strebeti oline Hast ;"

Und sn lonllt Ihrs denn besiegelt !
• Weimar, d. iSten August, 1S31.' Goethe.' "

(Fraser's Magazine, XXII. 447.)

And thus, as it chanced, was the poet's last birth-day
celebrated by an outward ceremony of a peculiar kind;
t«.Jr rein, too, it is to be hoped, might lie some inward
tl> /Ailing and sincerity.

come in : for the ashes of the old fire will not
warm men anew; the new generation is too
desolate to indulge in mockery, — unless, per-
haps, in bitter suicidal mockery of itself!
Thus after Voltaires enough have laughed and
sniffed at what is false, appear some Turgots
to ask what is true. Wo to the land where, in
these seasons, no prophet arises; but only
censors, satirists, and embittered desperadoes
to make the evil worse; at best but to accel-
erate a consummation, which, in accelerating,
they have aggravated! Old Europe had its
Tacitus and Juvenal; but these availed not.
New Europe too has had its Mirabeaus,
and Byrons, and Napoleons, and innumerable
red-(laming meteors, shaking pestilence from
tlieir hair; and earthquakes and deluges, and
Chaos Clime avrain; but the clear Star, day's
harbinger, (Phos/ihuriis, the bringer oC light,) had
not yet been recognised.

That in Goethe there lay Force to educe re-
concilement out of such contradiction as man
is now born into, marks him as the Strong
One of his time; the true Eni, though now
with quite other weapons than those old steel
Juris were used to! Such reconcilement of
C(Uitradictions, indeed, is the task of every
man: the weakest reconciles somewhat; re-
duces old chaotic elements into new higher
order; ever, according to faculty and endea-
vour, brings good out of evil. Consider now
what faculty and endeavour must belong to
the highest of such tasks, which virtually in-
cludes all others whatsoever! The thing that
was given this man to reconcile (to begin recon-
ciling, and teach us how to reconcile) was the
inward spiritual chaos ; the centre of all other
confusions, outward and inward: he was to close
the Abyss out of which such manifold destruc-
tion, moral, intellectual, social, was proceeding.

The greatness of his Endowment, manifest-
ed in such a work, has long been plain to all
men. That it belongs to the highest class of
human endowments, entitling the wearer there-
of, who so nobly used it to the appellation in
its strictest sense, of Great Man, — is also be-
coming plain. A giant strength of Character
is to be traced here ; mild and kindly and calm,
even as strength ever is. In the midst of so
much spasmodic Byronism, bellowing till its
windpipe is cracked, how very different looks
this symptom of strength : " He appeared to aim
at pushing away from him every thing that did
hang upt)n his individual will," "In his own
imperturbable firmness of character, he had
grown into the habit of tiever vontr tduiiug any
one. On the contrary, he listened with a friendly
air to every one's opinion, and would himself
elucidate and strengthen it by instances and
reasons of his own. All who did not know
him fancied that he thought as they did ; for
he was possessed of a preponderating intellect,
and could transport himself into the mental
state of any man and imitate his manner of
conceiving."* Beloved brethren, who wish to
be strong! Had not the man, who could take
this smooth method of it, more strength in him
than any teeth-grinding, glass-eyed "lone Ca-
loyer" you have yet fallen in with 1 Consider

• Wilhelm JHeister, book vi.

GOETHE'S WORKS.

3«}J

your ways; considerfirst, Whether you cannot
do with being weak! If tlie answer siill prove
negative, consider, secondly, what strength ac-
tually is, and where you are to try for it. A
certain strt)ng man, of former time, fought
stoutly at Lepanto; worked stoutly as Alg( rine
slave; stoutly delivered himself from luich
working, with stout cheerfulness endured
famine and nakedness and the world's ingra-
titude ; and sitting in jail, with the one arm
left him, wrote our joyfullest, and all but our
deepest, modern book, and named it Don Quix-
ote: this was a genuine strongman. A strong
man, of recent time, fights little for any good
cause anywhere ; works weakly as an English
lord ; weakly delivers himself from such work-
ing; with weak despondency endures the cack-
ling of plucked geese at St. James's, and, sitting
in sunny Italy, in his coach-and-four, at a dis-
tance of two thousand miles from them, writes,
over many reams of paper, the following sen-
tence, with variations: Saw ever the world one
greater or vnhappicr ? this was a sham strong
man. Choose ye. —

Of Goethe's spiritual Endowment, looked at
on the Intellectual side, we have, (as indeed
lies in the nature of things, for moral and in-
tellectual are fundamentally one and the same,)
to pronounce a similar opinion ; that it is great
among the very greatest. As the first gift of
all, may be discerned here, utmost Clearness,
all-piercing faculty of Vision; whereto, as we
ever find it, all other gifts are superadded;
naj', properly they are but other forms of the
same gift. A nobler power of insight than this
of Goethe, you in vain look for, since Shaks-
peare passed away. In fact, there is much
every way, here in particular, that these two
minds have in common. Shakspeare too
does not look at a thing, but into it, through it ;
so that he constructively comprehends it, can
take it asunder, and put it together again ; the
thing melts, as it were, into light under his eye,
and anew crectes itself before him. That is to
say, he is a Thinker in the highest of all senses :
he is a Poet. For Goethe, as for Shakspeare,
the world lies all translucent, all fusible, (we
might call it,) encircled with Woxdeii ; the
Natural in reality the Supernatural, for to the
seer's eyes both become one. What are the
Hamlets and Tempests, the Fausts and Misnoiis,
but glimpses accorded us into this translucent,
wonder-encircled world: revelations of the
m3''stery of all mysteries, Man's Life as it
actually is ]

Under other secondary aspects, the poetical
faculty of the two will still be found cognate.
Goethe is full of Jis;uralivcness : this grand
light-giving Intellect, as all such are, is an
imaginative one, — and in a quite other sense
than most of our unhappy Imaginatives will
imagine. Gall the Craniologist declared him
to be a born I'olksredner, (popular orator,) both
by the figure of his brow, and what was still
more decisive, because "he could not speak
but a figure came." Gall saw what was high
as his own nose reached,

" High as Ilie nose doth rparli, all clear !
What liidier lies, they ask : Is it here V
A far different figurativeness was this of
Goethe than popular oratory has work for. In

figures of the popular orate ."y kind, Goethe,
throughout his Writings at least, is nowise the
most copious man known to us, though on a
stricter scrutiny we may find him the richest.
Of your ready-made, coloured-paper meta-
phors, such as can be sewed or plastered oa
the surface, by way of giving an ornamental
finish to the rag-web already woven, we speak
not; there is not one such to be discovered in
all his Works. But even in the use of genuine
metaphors, that are not haberdashery orna
ment, but the genuine new vesture of new
thoughts, he yields to lower men, (for example,
to Jean Paul ;) that is to say, in fact, he is
more master of the common language, and caa
oftener make it serve him. Goethe's figura-
tiveness lies in the very centre of his being;
manifests itself as the constructing of the in-
ward elements of a thought, as the vital ira-
bodyment of it: such figures as those of
Goethe you will look for through all modern
literature, and except here and there in Shaks-
peare, nowhere find a trace of. Again, it is the
same faculty in higher exercise, that enables
the poet to construct a Character. Here too
Shakspeare and Goethe, unlike innum.erable
others, are vi'al; their construction begins at
the heart and flows outward as the life-streams
do: fashioning the surfarc, as it were, sponta-
neously. Those Macbeths and Falstafis, ac-
cordingly, these Fausts and Philinas, have a
verisimilitude and life that separates them
from all othef fictions of late ages. All others,
in comparison, have more or less the nature
of hollow vizards, constructed from without
inwards, painted like, and deceptively put in
motion. Many years ago on finishing our
first perusal of Wilhehn Meisier, with a very
mixed sentiment in other respects, we could
not but feel that here lay more insight into the
elements of human nature, and a more poeti-
cally perfect combining of these than in all the
other fictitious literature of our generation.

Neither, as an additional similarity, (for the
great is ever lilce itself,) let the majestic Calm-
ness of both be o:^iitted ; their perfect tolerance
for all men and all things. This too proceeds
from the same source, perfect clearness of
vision : he who comprehends an object cannot
hate it, has already begun to love it. In re-
spect of style, no less than of character, this
calmness and graceful smooth-flowing softness
is again characteristic of both: though in
Goethe the quality is more complete, having
been matured by far more assiduous study.
Goethe's style is perhaps to be reckoned the
most excellent that our modern world, in any
language, can exhibit. " Even to a foreigner,"
says one, " it is full of character and secondary
meanings; polished, yet vernacular and cor-
dial, it sounds like the dialect of wise, antique-
minded, true-hearted men : in poetry, brief,
sharp, simple, and expressive: in prose, per-
haps, still more pleasing; for it is at once concise
and full, rich, clear, unpretending, and melo-
dious ; and the sense, not presented in alterna-
ting flashes, piece after piece revealed and
withdrawn, rises before us as in continuous
dawning, and stands at last simultaneously
complete, and bathed in the mellowest and
ruddiest sunshine. It brings to mind Avhat the

364

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

prose of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, Browne, would
have been, had they written under the good,
without the bad influences of that French pre-
cision, which has polished and attenuated,
trimmed and impoverished all modern lan-
guages ; made our meaning clear, and too
often shallow as well as clear."*

Finally, as Shakspeare is to be considered
as the greater nature of the two, on the other
hand we must admit him to have been the less
cultivated, and much the more careless. What
Shakspeare cotdd have done we nowhere dis-
cover. A careless mortal, open to the Universe
and its influences, not caring strenuously to
open himself; who, Prometheus-like, will scale
Heaven, (if it so must be,) and is satisfied if
he therewith pay the rent of his London Play-
house; who, had the Warwickshire Justice let
him hunt deer unmolested, might, for many
years more, have lived quiet on the green earth
without such aerial journeys : an unparalleled
mortal. In the great Goethe, again, we see" a
man through life at his utmost strain ; a man
that, as he says himself, "struggled toughly;"
laid hold of all things, under all aspects, scien-
tific or poetic : engaged passionately with the
deepest interests of man's existence, in the
most complex age of man's history. What
Shakspeare's thoughts on " God, Nature, Art,"
would have been, especially had he lived to
number fourscore years, were curious to know :
Goethe's, delivered in many-toned melody, as
the apocalypse of our era, are here, for us
to know.

Such was the noble talent intrusted to this
naan ; such the noble employment he made
thereof. We can call him, once more, " a
clear and universal man ;" we can say that, in
his universality, as thinker, as singer, as
worker, he lived a life of antique nobleness
under these new conditions; and, in so living,
is alone in all Europe; the foremost, whom
others are to learn from and follow. In which
great act, or rather great sum total of many
acts, who shall compute what treasure of new
strengthening, of faith become hope and vision,
lies secured for all ! The question, Can man
still live in devoutness, yet without blindness
or contraction ; in unconquerable steadfast-
ness for the right, yet without tumultuous ex-
asperation against the wrong; as an antique
worthy, yet with the expansion and increased
endowment of a modern 1 is no longer a ques-
tion, but has become a certainty, and ocularly-
risible fact.

We have looked at Goethe, as we engaged
to do, " on this side," and with the eyes of
'this generation;" that is to say, chiefly as a
world-changer, and benignant spiritual revolu-
tionist: for in our present so astonishing con-
dition of "progress of the species," such is the
category under which we must try all things,
wisdom itself. And, indeed, under this aspect
too, Goethe's Life and Works are doubtless of
incalculable value, and worthy our :;nost earn-
est study; for his Spiritual HisVjiy is, as it
were, the ideal emblem of all true men's in
these days ; the goal of Manhood, which he

• Oerman Romance, iv.

attained, we too in our degree have to aim at;
let us mark well the road he fashioned for
himself, and in the dim weltering chaos rejoice
to find a paved way.

Here, moreover, another word of explana-
tion is perhaps worth adding. We mean in
regard to the controversy agitated (as about
many things pertaining to Goethe) about his
Political Creed and practice, whether he was
Ministerial or in Opposition ? Let the politi-
cal admirer of Goethe be at ease : Goethe was
both, and also neither! The "rotten white-
washed (gcbrcchliche iihertiinchte) condition of
society" was plainer to few eyes than to his,
sadder to few hearts than to his. Listen to the
Epigrammatist at Venice:

"To this slittiy I liken the land, the hammer its ruler,
And the [leople that plate, beaten between them that

writhes :
Wo to the plate, when nothing but wilful bruises on

bruises
Hit at random ; and made, coineth no Kettle to view !"

But, alas, what is to be done?

" No Apostleof-Liberty much to my heart ever found I :
License, each for hiiuself, this was at bottom their want.
Liberator of many ! first dare to be Servant of many :
What a business is that, wouldst thou know it, go try !"

Let the following also be recommended to all
inordinate worshippers of Septennials, Trien-
nials, Elective Franchise, and the Shameful
parts of the Constitution ; and let each be a little
tolerant of his neighbour's " festoon," and re-
joice that he has himself found out Freedom, —
a thing much wanted:

" Walls I can see tumbled down, walls I see also abuild-

ing;
Here sit prisoners, there likewise do prisoners sit :
Is the world then itself a huge prison 1 Free only the

madman,
His chains knitting still up into some graceful festoon I"

So that for the Poet what remains but to
leave Conservative and Destructive pulling
one another's locks and ears off, as they will
and can, (the ulterior issue being long since
indubitable enough;) and, for his own part,
strive day and night to forward the small suf-
fering remnant oi Product ives, of those who, in
true manful endeavour, were it under des-
potism or under sansculottism, create some
what, — with whom, alone, in the end, does the
hope of the world lie. Go thou and do like-
wise ! Art thou called to politics. Work therein,
as this man would have done, like a real and
not an imaginary workman. Understand well,
meanwhile, that to no man is his political con-
stitution " a life, but only a house wherein his
life is led:" and hast thou a nobler task than
such /joHse-pargeting and smoke-doctoring, and
pulling down of ancient rotten raf-inhabited
walls, leave such to the proper craftsman ;
honour the higher Artist, and good-humouredly
say with him :

" All this is neither my coat nor my cake.
Why fill my hand with other men's charges 1

The fishes swim at ease in the lake,
And take no thought of the barges."

Goethe's political practice, or rather no-prac-
tice, except that of self-defence, is a part of his
conduct quite inseparably coherent with thfi

CORN-LAW RHYMES.

36d

rest; a thing we could reccmmend tt univer-
sal study, that the spirit of it might be under-
stood by all men, and by all men imitated.

Nevertheless it is nowise alone on this revo-
lutionary or " progress-of-ihe-species" side
that Goethe has significance; his liife and
Work is no painted show but a solid reality,
and may be looked at with profit on all sides,
from all imaginable points of view. Perennial,
as a possession for ever, Goethe's History and
Writings abide there; a thousand-voiced
"Melody of Wisdom," which he that has ears
may hear. What the experience of the most
complexly-situated, deep-searching, every way
far-c.rpcricured man has yielded him of insight,
lies written for all men here. He who was of
compass to know and feel more than any other
man,, this is the record of his knowledge and
feeling. "The deepest heart, the highest head
to scan" was not beyond his faculty ; thus,
then, did he scan and interpret: let many
generations listen, according to their want; let
the generation which has no need of listening,
and nothing new to learn there, esteem itself
a happy one.

I To us, meanwhile, to all that wander in
darkness and seek light, as the one thing need-
ful, be this possession reckoned among our
choicest blessings and distinctions. Colile
talon virum : learn of him, imitate, emulate
him ! So did lie catch the Music of the Uni-
verse, and unfold it into clearness, and in
authentic celestial tones bring it home to the
hearts of men, from amid that soul-confusing
Babylonish hubbub of this our new Tower-of-
Babel era ! For now, too, as in that old time,
had men said to themselves: Come, let us
build a tower which shall reach to heaven j
and by our steam-engines, and logic-engines,
and skilful mechanism and manipulation, van-
quish not only Physical Nature, but tlie divine
Spirit of Nature, and scale the empyrean itself.
Wherefore they must needs again be stricken
with confusion of tongues (or of printing-
presses,) and dispersed, — to other work ; where-
in also let us hope, their hammers and trowels
shall better avail them. —

Of Goethe, with a feeling such as can be
due to no other man, we nov lake farewell:
vixit, vivit.

CORN-LAW UHYMES;

[Edinbukgh Review, 1832.]

Smelfungus Reditivus, throwing down his
critical assaying-balance, some years ago, and
taking leave of the Belles-Lettres function, ex-
pressed himself in this abrupt way: "The end
having come, it is fit that we end. Poetry
having ceased to be read, or published, or
written, how can it continue to be reviewed 7
With your Lake Schools, and Border- Thief
Schools, and Cockney and Satanic Schools,
there has been- enough to do; and now, all
these Schools having burnt or smouldered
themselves out. and left nothing but a wide-
spread wreck of ashes, dust, and cinders, — or
perhaps dving embers, kicked to and fro under
the feet of innumerable women and children
in the Magazines, and at best blown here and
there into transient sputters, with vapour
enoush, so as to form what you might name a
boundless Green-sick, or New-Sentimental, or
Sleep-Awake School, — what remains but to
adjust ourselves to circumstances? Urge me
not," continues the Hble Editor, suddenly
changing his figure, "with considerations that
Poetry, as the inward voice of Life, must be
perennial, only dead in one form to become
alive in another; that this still abundant deluge
of Metre, seeing there must needs be fractions
of Poetry floating scattered in it, ought still to
be net-fished, at all events, surveyed and

• 1. Porn-Law Rhymes. Third Edition. Svo. Lon-
don. ISSI.

1 Love; a Popin. By the Author of Torn-Law
Rhyiiips. Third F.dition. Svo. London. 18S1.

3. The Vill;i!.'« Palriaroli ; a Popm. I?v Ihe Author
of (;orn-l>aw Rhymes. 12uio. London, 1831.

taken note of: the survey of English Metre, at
this epoch, perhaps transcends the human
faculties; to hire out the r'eading v f it, by esti-
mate, at a remunerative rate pei page, would,
in few Quarters, reduce the cash box of any
extsnt Review to the verge of insolvency."

What our distinguished contemporary has
said remains said. Far be it from us to cen-
sure or counsel any able Editor; to draw aside
the Editorial veil, and, officiously prying into
his intei-ior mysteries, impugn the laws he
walks by! For Editors, as for others, there
are times of perplexity, wherein the cunning
of the wisest will scantily suffice his own
wants, say nothing of his neighbour's.

To us, on our side, meanwhile, it remains
clear that Poetry, or were it but Metre, should
nowise be altogether neglected. Surely it is
the Reviewer's trade to sit watching, not only
the tillage, crop-rotation, marketings, and good
or evil husbandry of the Economic Earth, but
also the weather-symptoms of the Literary
Heaven, on which those former so much de-
pend: if any promising or threatening me-
teoric phenomenon make its appearance, and
he proclaim not tidings thereof, it is at his
peril. Farther, be it considered how, in this
singular poetic epoch, a small matter consti-
tutes a novelty. If the whole welkin hang
overcast in drizzly dinginess, the feeblest light-
gleam, or speck of blue, cannot pass un-
heeded.

The Works of this Corn-Law Rhymer we
mi^ht liken rather to some little fraction of a
rarnbow: hues of joy and harmony, painted
'i II 2

866

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

out of troublous tears. No round full bow,
indeed; gloriousl}^ spanning the heavens;
shone on by the full sun; and, with seven-
striped, gold-crimson border (as is in some
sort the office of Poetry) dividing Black from
Brilliant: not such; alas, slill far from it!
Yet, in very truth, a little prismatic blush,
glowing genuine among the wet clouds; which
proceeds, if you will, from asun cloud-hidden,
yet indicates that a sun does shine, and above
those vapours, a whole azure vault and celes-
tial firmament stretch serene.

Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless
true, that here we have once more got sight of
a Book calling itself Poetry, yet which actually
is a kind of Book, and no empty paste-board
Case, and simulacrum or " ghost-defunct" of
a Book, such as is too often palmed on the
world, and handed over Booksellers' counters,
with a demand of real money for it, as if it too
were a reality. The speaker here is of that
singular class, who have something to say;
whereby, though delivering himself in verse,
and in these days, he does not deliver himself
■wholly in jargon, but articulately, and with a
certain degree of meaning, that has been
believed, and therefore is again believable.

To some the wonder and interest will be
heightened by another circumstance : that the
speaker in question is not school-learned, or
even furnished with pecuniary capital; is,
indeed, a quite unmoneyed, russet-coated
speaker; nothing or little other than a Shef-
field worker in brass and iron, who describes
himself as "one of the lower, little removed
above the lowest class." Be of what class he
may, the man is provided, as we can perceive,
with a rational god-created soul ; which too
has fashioned itself into some clearness, some
self-subsistence, and can actually see and
know with its own organs; and in rugged sub-
stantial English, nay, with tones of poetic
melody, utter forth what it has seen.

It used to be said that lions do not paint, that
poor men do not write ; but the case is alter-
ing now. Here is a voice coming from the
deep Cyclopean forges, where Labour, in real
soot and sweat, beats with his thousand ham-
mers "the red son of the furnace;" doing per-
sonal battle with Necessity, and her dark brute
Powers, to make them reasonable and service-
able; an intelligible voice from the hitherto
Mute and Irrational, to tell us at first hand
Iiow it is with him, what in very deed is the
theorem of the world and of himself, which he,
in those dim depths of his, in that wearied
head of his, has put together. To which voice,
in several respects significant enough, let good
ear be given.

Here too, be it premised, that nowise under
the category of" Uneducated Poets," or in any
fashion of dilettante patronage, can our Shef-
field friend be produced. His position is un-
suitable for that: so is ours. Genius, which
the French lady declared to be of no sex, is
much more certainly of no rank; neither
when "the spark of Nature's fire" has been
imparted, should Education take high airs in
h^r artificial light,— which is too often but
phosphorescence and putrescence. In fact, it
now begins to be suspected here and there,

that this same aristocratic recognition, which
looks down with an obliging smile from its
throne, of bound Volumes and gold Ingots,
and admits that it is wonderfully well for one
of the uneducated classes, may be getting out
of place. There are unhappy times in the
world's history, when he that is the least edu-
cated will chiefly have to say that he is the
least perverted; and with the multitude of
false eye-glasses, convex, concave, green, even
yellow, has not lost the natural use of his
eyes. For a generation that reads Cobbef's
Prose, and Burns's Poetry, it need be no -mir-
acle that here also is a man who can handle
both pen and hammer like a man.

Nevertheless, this serene-highness attitude
and temper is so frequent, perhaps it were
good to turn the tables for a moment, and see
what look it has under that reverse aspect.
How were it if we surmised, that for a man
gifted with natural vigour, with a man's cha-
racter to be developed in him, more especially
if in the way of Literature, as Thinker and
Writer, it is actually, in these strange days, no
special misfortune to be trained up among the
IJneducated classes, and not among the Edu-
cated * but rather of two misfortunes the
smaller]

For all men doubtless obstructions abound ;
spiritual growth must be hampered and stunt-
ed, and has to struggle through with diffi-
culty, if it do not wholly stop. We may grant
too that, for a mediocre character, the con-
tinual training and tutoring, from language-
masters, dancing-masters, posture-masters of
all sorts, hired and volunteer, which a high
rank in any lime and country assures, there
will be produced a certain superiority, or at
worst, air of superiority, over the correspond-
ing mediocre character of low rank: thus we
perceive the vulgar Do-nothing, as contrasted
with the vulgar Drudge, is in general a much
prettier man ; with a wider, perhaps clearer,
outlook into the distance; in innumerable su-
perficial matters, however it may be when we
we go deeper, he has a manifest advantage.
But with the man of uncommon character,
again, in whom a germ of irrepressible Force
has been implanted, and irill unfold itself into
some sort of freedom, — altogether the reverse
may hold. For such germs, too, there is un-
doubtedly enough, a proper soil where they
will grow best, and an improper one where
they will grow worst. True also, where there
is a will, there is a way; where a genius has
been given, a possibility, a certainty of its
growing is also given. Yet often it seems as
if the injudicious gardening and manuring
were worse than none at all ; and killed what
the inclemencies of blind chance would have
spared. We find accordingly that few Fred-
erics or Napoleons, indeed none since the
great Alexander, who unfortunately drank
himself to death too soon for proving what
lay in him, were nursed up with an eye to
their vocation: mostly with an eye quite the
other way, in the midst of isolation and pain,
destitution and contradiction. Nay, in our
own times, have we not seen two men of ge-
nius, a Byron and a Burns ; they both, by
mandate of Nature, struggle and must strug-

CORN-LAW RHYMES.

367

gle towards clear Manhood, stormfully enough,
for the space of six-and-thirty years ; yet only
the gifted Ploughman can partially prevail
therein : the gifted Peer must toil and strive,
and shoot out in wild efforts, yet die at last in
Boyhood, with the promise of his Manhood
still but announcing itself in the distance.
Truly, as was once written, " it is only the ar-
tichoke that will not grow except in gardens;
the acorn is cast carelessly abroad into the
wilderness, yet on the wild soil it nourishes it-
self, and rises to be an oak." All woodmen,
moreover, will tell you that fat manure is the
ruin of your oak ; likewise that the thinner
and wilder your soil, the tougher, more iron-
textured is your timber, — though, unhappily,
also, the smaller. So too with the spirits of
men : they become pure from their errors, by
suffering for them ; he who has battled, were
It only with poverty and hard toil, will be
found stronger, more expert, than he who
could stay at home from the battle, concealed
among the Provision-wagons, or even not un-
watchfully " abiding by the stuff." In which
sense, an observer, not without experience of
our time, has said: " Had I a man of clearly
developed character, (clear, sincere within its
limits,) of insight, courage, and real appli-
cable force of head and of heart, to search
for; and not a man of luxuriously distorted
character, with haughtiness for courage, and
for insight and applicable force, speculation
and plausible show of force, — it were rather
among the lower than the higher classes that
I should look for him."

A hard saying, indeed, seems this same :
that he whose other wants were all beforehand
supplied ; to whose capabilities no problem
was presented except even this, How to culti-
vate them to best advantage, should attain less
real culture than he whose first grand prob-
lem and obligation was nowise spiritual cul-
ture, but hard labour for his daily bread !
Sad enough must the perversi(in be where pre-
parations of such magnitude issue in abor-
tion ; and a so sumptuous Art with all its
appliances can accomplish nothing, not so
much as necessitous Nature would of herself
have supplied ! Nevertheless, so pregnant is
Life with evil as with good ; to such height in
an age rich, plethorically overgrown with
means, can means be accumulated in the
wrong place, and immeasurably aggravate
wrong tendencies, instead of righting them,
this sad and strange result may actually turn
out to have been realized.

But what, after all, is meant by nnedurateH,
in a time when Books have come into the
world; cnme to the household furniture in
every habitation of the civilized world T In
the poorest cottage are Books : is one Book,
wherein for several thousands of years the
spirit of man has found light, and nourish-
ment, and an interpreting response to what-
ever is Deepest in him ; wherein still, to this
day, for the eye that will look well, the Mys-
tery of Existence reflects itself, if not resolved,
yet revealed, and prophetically emblemed ; if
not to the satisfying of the outward sense, yet
to the opening of the inward sense, which is
the far grander result. "In Books lie the cre-

ative Pha?nix-ashes of the whole Past." All
that men have devised, discovered, done, felt,
or imagined, lies recorded in Books ; wherein
whoso has learned the mystery of spelling
printed letters, may find it. and appropriate it.

Nay, what indeed is all this '! As if it were
by ciniversities and libraries and lecture-rooms,
that man's Education, what we can call Edu-
cation, were accomplished : solely, or mainly,
by instilling the dead letter and record of other
men's Force, that the living Force of a new
man were to be awakened, enkindled, and pu-
rified into victorious clearness! Fotlish Pe-
dant, that sittest there compassionately des-
canting on the Learning of Shakspeare !
Shakspeare had penetrated into innumerable
things; far into Nature with her divine Splen-
dours and infernal Terrors, her Ariel Melodies,
and mystic mandragora Moans ; far into man's
workings with Nature, into man's Art and
Artifice; Shakspeare knew (kemied, which in
those days still partially meant can-ned) innu-
merable things; what men are, and what the
wfirld is, and how and what men aim at there,
from the Dame Quickly of modern Eastcheap
to the Coesar of ancient Rome, over many
countries, over many centuries : of all this
he had the clearest understanding and con-
structive comprehension ; all this was his
Learning and Insight: what now is thine 1
Insight into none of those things; perhaps,
strictly considered, into no thing whatever:
solely into thy own sheepskin diplomas, fat
academic honours, into vocables and alpha-
betic letters, and but a little way into these ! —
The e-rand result of schooling is a mind with
just vision to discern, with free force to do :
the grand schoolmaster is Practice.

And now, when kcntwis: and cax-nwg have
become two altogether different words ; and
this, the first principle of human culture, the
foundntion-stone of all but false imaginary cul-
ture, that men must, before every other thing,
he trained to do somewhat, has been, fi'r some
generations, laid quietly on the shelf, with
such result as we .see, — consider what advan-
tage those same uneducated "Working classes
have over the educated Unworking classes, in
one particular; herein, nainely, that they must
n-ork. To work! What incalculable sources
of cultivation lie in that process, in that at-
tempt; how it lays hold of the whole man,
not of a small theoretical calculating fraction
of him, but of the whole practical, doing and
daring and enduring man ; thereby to awaken
dormant faculties, root out old errors, at every
step! He that has done nothing has known
nothing. Vain is it to sit scheming and plan
sibly discoursing: up and be doing! If thy
knowledge be real, put it forth from thee:
grapple with real Nature; try thy theories
there, and see how they hold out. Do one thing,
for the first time in thy life do a thing : a new
light will rise to thee on the doing of all things
whatsoever. Truly, a boundless significance
lies in work: whereby the humblest craftsman
coines to attain much, which is of indispen-
sable use, but which he who is of no crafi,
were he never so hi2;h. runs the risk of miss
ing. Once turn to Practice, Error and Truth
will no longer consort together: the ra-sull of

368

CARI-YLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Error involves you in llie square-root of a ne-
gative quantity; try to cxlrurt it, or any earlh'y
substance or sustenance from it, if you will !
The honourable Member can discover that
" there is a reaction," and believe it, and weari-
somely reason on it, in spite of all men, while he
so pleases, for still his wine and his oil will not
fail him : but the sooty Brazier, who discovered
that brass was green-cheese, has to act on his
discovery; finds, therefore, that, singular as it
may seem, brass cannot be masticated for din-
ner, green-cheese will not beat into fireproof
dishes : that such discovery, therefore, has no
legs to stand on, and must even be let fall. Now,
take this principle of difference through the
entire lives of two men, and calculate what it
will amount to! Necessity, moreover, which
we here see as the mother of Accuracy, is well
known as the mother of Invention. He who
wants every thing, must know many things,
do many things, to procure even a few: dif-
ferent encuigh with him, whose indispensable
knowledge is this only, that a finger will pull
the bell.

So that, for all men who live, we may con-
clude, this Life of Man is a school, wherein
the naturally foolish will continue foolish
though you bray him in a mortar, but the natu-
rally wise will gather wisdom under every dis-
advantage. What, meanwhile, must be the
condition of an Era, when the highest advan-
tages there become perverted into drawbacks;
when, if you take two men of genius, and put
the one between the handles of a plough, and
mount ihe other between the painted coronets
of a coach-and-four, and bid them both move
along, the former shall arrive a Burns, the
latter a Byron : two men of tali^it, and put the
one into a Printer's ch;ipel, full of lampblack,
tyrannous usage, hard toil, and the other into
Oxford universities, with lexicons and libraries,
and hired expositors and sumptuous endow-
ments, the former shall come out a Dr. Frank-
lin, the latter a Dr. Parr! —

However, we are not here to write an Essay
on Education, or sing misereres over a " world
in its dotage ;" but simply to say that our Corn-
Law Rhymer, educated or uneducated as Na-
ture and Art have made him, asks not the
smallest patronage or compassion for his
rhymes, professes not the smallest contrition
for them. Nowise in such attitude does he
present himself; not supplicatory, deprecatory,
but sturdy, defiant, almost menacing. Where-
fore, indeed, should he supplicate or deprecate 1
It is out of the abundance of the heart that he
has spoken ; praise or blame cannot make it
truer or falser than it already is. By the grace
of God this man is sufficient for himself; by
his skill in metallurgy, can beat out a toilsome
but a manful living, go how it may ; has
arrived too at that singular audacity of believ-
ing what he knows, and acting on it, or writing
on it, or thinking on it, without leave asked of
any one: there shall he stand, and work, with
head and with hand, for himself and the world;
blown about by no wind of doctrine; frightened
at no Reviewer's shadow; having, in his time,
looked substances enough in the face, and re-
mained unfrightened.

What is left, therefore, but to take what he

brings, and as he brings iti Let us be thank
ful, were it only for the day of small things.
Something it is that we have lived to welcome
once more a sweet Singer wearing the likeness
of a Man. In humble guise, it is true, and of
stature more or less marred in its develop-
ment; yet not without a genial robustness,
strength and valour, built on honesty and love;
on the whole, a genuine man, with somewhat
of the eye and speech and bearing that be-
seems a man. To whom all other genuine
men, how difi^erent soever in subordinate par-
ticulars, can gladly hold out the right hand of
fellowship.

The great excellence of our Rhymer, be it
understood then, we take to consist even in
this, often hinted at already, that he is genuine.
Here is an earnest, truth-speaking man; no
theorizer, sentimentalizer, but a practical man
of work and endeavour, man of sufferance and
endurance. The thing that he speaks is not a
hearsay, but a thing which he has himself
known, and by experience become assured of.
He has used his eyes for seeing; uses his
tongue for declaring what he has seen. His
voice, therefore, among the many noises of our
Planet, will deserve its place better than the
most; will be well worth some attention.
Whom else should we attend to but such?
The man who speaks with some half shadow
of a Belief, and supposes, and inclines to
think; and considers not with undivided soul,
what is true, but only what is plausible, and
will find audience and recompense; do we not
meet him at every street-turning, on all high-
ways and byways; is he not stale, unprofit-
able, inefl'ectual, wholly grown a weariness of
the flesh '! So rare is his opposite in any rank
of Literature, or of Life, so very rare, that
even in the lowest he is precious. The au-
thentic insight and experience of any human
soul, were it but insight and experience in
hewing of wood and drawing of water, is real
knowledge, a real possession and acquirement,
how small soever : pahtbnt, again, were it a
supreme pontiff's, is wind merely, and nothing,
or less than nolhmg. To a considerable de-
gree, this man, we say, has worked himself
loose from cant, and conjectural halfness, idle
pretences and hallucinations, into a condition
of Sincerity. Wherein, perhaps, as above
argued, his hard social environment, and for-
tune to be " a workman born," which brought
so many other retardations with it, may have
forwarded and accelerated him.

That a man. Workman, or Idleman, encom-
passed, as in these days, with persons in a
state of willing or unwilling Insincerity, and
necessitated, as man is to learn whatever he
does traditionally learn by iniitdiing these,
should nevertheless shake off Insincerity, and
struggle out from that dim pestiferous marsh-
atmosphere, into a clearer and purer height, —
betokens in him a certain originality; in which
rare gift Force of all kinds is presupposed. To
our Rhymer, accordingly, as hinted more than
once, vision and determination have not been
denied: a rugged, homegrown understanding
is in him; whereby, in his own way, he has
mastered this and that, and looked into various
things, in general honesty and to purpose.

CORN-LAW RHYMES.

sometimes deeply, piercingly, and with a
Seer's eye. Strong thoughts are not wanting,
boautiful thoughts; strong and beautiful ex-
pressions of thought. As traceable for instance
in this new illustration of an old argument, the
naischief of Commercial Restrictions :

"These, O ye quacks, tliese are your remedies ;
Alms for ttie Rich, a bread-tax for the Poor !
Soiil-piirchasetl liarvests on the indigent moor!
Thus the winged victor of a hundred lights,
The warrior l!?hip, bows low her banner'd head,
When through her planks the seaborn reptile bites
Its deadly way ; — and sinks in ocean's bed,
Vanquish'd by worms. What then 1 The worms were

fed.—
Will not God smite thee black, thou whited wain
riiy law is lifeless, and thy law a lie,
Or Nature is a dream unnatural:
look on the clouds, the streams, the earth, the sky ;
Ln all is interchange and harmony !
Where is the gorgeous pomp which, yester morn,
Curtained yon Orb, with amber, fold on fold 1
Behold it in the blue of Rivelin, borne
To feed the all-feeding sea ! the molten gold
Is flowing pale in I.oxley's waters cold.
To kindle into beauty tree and flower.
And wake to verdant life hill, vale, and plain.
Cloud trades with river, and exchange is power :
But should the clouds, the streams, the winds disdain
Harmonious intercourse., nor dew nor rain
Would forest-crown the mountains : airless day
Would blast cm Kinderscout the heathy glow;
No purply green would meeken into gray
O'er Don at eve; no sound of river's flow
Disturb the Sepulchre of all below."

Nature and the doings of men have not passed
by this man unheeded, like the endless cloud-
rack in dull weather ; or lightly heeded, like
a theatric phantasmagoria; but earnestly in-
quired into, like a thing of reality; reverently
loved aiid worshipped, as a thing with divine
significance in its reality, glimpses of which
divineness he has caught and laid to heart.
For his vision, as was said, partakes of the
genuinely Poetical : he is not a Rhymer and
Speaker only, but, in some genuine sense,
something of a Poet.

Farther we must admit him, what indeed is
already herein admitted, to be, if clear-sighted,
also brave-hearted. A troublous element is
his; a Life of painfulness, toil, insecurity,
scarcity, yet he fronts it like a man ; yields
not to it, tames into some subjection, some
Older; its wild fearful dinning and tumult, as
of a devouring Chaos, becomes a sort of wild
war-music for him; wherein too are passages
of beauty, of melodious melting softness, of
lightness and briskness, even of joy. The
stout heart is also a warm and kind one;
All'ection dwells with Danger, all the holier
and the lovelier for such stern environment.
A working man is this ; yet, as we said, a
man : in his sort, a courageous, much loving,
faithfully enduring and endeavouring man.

What such a one, so gifted and so placed,
shall say to a Time like ours ; how he will
fashion himself into peace, or war, or armed
neutrality-, with the world and his fellow men,
and work out his course in joy and grief, in
victory and defeat, is a question worth asking:
which in these three little Volumes partly re-
ceives answer. He has turned, as all thinkers
up to a very high and rare order in these days
47

must do, into Politics ; is a Reformer, at least
a stern Complainer, Radical to the heart: his
poetic melody takes an elegiaco-tragical cha-
racter: much of him is converted into Hostility,
and grim, hardly-suppressed Indignation, such
as Right long denied, Hope long deferred, may
awaken in the kindliest heart. Not yet as a
rebel against any thing does he stand; but as a
free man, and the spokesman of free men, not
far from rebelling against much ; with sorrow-
ful, appealing dew, yet also with incipient
lightning, in his eyes ; whom it were not de-
sirable to provoke into rebellion. He says in
Vulcanic dialect, his feelings have been ham-
mered till they are cold-short ; so they will no
longer bend; "they snap, and fly off," — in the
face of the hammerer. Not unnatural, though
lamentable ! Nevertheless, under all disguises
of the Radical, the Poet is still recognisable :
a certain music breathes through all disso-
nances, as the prophecy and ground-tone of
returning harmony; the man, as we said, is of
a poetical nature.

To his Political Philosophy there is perhaps
no great importance attachable. He feels, as
all men that live must do, the disorganization,
and hard-grinding, unequal pressure of the
Social Affairs; but sees into it only a very
little farther than far inferior men do. The
frightful condition of a Time, when public and
private Principle, as the word was once under-
stood, having gone out of sight, and Self-in-
terest being left to plot, and struggle, and
scramble, as it could and would. Difficulties
had accumulated till they were no longer to be
borne, and the spirit that should have fronted
and conquered them seemed to have forsaken
the world; — when the Rich, as the utmost ihey
could resolve on, had ceased to govern, and
the Poor, in their fast-accumulating numbers,
and ever-widening complexities, had ceased to
be able to do without governing; and nijw the
plan of" Competition" and " Laissez-fuire" was,
on every side, approaching its consummation;
and each bound up in the circle of his own
wants and perils, stood grimly distrustful of
his neighbour, and the distracted Common-
weal was a Common-wo, and to all men it
became apparent that the end was drawing
nigh :— all this black aspect of Ruin and Decay,
visible enough, experimentally known to our
Sheiheld friend, he calls by the name of "Corn-
Law," and expects to be in good part delivered
from, were the accursed Bread-tax repealed.

In this system of political Doctrine, even as
here so emphatically set forth, there is not
much of novelty. Radicals we have many ;
loud enoush on this and other grievances , the
removal of which is to be the one thing need-
ful. The deep, wide flood of Bitterness, and
Hope becoming hopeless, lies acrid, corrosive
in every bosom; and flows fiercely enough
through any orifice Accident may open : through
Law Reform, Legislative Reform, Poor Laws,
want of Poor Laws, Tithes, Game Laws, or, as
we see here. Corn Laws. Whereby indeed only
ihis becomes clear, that a deep, wide flood of
evil does exist and corrode; from which, in
all ways, blindly and seeingly, men seek de-
liverance, and cannot rest till they find it ; least
of all till they know what pait and proportion

370

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

of it is to be found. But with us foolish sons
of Adam this is ever the way; some evil that
lies nearest us, be it a chronic sickness, or but
a smoky chimney, is ever the acme and sum-
lotal of all evil: the black hydra that shuts us
out from a Promised Land : and so, in poor Mr.
Shandy' s fashion, must we " shift from trouble
to trouble, and from side to side ; button np one
cause of vexation, and unbutton another."

Thus for our keen-hearted singer, and suf-
ferer, has " the Bread-tax," in itself a consider-
able but no immeasurable smoke-pillar, swoln
out to be a world embracing Darkness, that
darkens and suffocates the whole Earth, and has
blotted out the heavenly stars. Into the merit
of the Corn Laws, which has often been dis-
cussed, in fit season, by competent hands, we
do noi enter here ; least of all in the way of
argument, in the way of blame, towards one
who, if he read such merit with some emphasis
" on the scantier trenchers of his children,"
may well be pardoned. That the "Bread-tax,"
with various other taxes, may ere long be
altered and abrogated, and the Corn Trade be-
come as free as the poorest " bread-taxed
drudge" could wish " it, or the richest satrap
bread-tax-fed" could fear it, seems no extrava-
gant hypothesis: would that the mad Time
could, by such simple hellebore-dose, be
healed! Alas, for the diseases of a " world
lying in wickedness," in heart-sickness and
atrophy, quite another alcahest is needed; — a
long, painful course of medicine and regimen,
surgery and physic, not yet specified or in-
dicated iti the Royal-College Books !

But if there is little novelty in our friend's
Political Philosophy, there is some in his poli-
tical Feeling and Poetry. The peculiarity of
this Radical is, that with all his stormful de-
structivenes';, he combines a decided loyalty
and faith. If he despise and trample under
foot on the one hand, he exalts and reverences
on the other : the " landed pauper in his coach-
and-lbur" rolls all the moreglaringly,contrasted
with the " Rockinghams and Savilles" of the
past, with the "Lansdowns and Fitzwilliams,"
many a " Wentworth's lord," still " a blessing"
to the present. This man, indeed, has in him
the root of all reverence, — a principle of Re-
ligion. He oelieves in a Godhead, not with
the lips onljT, but apparently with the heart;
who, as has been written, and often felt, " re-
VL-als Himf elf in Parents, in all true Teachers,
and Rulers," — as in false Teachers and Rulers
quite Another may be revealed! Our Rhymer,
It would feem, is no Methodist: far enough
from it. He makes " the Ranter," in his hot-
headed way, exclaim over

"Th< hundred Popes of England's Jesuitry;"

and adds, by way of note, in his own person,
some still stronger sayings : How " this bane-
ful corporation," "dismal as its Reign of Terror
iS, a,nd long armed its Holy Inquisition, must
condescend to learn and teach what is useful,
or go where all nuisances go." As little per-
haps is he a Churchman; the "Cadi-Dervish"
bein^ nowise to his mind. Scarcely, however,
if al all, does he show aversion to the Church
as Church ; or, among his many griefs, touch
uj.on Tither; as one. But, in any case, the

black colours of Life, even as here painted, and
brooded over, do not hide from him that a God
is the Author and sustainer thereof; that God's
world, if made a House of Imprisonment, can
also be a House of Prayer ; wherein for the
weary and heavy-laden. Pity and Hope are not
altogether cut away.

It is chiefly in virtue of this inward temper
of heart, with the clear disposition and ad-
justment which for all else results therefrom,
that our Radical attains to be Poetical ; that tht
harsh groanings, contentions, upbraidings, of
one who unhappily has felt constrained to
adopt such mode of utterance, become ennobled
into something of music. If a land of bond-
age, this IS still his Father's land, and the
bondage endures not forever. As worshipper
and believer, the captive can look with seeing
eye : the aspect of the Infinite Universe still
fills him with an infinite feeling; his chains,
were it but for moments, fall away ; he soars
free aloft, and the sunny regions of Poesy and
Freedom gleam golden afar on the widened
horizon. Gleamings we say, prophetic dawn-
ings, from those far regions, spring up for him ;
nay, beams of actual radiance. In his rugged-
ness, and dim contractedness, (rather of place
than of organ,) he is not without touches of a
feeling and vision, which, even in the strictest
sense, is to be named poetical.

One deeply poetical idea, above all others,
seems to have taken hold of him : the idea of
Time. As was natural to a poetic soul, with
few objects of Art in its environment, and
driven inward, rather than invited outward, for
occupation. This deep mystery of ever-ilow-
ing Time; "bringing forth," and as the An-
cients wisely Cabled, " devouring" what it has
brought forth; rushing on, in us, yet above
us, all uncontrollable by us; and under it,
dimly visible athwart it, the bottomless Eter-
nal ; — this is, indeed, what we may call the
Primary idea of Poetry : the first that intro-
duces itself into the poetic mind. As here:

"The bee shall seek to settle on his hand.

But from the vacant bench haste to the moor.

Mourning the last of England'shigh-snul'd Poor,

And bid the mountains weep for Enoch Wray.

And f(ir themselves, — albeit of things that last

XJnalter'd most : for they shall pass away

Like Enoch, though their iron roots seem fast.

Bound to the eternal future as the past :

The Patriarch died, and they shall be no more!

Yes, and the sailless worlds, which navigate

The unutterable Deep that hath no shore.

Will lose their starry splendour soon or late,

Like tapers, quench'd hy him whose will is fate!

Yes, arul the Angel of Eternity

Who numbers worlds and writes their names In light,

One day, O Earth, will look in vain for thee.

And start and stop in his unerring flight.

And with his wings of sorrow and affright,

Veil his itTipa^ssion'd brow and heavenly tears !"

And not the first idea only, but the greatest,
properly the parent of all others. For if it
can rise in the remotest ages, in the rudest
states of culture, wherever an " inspired
thinker" happens to exist, it connects itself
still with all great things; with the highest
results of new Philosophy, as of primeval
Theology: and for the Poet, in j.articular, is
as the life-element wherein alone his concep

CORN-LAW RHYMES.

371

tions can take poetic form, and the whole world
hscome miraculous and magical,

" V/e are such stvjf
As Dreams are made of: and our little life
Is rounded with a Sluep '."

Figure that, believe that, O Reader; then
Bay whether the Arabian Tales seem wonderful !
— " Rounded with a sleep, (7nit Scliiifumgebcn) !"
saj's Jean Paul : " these three words created
whole volumes in me."

Tc lurn now on our wortny Rhymer, who
has brougni us so much, and stingily insist
on his errors and shortcomings, were no honest
procedure. We had the whole poetical ency-
clopaedia to draw upon, and say commodiously.
Such and such an item is not here ; of which
encyclopaedia the highest genius can fill but a
portion. With much merit, far from common
in his time, he is not without something of the
faults of his time. We praised him for original-
ity; yet is there a certain remainder of imita-
tion in him; a tang of the Circulating Libra-
ries, as in Sancho's wine, with its key and
thong, there was a fang of iron and leather.
To be reminded of Crabbe,, with his truthful
severity of style, in such a place, we cannot
object; but M'hat if there were a slight bravura
dash of tlie fair tuneful Hemans 1 Still more,
what have we to do with Byron, and his fierce
vociferous mouthings, whether "passionate,"
or not passionate and only theatrical? King
Cambyses' vein is, after all, but a worthless
one ; no vein for a wise man. Strength, if that
be the thing aimed at, does not manifest itself
in spasms, but in stout bearing of burdens.
Our Author says, " It is too bad to exalt into a
hero the coxcomb who would have gone into
hysterics if a tailor had laughed at him."
Walk not in his footsteps, then, we say,
whether as hero or as singer; repent a little,
for example, over somewhat in that fuliginous,
blue-llaming, pitch-and-su!phur " Dream of
Enoch Wray," and write the next otherwise.

We mean no imitation in a bad palpable
sense ; only that there is a tone of such occa-
sionallv audible; which oui^ht to be removed;
— of which, in any case, we make not much.
Imitation is a leaning on something foreign;
incompleteness of individual development, de-
fect of tree utterance. From the same source,
spring most of our Author's faults; in particu-
lar, his worst, wliich after all is intrinsically a
defect of manner. He has little or no Humour.
Without Humour of character he cannot well
be ; but it has not yet got to utterance. Thus,
where he has mean things to deal with, he
knows not how to deal with them ; oftenest
deals with them more or less meanly. In his
vituperative prose Notes, he seems embar-
rassed; and but ill hides his embarrassment,
under an air of predetermined sarcasm, of
knowing briskness, almost of vulgar pertness.
He says, he cannot help it; he is poor, hard-
worked, and " soot is soot." True, indeed ; yet
there is no connection between Poverty and
Discourtesy; which latter originates in Dull-
ness alone. Courtesy is the due of Man to
Man ; not of suit of clothes to suit of clothes.
He who could master .so many things, and

make even Corn-Laws rhyme, we require of
him this further thing, — a bearing worthy of
himself, and of the order he belongs to, — the
highest and most ancient of all orders, that of
Manhood. A pert snappishness is no manner
for a brave man ; and then the manner so soon
influences the matter; a far worse result. Let
him speak wise things, and speak them wisely;
which latter may be done in many dialects,
grave and gay, only in the snappish seldom or
never.

The truth is, as might have been expected,
there is still much lying in him to be developed;
the hope of which development it were rather
sad to abandon. Why, for example, should
not his view of the world, his knowledge of
what is and has been in the world, inde-
finitely extend itself] Were he merely the
"uneducated Poet," we should say, he had
read largely; as he is not such, we sa}^ Read
still more, much more largely. Books enough
there are in England, and of quite another
weight and worth than that circulating-library
sort ; may be procured too, may be read, even
by a hard-worked man ; for what man (either
in God's service or the Devil's, as himself
chooses it) is not hard-worked? But here
again, where there is a will there is a way.
True, our friend is no longer in his teens; yet
still, as would seem, in the vigour of his years :
we hope too that his mind is not finally shut
in, but of the improvable and enlargeable sort.
If Alfieri (also kept busy enough, with horse-
breaking and what not) learned Greek after he
was fifty, why is the Corn-Law Rhymer too
old to learn 1

However, be in the future what there may,
our Rhymer has already done what was much
more difficult, and better than reading printed
books; — looked into the great prophetic-manu-
script Book of Existence, and read little pas-
sages there. Here, for example, is a sentence
tolerably spelled :

" Where toils the Mill by ancient woods embraced.
Hark, how the cold steel screams in hissing fire !
Blind Enoch sees the Grinder's wheel no more,
Couch'd beneath rocks and forests, that admire
Their beauty in the waters, ere tliey roar
Dashed in white foam the swift circumference o'er.
There draws the Grinder his laborious oreath :
There coughing at his deadly trade he bends :
Born to die young, he fears nor man nor death;
Scorning the future, what he *arns he spends ;
Debauch and riot are his bosom friends."
" Behold his failings! Hath he virtues tool
He is no Pauper, blackguard though he be :
Full well he knows what minds combined can do,
Full well maintains his birthright : he is free,
And, frown for frown, outstares monopoly.
Yet Abraham and Elliot both in vain
Bid Science on his cheek prolong the bloom:
He will not live ! He seems in haste to gain
The undisturbed asylum of the tomb.
And, old at two-and-lhirty, meets his doom !"

Or this " of Jem, the rogue avowed,

" Whose trade is Poaching ! Honest Jem works not,
Begs not, but thrives by plundering beggars here.
Wise as a lord, and quite as good a shot,
He, like his betters, lives in hate and fear
And feeds on partridge because bread is dear.
Sire of six sons apprenticed to ttiej:iil,
He prowls in arms, the Tory of the night;
Wiih them he shares bis battles and his ale.

87S

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

With him they feel the majesty of might,
No Despot belter knows that Power is Right.
]Vlarl< his iinpai(fish sneer, liis lordly frown ;
Hark how lie calls the beadle and flunky liars;
See how niainiticenlly he breaks down
His nei(.'ht)oiir's fence, if so his will requires,
And how his strultle emulates the squire's!"
"Jem rises with the Moon ; hut when she sinks,
Homeward with sack-like pockets, and qniuk heela,
Hungry as boroughmongering gowl,he slinks.
He reads not, writes not, thinks not; scarcely feels;
Steals all he gets ; serves Hell with all he steals !"

It is rustic, rude existence ; barren moors,
with the smoke of Forges rising over the
waste expanse. Alas, no Arcadia ; but the
actual dwelling-place of actual (oil-grimed
sons of Tnbal-cain : yet are there blossoms and
the wild natural fragrance of gorse and broom;
yet has the Craftsman pauses in his toil ; the
Craftsman tc 3 has an inheritance in Earth ;
and even in Heaven.

*' Light ! All is not corrupt, for thoii art pure.

Unchanged and changeless. Though frail man is vile.

Thou look'st on him ; serene, sublime, secure,

Yet, like Ihy P'alher, with a pitying sniile.

Even on this wintry day, as marble cold,

Angeis mishl quit their home to visit thee.

And match their plumage with Ihy nianlle roli'd

Benealh God's Throne, o'er billows of a sea

Whose isles are Worlds, whose bounds Infinity.

Why ihen is Enoch absent froiTi my side 1

I miss the rustle of his silver hair;

A guide no more, 1 seem to want a guide,

While Enoch journeys to the house of prayer;

Ah, ne'er came Salibalh-day but he was there !

Lo, how, like him, erect and strong, though gray.

Yon village lower time-touch'd In God appeals!

And hark ! the chimes of morning die away :

Hark ! to the heart the solemn sweetness steals,

Like the heart's voice, unfelt by none who feels

That God is Love, that Man is living Dust ;

Unfelt by none whom ties of brotherhood

Link to his kind ; by none who puts his trust

In naught of Earth that halh survived the flood,

Save those mute charities, by which the good

Strengthen poor worms, and serve their Maker best.

" Hail 8abbath ! Day of mercy, peace, and rest !
Thou o'er loud cities Ihrow'st a noiseless spell.
The hammer Ihere, the wheel, the saw luolest
Pale Thought no more : o'er Trade's contentious hell
Meek Quiet spreads her wings invisible.
And when thou coin's!, less silent are the fields,
Throui;h whose sweet paths the toil-freed townsman

steals,
To him the very air a banquet yielils.
Envious he watches the poised hawk that wheels
His flight on chaiiiless winds. Each cloud reveals

A paradise of beauty lo his eye.

His little Boys are with him, seeking flowers,

Or cnasing the loo venturous gilded fly.

So by the daisy's side he spends the hours,

Reiifu irig friendship with the burlding bowers :

And while might, beauty, good without alloy

Are inlrror'd in his children's happy eyes, —

In His great Temple offering thankful joy

To Him, the infinitely Great and Wise,

With soul atiuned to Nature's harmonies,

Sereiie and cheerful as a sporting child, —

His heart refuses to believe that man

Could turn into a hell the blooming wild,

rite blissful cotintry where his childhood ran

A race with infant rivers, ere began — "

— " King-humbling" bread-tax, " blind Mis-
rule" and enough else.

And so our Corn-Law Rhymer plays his
part. In this wise, does he indite and act his
Drama 01 Life, which for him is all too Domes-

tic-Tragical. It is said, 'the good actor .soon
makes ns forget the bad theatre, were it but a
barn; while, again, nothing renders so ap-
parent the badness of the had actor as a theatre
of peculiar excellence." How much more in a
theatre and drama such as these of Life itsell !
One other item, however, we must note in that
ill-decorated Sheffield theatre: the back-scene
and bottom-decoration of it all; which is no
other than a Workhouse. Alas, the Work-
house is the bourne whither all these aciors
and workers are bound; whence none that
has once passed it returns! A bodeful sound,
like the rustle of approaching world-devouring
tornadoes, quivers through their whole exist-
ence; and the voice of it is. Pauperism ! The
thanksgiving they offer up to Heaven is, that
(hey are not yet Paupers; the earnest cry of
their prayer is, that " God would shield thera
from the bitterness of Parish Pay."

Mournful enough, that a while European
Man must pray wistfully for what the horse he
drives is sure of, — That the strain of his whole
faculties may not fail to earn him food and
lodging. Mournful that a gallant manly spirit,
with an eye to discern the world, a heart to
reverence it, a hand cunning and willing to
labour in it, mttst be haunted with such a fear.
The grim end of it all. Beggary! A soul
loathing, what true sottls ever loathe. Depend-
ence, help from the unworthy to help; yet
sucked into the world-whirlpool, — able to do
no other: the highest in man's heart struggling
vainly against the lowest in man's destiny ! In
good truth, if many a sickly and sulky Byron,
or Byronlet, glooming over the woes of exist-
ence, and how unworthy God's Universe is to
have so distinguished a resident, could trans-
port himself into the patched coat and sooty
apron of a Sheffield Blacksmith, made with as
strange faculties and feelings as he, made by
God Almighty all one as he was, — it would
throw a light on much for him.

Meanwhile, is it not frightful as well as
mournful to consider how the wide-spread evil
is spreading wider and wider? Most persons,
who have had eyes to look with, may have
verified, in their own circle, the statement of
this Sheffield Eye-witness, and " from their
own knowledge and observation fearlessly de-
clare that the little master-manufacturer," that
the working man generally, "is in a much
worse condition than he was in tvventy-fi;ve
years ago." Unhappily, the fact is too plain ;
the reason and scientific necessity of it is too
plain. In this state of things, every new man
is a new misfortune; every new market a new
complexity; the chapter of chances grows
ever more incalculable; the hungry gamesters
(whose stake is their life) are ever increasing
in numbers; the world-movement rolls on : by
what method shall the weak and help-needing,
who has none to help him, withstand it 1 Alas,
how many brave heai-ts, ground to pieces in
that unequal battle, have already sunk ; in
every sinking heart, a Tragedy, less famous
than that of the Sons of Atreus; wherein,
however, if no "kingly house,'' yet a manly
house went to the dust, and a whole manly
" lineage was swept away." Must it grow
worse and worse till the last brave heart is

CORN-LAW RHYMES.

373

broken in England; and this same "brave
Peasantry" has become a kennel of wild-howl-
ing ravenous Paupers ] God be thanked !
There is some feeble shadow of hopes that the
change may have begun while it was yet time.
You may lift the pressure from the free man's
shoulders, and bid him go forth rejoicing; but
lift the slave's burden, he will only wallow the
more composedly in his sloth : a nation of
degraded men cannot be raised up, except by
what we rightly name a miracle.

Under which point of view also, these little
Volumes, indicating such a character in such
a place, are not without significance. One
faint symptom perhaps that clearness will
return, that there is a possibility of its return.
It is as if from that Gehenna of Manufacturing
Radicalism, from amid its loud roaring and
cursing, whereby nothing became feasible,
nothing knowable, except this only, that misery
and malad)'^ existed there, we heard now some
manful tone of reason and determination,
wherein alone can there be profit, or promise
of deliverance. In this Corn-Law Rhymer we
seem to trace something of the antique spirit;
a spirit which had long become invisible
among our working as. among other classes;:
which here, perhaps almost for the first time, i
reveals itself in an altogether modern political
vesture. "The Pariahs of the Isle of Woe,"
as he passionately names them, are no longer
Pariahs if they have become Men. Here is
one man of their tribe; in several respects a
true man ; who has abjured Hypocrisy and
Servility, yet not therewith trodden Religion
and Loyalty under foot; not without justness
of insight, devoutness, peaceable heroism of
resolve; who, in all circumstances, even in
these strange ones, will be found quitting him-
self like a man. One such that has found a
voice : who knows how many mute but nol
inactive brethren he may have in his own and
in all other ranks ? Seven thousand that have
not bowed the knee to Baall These are the
men, wheresoever found, who are to stand
forth in England's evil day, on whom the hope
of England rests. For it has been often said,
and must often be said again, that all Rofm-m
except a moral one will prove unavailing.
Political Reform, pressingly enough wanted,
can indeed root out the weeds (gross deep-fixed
lazy dock-weeds, poisonous obscene hemlocks,
ineffectual spurry in abundance;) but it leaves
the ground empty, — ready either for noble
fruits, or for new worse tares ! And how else
is a Moral Reform to be looked for but in this
way, that more and more Good Men are, by a
bountiful Providence, sent hither to dissemi-
nate Goodness; literally to smo it, as in seeds
shaken abroad by the living tree? For such,
in all ages and places, is the nature of a Good
Man ; he is ever a mystic creative centre of
Goodness; his influence, if we consider it, is
not to be measured ; for his works do not die,
but being of Eternity, are eternal ; and in new
transformation, and ever wider diffusion, en-
dure, living and life-giving. Thou who ex-
claimest over the horrors and baseness of the
Time, and how Diogenes would now need tn-n
,anterns in da) light, think of this; over the
Time thou hast no power ; to redeem a World

sunk in dishonesty has not been given thee;
solely over one man therein thou hast a quite
absolute uncontrollable power; him redeem,
him make honest; it will be something, it will
be much, and thy life and labour not in vain.

We have given no epitomized abstract of
these little Books, such as is the Reviewer's
wont : we would gladly persuade many a
reader, high and low, who takes interest not in
rhyme only, but in re,i:on, and the condition
of his fellow-man, tg purchase and peruse them
for himself. It is proof of an innate love of
worth, and how willingly the Public, did not
thousand-voiced Puffery so confuse it, would
have to do with substances, and not with de-
ceptive shadows, that these Volumes carry
"Third Edition" marked on them, — on all of
them but the newest, whose fate with the read-
ing world we yet know not; which, however,
seems to deserve not worse but better than
either of its forerunners.

Nay, it appears to us as if in this humble
chant of the J'iUns:e Palriarrh might be traced
rudiments of a truly great idea; great though
all undeveloped. The Rhapsody of "Enoch
Wray" is, in its nature, and unconscious ten-
dency. Epic ; a whole world lies shadowed in
it. What we might call an inarticulate, half-
audible Epic! The main figure is a blind aged
man; himself a ruin, and encircled with the
ruin of a whole Era. Sad and great does that
image of a universal Dissolution hover visible
as a poetic background. Good old Enoch!
He could do so much, was so wise, so valiant.
No Ilion had he destroyed; yet somewhat he
had built up: where the Mill stands noisy by
its cataract, making corn into bread for men,
it was Enoch that reared it, and made the rude
rocks send it water; where the mountain
Torrent now boils in vain, and is mere passing
music to the traveller, it was Enoch's cunning
that spanned it with that strong Arch, grim,
time-defying. Where Enoch's hand or mind
has been. Disorder has become Order; (Jhaos
has receded some little handbreadth ; must
give up some new handhreath of his realm.
Enoch too has seen his followers fall round
him, (by stress of hardship, and the arrows of
the gods,) has performed funeral games for
them, and raised sandstone memorials, and
carved his Jliiit ad Plures thereon, with his own
hand. The living chronicle and epitome of a
whole century ; when he departs, a whole cen-
tury will become dead, historical.

Rudiments of an Epic, we say; and of the
true Epic of our Time, — were the genius but
arrived that could sing it! Not "Arms and
the Man;" "Tools and the Man," that were
now our Epic. What indeed are Tools, from
the Hammer and Plummet of Enoch Wray to
this Pen we now write with, but Arms, where-
with to do battle against Uniikasojt without or
within, and smite in pieces not miserable fel-
low-men, but the Arch Enemy that makes ui
all miserable; henceforth the only legitimate
battle!

Which Epic, as we granted, is here alto

gether imperfectly sung; scarcely a few notes

thereof brought freely out : nevertheless with

indicut'on ""ith prediction that it will te sung

21

374

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRI'nNGS.

Such is the purport and merit of the Villngc
Fatriarch; it struggles towards a noble utter-
ance, which however it can nowise find. Old
Enoch is from the first speechless, heard of
rather than heard or seen ; at best, mute, mo-
tionless like a stone-pillar of his own carving.
Indeed, to find fit utterance for such meaning
as lies struggling here is a problem, to which
the highest poetic minds may long be content
to accomplish only approximate solutions.
Meanwhile, our honest Rhymer, with no guide
but the instinct of a clear natural talent, has
created and adjusted somewhat, not without
vitality of union : has avoided somewhat, the
road to which lay open enough. His Village
Palriach, for example, though of an elegiac
strain, is not wholly lachrymose, not without
touches of rugged gayely; — is like Life itself,
with tears and toil, with laughter and rude
play, such as metallurgic Yorkshire sees it : —
in which sense, that wondrous Courtship of
the sharp-tempered, oft-widowed Alice Green
may pass, questionable, yet with a certain air
of soot-stained genuineness. And so has, not
a Picture, indeed, yet a sort of genial Study
or Cartoon come together for him : and may
endure there, after some llary oil-daubings,
which we have seen framed with gilding, and
hung up in proud galleries, have become rags
and rubbish.

To one class of readers especially, such
Books as these ought to be interesting; — to the
highest, that is to say, the lichest class. Among
our Aristocracy, there are men, we trust there
are many men, who feel that they also are
workmen, born to toil, ever in their great
Taskmaster's eye, faithfully with heart and
head for those that with heart and hand do,
under the same great Taskmaster, toil for
them ; — who have even this noblest and hard-
est work set before them — To deliver out of
that Egyptian bondage to Wretchedness, and
Ignorance, and Sin, the hardhanded millions,
of whom this hardhanded, earnest witness,
and writer, is here representative. To such
men his writing will be as a Document, which
they will lovingly interpret: what is dark
and exasperated and acrid, in their hum-
ble Brother, they for themselves will en-
lighten and sweeten ; taking thankfully what
is the real purport of his message, and lay-
ing it earnestly to heart. Might an instruc-
tive relation and interchange between High
and Low, at length ground itself, and more
and more perfect itself, to the unspeaka-
ble profit of all parties ; for if all parties
are to love and help one another, the first
step towards this is, that all thoroughly un-
derstand one another. To such rich men
an authentic message from the hearts of poor
men, from the heart of one poor man, will be
welcome.

To another class of our Aristocracy, again,
■who unhappily feel rather that they are not
workmen ; and profess not so much to bear
any burden, as to be themselves, with utmost
attainable steadiness, and if possible, graceful-
ness, borne, — such a phenomenon as this of the
Sheffield Corn-Law Rhymer, with a Manches-
ter Detrosier, and much else, pointing the
same v/ay, will be quite unwelcome ; indeed, to

the clearer-sighted, astonishing and alarming
It indicates that they find themselves, as Na-
poleon was wont to say, "in a new position;"
— a position wonderful enough ; of extreme
singularity; to which, in the whole course of
History, there is perhaps but one case in some
measure parallel. The case alluded to stands
recorded in the Book of Numhcrs: the case of
Balaam the son of Beor. Truly, if we con-
sider it, there are few passages more notable
and pregnant in their way, than this of Ba-
laam. The Midianitish Soothsayer (Truth-
speaker, or as we should now say, Counsel-
giver and Senator) is journeying forth, as he
has from of old quite prosperously done, in
the way of his vocation ; not so much to
" curse the people of the Lord," as to earn
for himself a comfortable penny by such
means as are possible and expedient; some*
thing, it is hoped, midway between cursing
and blessing; which shall not, except in case
of necessity, be either a curse or a blessing,
or any thing so much as a Nothing that will
look like a Something and bring wages in.
For the man is not dishonest; far from it; still
less is he honest; but above all things, he is,
has been, and will be, respectable. Did calum-
ny ever dare to fasten itself on the fair fame
of Balaam] In his whole walk and conver-
sation, has he not shown consistency enough;
ever doing and speaking the thing that was
decent; with proper spirit, maintaining his
status ; so that friend and opponent must oftea
compliment him, and defy the spiteful world
to say. Herein art thou a Knave 1 And now
as he jogs along, in official comfort, with
brave official retinue, his heart filled with good
things, his head with schemes for the suppres-
sion of Vice, and the Cause of civil and re-
ligious Liberty all over the world; — consider
what a spasm, and life-clutching, ice-taloned
pang, must have shot through the brain 'and
pericardium of Balaam, when his Ass not
only on the sudden stood stock-still, defying
spur and cudgel, but — -began to talk, and that
in a reasonable manner! Did not his face,
elongating, collapse, and tremor occupy his
joints? For the thin crust of Eespectability
has cracked asunder; and a botton^less pre>-
ternatural Inane yawns under him instead.
Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!
the spirit-stirring Vote, ear-piercing Hear ; the
big Speech that makes ambition virtue; soft
Palm-greasing first of raptures, and Cheers
that emulate sphere-music : Balaam's occupa-
tion's gone! —

As for our stout Corn-Law Rhymer, what
can we say by way of valediction but this, —
Well done; come again, doing better? Ad-
vices enough there were; but all lie included
under one, — To keep his eyes open, and do
honestly whatsoever his hand shall find to do.
We have praised him for sincerity ; let him
become more and more sincere; casting out
all remnants of Hearsay, Imitation, ephemeral
Speculation; resolutely "clearing his mind of
Cant." We advised a wider course of read-
ing : would he forgive us if we now suggested
the question, Whether Rhyme is the only dia-
lect he can write in ; whether Rhyme is, after
all, the natural or fittest dialect for himl la

NOVELLE.

375

good Prose, which differs inconceivably from
bad Prose, what may not be written, what may
not be read ; from a Waverley Novel, to an
Arabic Koran, to an English Bible ! Rhyme
has plain advantages ; which, however, are
often purchased too dear. If the inward
thought can speak itself and not sing itself, let
it, especially in these quite unmusical days,
do the former. In any case, if the inward
Thought do not sing itself, that singing of the
outward Phrase is a timber-toned, false matter
we could well dispense with. Will our Rhy-
mer consider himself, then ; and decide for
what is actually best. Rhyme, up to this hour,
never seems altogether obedient to him ; and
disobedient Rhyme, — who would ride on it
that had once learned walking 1

He takes amiss that some friends have ad-
monished him to quit Politics; we will not
repeat that admonition. Let him, on this as on
all other matters, take solemn counsel with his
own Socrates'-Demon ; such as dwells in every
morlal: such as he is a happy mortal who can
hear the voice of, follow the behests of, like an
unalterable law. At the same time, we could
truly wish to see such a mind as his engaged
rather in considering what, in his own sphere,
could be done, than what, in his own or other
spheres, ought to be destroyed ,• rather in pro-
ducing or preserving the True, than in mangling
and slashing asunder the False. Let him be
at ease: the False is already dead, or lives
only with a mock life. The death-sentence of
the False was of old, from the first beginning

of it, written in Heaven ; and is now proclaimed
in the Earth, and read aloud at all market-
crosses; nor are innumerable voluj^teer tip-
staves and headsmen wanting to execute the
same: for which needful service men inferior
to him may suffice. Why should the heart of
the Corn-Law Rhymer be troubled] Spite of
" Bread-tax," he and his brave children, who
will emulate their sire, have yet bread: the
Workhouse, as we rejoice to fancy, has receded
into the safe distance ; and is now quite shut
out from his poetic pleasure-ground. Why
should he afflict himself with devices of " Bo-
roughmongering gowls," or the rage of the
Heathen imagining a vain thing? This matter,
which he calls Corn-Law, will not have com-
pleted itself adjusted itself into clearness, for
the space of a century or two : nay, after
twenty centuries, what will there, or can there
be for the son of Adam, but Work, Work, two
hands quite full of Work ! Meanwhile, is not
the Corn-Law Rhymer already a king, though
a belligerent one; king of his own mind and
faculty, and what man in the long run is king
fif more 1 Not one in the thousand, even
among sceptered kings, of so much. Be dili-
gent in business, then ; fervent in spirit. Above
all things, lay aside anger, uncharitableness,
hatred, noisy tumult; avoid them, as worse
than Pestilence, worse than " Bread-tax" itself:
For it well beseenjelh kings, all mortals it beseemeth

Wfill,

To possess their souls in patience, and await wtalcan
betide.

NOVELLE.

TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE.

[Fraser's Magazine, 1832.]

The spacious courts of the Prince's Castle
were still veiled in thick mists of an autumnal
morning; through which veil, meanwhile, as
it melted into clearness, you could more or
less discern the whole Hunter-company, on
horseback ai:l on foot, all busily astir. The
hasty occupations of the nearest were distin-
guishable: there was lengthening, shortening
of stirrup-leathers; there was handling of rifles
and shot-pouches, there was putting of game-
bags to rights ; while the hounds, impatient in
their leashes, threatened to drag their keepers
otf with them. Here and there, too, a horse
Showed spirit more than enough; driven on
by its fiery nature, or excited by the spur of
its rider, who even now in the half-dusk could
not repress a certain self-complacent wish to
exhibit himself. All wailed, however, on the
Prince, who, taking leave of his young consort,
was now aeJaying too long.

United a short while ago, they already felt
the happiness of consentaneous dispositions;
both were of active vivid character ; each will-

I ingly participated in the tastes and endeavours
of the other. The Prince's father had already,
in his time, discerned and improved the season
when it became evident that all members of
the commonwealth should pass their days in
equal industry; should all, in equal working
and producing, each in his kind, first earn and
then enjoy.

How well this had prospered was visible in
these very days, when the head-matket was a
holding, M'hich you might well enough have
named a fair. The Prince yester-even had led
his Princess on horseback through the tumult
of the heaped-up wares; and pointed out to
her how on this spot the Mountain region met
the Plain country in profitable barter: he could
here, with the objects before him, awaken her
attention to the various industry of his Land.

If the Prince at this time occupied himself
and his servants almost exclusively with these
pressing concerns, and in particular worked
incessantly with his Finance-minister, yel
would the Hunt-master too have hi.s right; oa

37»

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

whose pleading, the temptation could not be
resisted to undertake, in this choice autumn
weather, a Hunt that had already been post-
poned ; and so for the household itself, and for
the many stranger visitants, prepare a peculiai
and singular festivity.

The Princess stayed behind with reluctance :
but it was proposed to push far into the Moun-
tains, and stir up the peaceable inhabitants of
the forests there with an unexpected invasion.

At parting, her lord failed not to propose a
ride for her, with Friedrich, the Prince-Uncle,
as escort: "I will leave thee," said he, "our
Ilonorio too, as Equerry and Page, who will
manage all." In pursuance of which words,
lie, in descending, gave to a handsome young
man ihe needful injunctions; and soon there-
after disappeared with guests and train.

The Princess, who had waved her hand-
kerchief to her husband while still down in
the court, now retired to the back apartments
which commanded a free prospect towards the
Mountains; and so much the lovelier, as the
Castle itself stood on a sort of elevation, and
thus, behind as well as before, afforded mani-
fold magnificent views. She found the fine
telescope still in the position where they had
left it yester-even, when amusing themselves
over bush and hill and forest-summit, with the
lofty ruins of the primeval Stammburg, or
Family Tower; which in the clearness of eve-
ning stood out noleworihy, as at that hour, with
its great light-and-shade masses, the best aspect
of so venerable a memorial of old time was to
be had. This morning too, with the approxi-
mating glasses, might be beautifully seen the
autumnal tinge of the trees, many in kind and
number, Avhich had struggled up through the
masonry unhindered and undisturbed during
long years. The fair dame, however, directed
the tube somewhat lower, to a waste stony flat,
over which the Hunting-train was to pass : she
waited the moment with patience, and was not
disappointed ; for with the clearness and mag-
nifying power of the instrument her glancing
eyes plainly distinguished the Prince and the
Head-Equerry ; nay, she forbore not again to
wave her handkerchief, as some momentary
pause and looking-back was fancied perhaps,
rather than observed.

Prince-Uncle, Friedrich by name, now with
announcement, entered, attended by his Pain-
ter, who carried a large portfolio under his
arm. "Dear Cousin," said the hale old gen-
tleman, " we here present you with the Views
of the Stammburg, taken on various sides to
show how the mighty Pile, warred on and
warring, has from old times fronted the year
and its weather; how here and there its wall
had to yield, here and there rush down into
waste ruins. However, we have now done
much to make the wild mass accessible; for
more there wants not to set every traveller,
every visitor, into astonishment, into admira-
tion."

As the Prince now exhibited the separate
leaves, he continued: "Here where, advancing
up the hollow-way, through the outer ring-
walls, you reach the Fortress proper, rises
against us a rock, the firmest of the whole
mountain ; on this there stands a tower built,

yet when Nature leaves off, and Art and Han
dicraft begin, no one can distinguish. Farther
you perceive sidewards walls abutting on it,
and donjons terrace-wise stretching down.
But I speak wrong, for to the eye it is but a
wood that encircles that old summit; these
hundred and fifty years no axe has sounds'
there, and the massiest stems have on all sideb
sprung up; wherever you press inwards to the
walls, the smooth maple, the rough oak, the
taper pine, with trunk and roots oppuse you;
round these we have to wind, and pick our
footsteps with skill. Do but look how artfully
our Master has brought the character of it on
paper; how the roots and stems, the species
of each distinguishable, twist themselves
among the masonry, and the huge boughs
come looping through the holes. It is a wil-
derness like no other; an accidentally unique
locality, where ancient traces of long-vanished
power of Man, and the ever-living, ever-work-
ing power of Nature show themselves in the
most earnest conflict."

Exhibiting another leaf, he went on : " What
say you now to the Castle-court, which, be-
come inaccessible by the falling in of the old
gate-tower, had for immemorial time been
trodden by no foot? We sought to get at
it by a side; have pierced through walls,
blasted vaults asunder, and so provided a con-
venient but secret way. Ifiside it needed no
clearance; here stretches a flat rock-summit,
smoothed by nature: but yet strong trees have
in spots found luck and opportunity for rooting
themselves there; they have softly but de-
cidedly grown up, and now stretch out their
boughs into the galleries where the ktii£rhis
once walked to and fro ; nay, through the doors
and windows into the vaulted halls; out of
which we would not drive them: they have
even got the mastery, and may keep it. Sweep-
ing away deep strata of leaves, we have found
the notablest place all smoothed, the like of
which were perhaps not to be met with in the
world.

"After all this, however, it is still to be re- ,

marked, and on the spot itself well worth ex- I

amining, how on the steps that lead up to the i

main tower, a maple has struck root and fash-
ioned itself to a stout tree, so that you can
hardly with difliculty press by it, to mount the
battlements and gaze over the unbounded pros-
pect. Yet here too, you linger pleased in the
shade; for that tree is it which high over the
whole wondrously lifts itself into the air.

"Let us thank the brave Artist, then, who so
deservingly in various pictures teaches us the
whole, even as if we saw it: he has spent the
fairest hours of the day and of the season
therein, and for weeks long kept moving about
these scenes. Here in this corner has there
for him, and the warder we gave him, been a
little pleasant dwelling fitted up. You could
not think, my Best, what a lovely outlook into
the country, into court and walls, he has got
there. But now when all is once in outline, so
pure, so characteristic, he may finish it down
liere at his ease. With these pictures we will
decorate our garden-hall; and no one shall
recreate his eyes over our regular parterres,
our groves and shady walks, without wishing

NOVELLE.

377

nimself np there, to follow, in actual sight of
the old and of the new, of the stubborn, inflex-
ible, indestructible, and of the fresh, pliant,
irresistible, what reflections and comparisons
would rise for him."

Honorio entered, with notice that the horses
•were brought out; then said the Princess, turn-
ing to the Uncle: "Let us ride up; and you
will show me in reality what you have here
set before me in image. Ever since I came
among you, I have heard of this undertaking;
and should now like of all things to see with
my own eyes what in the narrative seemed
impossible, and in the depicting remains im-
probable.— "Not yet, my Love," answered the
Prince: "what you here saw is what it can
become and is becoming; for the present
much in the enterprise stands still amid im-
pediments; Art must first be complete, if Na-
ture is not to shame it." — "Then let us ride at
least upwards, were it only to the foot: I have
the greatest wish to-day to look about me far
in the world." — " Altogether as you will it,"
replied the Prince. — "Let us ride through the
Town, however," continued the Lady, "over
the great market-place, where stands the in-
numerable crowd of booths, looking like a
little city, like a camp. It is as if the wants
and occupations of all the families in the land
"were turned outwards, assembled in this cen-
tre, and brought into the light of day: for the
attentive observer can descry whatsoever it is
that man performs and needs; you fancy, for
the moment, there is no money necessary, that
all business could here be managed by barter,
and so at bottom it is. Since the Prince, last
night, set me on these reflections, it is pleasant
to consider how here, where Mountain and Plain
meet together, both so clearly speak out what
they require, and wish. For as the High-
lander can fashion the timber of his woods
into a hundred shapes, and mould his iron for
all manner of uses, so these others from below
come to meet him with most manifold wares,
in which often you can hardly discover the
material or recognise the aim."

"lam aware," answered the Prince, "that
my Nephew turns his utmost care to these
things; for specially, on the present occasion,
this main point comes to be considered, that
one receive more than one give out: which to
manage i-s, in the long run, the sura of all Po-
litical Economy, as of the smallest private
housekeeping. Pardon me, however, my Best:
I never like to ride through markets ; at every
step you are hindered and kept back; and then
flames up in my imagination the monstrous
misery which, as it were, burnt itself into my
eyes, when I witnessed one such world of
wares go off in fire. I had scarcely got to

"Let us not lose the bright hours," inter-
rupted the Princess, for the worthy man had
already more than once afflicted her with the
minute description of that mischance: how he
being on a long journey, resting in the best
inn, on the market-place which was just then
swarming with a fair, had gone to bed exceed-
ingly fatigued; and in the night-time been, by
shrieks, and flames rolling up against his
.edging, hideously awakened.
48

The Princess hastened to mount her favour-
ite horse: and led, not through the backgate
upwards, but through the foregate downwards
her reluctant-willing attendant; for who but
would gladly have ridden by her side, who but
would gladly have followed after her. And so
Honorio too had without regret stayed back
from the otherwise so vvished-for Hunt, to be
exclusively at her service.

As was to be anticipated, the}^ could only
ride through the market step by step: but the
fair Lovely one enlivened every sttippage by
some sprightly remark, "I repeat my lc:-.-n
of yester-night," said she, "since Necessity is
trying our patience." And in truth, the whole
mass of incn so crowded about the riders, that
their progress was slow. The people gazed
with joy at the young dame ; and, on so many
smiling countenances, might be read the plea-
sure they felt to see that the first woman
in the land was also the fairest and grace-
fullest.

Promiscuously mingled stood, Mountaineers,
who had built their still dwellings amid rf)cks,
firs, and spruces; Lowlanders from hills,
meadows, and leas ; craftsmen of the little
towns; and what else had all assembled there.
After a quiet glance, ihe Princess remarked to
her attendant, how all these, whencesoever
they came, had taken more stuff than necessary
for their clothes, more cloth and linen, more
ribands for trimming. It is as if the women
could not be bushy enough, the men not puffy
enough, to please themselves.

" We will leave them that," answered the
uncle : " spend his superfluity on what he will,
a man is happy in it; happiest when he there-
with decks and dizens himself." The fair
dame nodded assent.

So had they by degrees got upon a clear
space, which led out to the suburbs, when, at
the end of many small booths and stands, a
larger edifice of^ boards showed itself, which
was scarcely glanced at till an ear-lacerating
bellow sounded forth from it. The feeding-
hour of the wild beasts there exhibited seemed
to have come: the Lion let his forest and
desert-voice be heard in all vigour; the horses
shuddered, and all must remark how, in the
peaceful ways and workings of the cultivated
world, the King of the wilderness so fearfully
announced himself Coming nearer the booth,
you could ]iot overlook the variegated colossal
pictures representing with violent colours and
strong emblems those foreign beasts; to a
sight of which the peaceful burgher was to be
irresistibly enticed. The grim monstrous
tiger was pouncing on a blackamoor, on the
point of tearing him in shreds; a lion stood
earnest and majestic, as if he saw no prey
worthy of him; other wondrous party-co-
loured creatures, beside these mighty ones,
deserved less attention.

" As we come back," said the Princess, " wc
will alight and take a nearer view of these
gentrj'." — " It is strange." observed the Prince,
"that man always seeks excitement by Terror.
Inside, there, the Tiger lies quite quiet in his
cage; and here must he ferociously dart upon
a black, that the people may fancy the like is
to be seen within; o murder and sudden death,
2i2

378

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Df burning and destruction, there is not enough;
but 1 allact-singers must at every corner keep
repealing it. Good man will have himself
frightened a little; to feel the better, in secret,
how beautiful and laudable it is to draw breath
in tVeedom."

Whatever of apprehensiveness from such
bugbear images might have remained, was
soon all and wholly effaced, as, issuing through
the gate, our party entered on the cheerfullest
of scenes The road led first up the River, as
yet bui a small current, and bearing only light
boats, but which by and by, as renowned world-
stream, would carry forth its name and waters,
and enliven distant lands. They proceeded
next through well cultivated fruit-gardens and
pleasure-grounds, softly ascending; and by
degrees you could look about you in the
now-disclosed much-peopled region, till first a
thicket, then a little wood admitted our riders,
and tbe gracefuUest localities refreshed and
limited their view. A meadow vale leading
upwards, shortly before mown for the second
time, velvet-like to look upon, watered by a
brook rushing out lively, copious at once from
the uplands above, received them as with wel-
come ; and so they approached a higher, freer
station, which, on issuing from the wood, after
a stitr ascent, they gained; and could now
descry, over new clumps of trees, the old
Castle, the goal of their pilgrimage, rising in
the distance, as pinnacle of the rock and forest.
Backwards, again, (tor never did one mount
hither without turning round,) they caught,
through accidental openings of the high trees,
the Prince's Castle, on the left, lightened by
the morning sun ; the well-built higher quarter
of the Town softened under light smoke-clouds ;
and so on, rightwards, the under Town, the
River in several bendings, with its meadows
and mills; on the farther side, an extensive
fertile region.

Having satisfied themselves with the pros-
pect, or rather as usually happens when we
look round from so high a station, become
doubly eager for a wider, less limited view,
they rode on, over a broad stony flat, where
the mighty Ruin stood fronting them, as a
green-crowned summit, a few old trees far
down about its foot: they rode along; and
so arrived there, just at the steepest, most
inaccessible side. Great rocks jutting out
from of old, insensible of every change, firm,
well-founded, stood clenched together there;
and so it towered upwards: what had fallen at
intervals lay in huge plates and fragments
confusedly heaped, and seemed to forbid the
boldest any attempt. But the steep, the pre-
cipitous is inviting to youth : to undertake it,
to storm and conquer it, is for young limbs an
enjoyment. The Princess testified desire for
an attempt; Honorio was at her hand; the
Priuce-Uiicle, ifeasier to satisfy, took it cheer-
fully, and w ould show that he too had strength :
the horses were to wait below among the trees ;
our climbers make for a certain point, where
a huge projecting rock affords a standing-room,
and a prospect, which indeed is already pass-
ing over into the bird's-eye kind, yet folds itself
together there picturesquely enough.

The sun, almost at its meridian, lent the

clearest light; the Prince's Castle, with its
compartments, main buildings, wings, domes,
and towers, lay clear and stately ; the upper
Town ill its whole extent; into the lower also
you could conveniently bok, nay, by the tele-
scope distinguish the booths in the market-
place. So furthersome an instrument Honorio
would never leave behind : they looked at the
River upwards and downwards, on this side
the mountainous, terrace-like, interrupted ex-
panse, on that the upswelling, fruitful land,
alternating in level and low hill ; places in-
numerable ; for it was long customary to dis-
pute how many of them were here to be seen.

Over the great expanse lay a cheerful still-
ness, as is common at noon ; when, as the
Ancients were wont to say, Pan is asleep, and
all Nature holds her breath not to awaken
him.

"It is not the first time," said the Princess,
" that I, on some such high far-seeing spot,
have reflected how Nature all clear looks' so
pure and peaceful, and gives you the impres-
sion as if there were nothing contradictory in
the world; and yet when you return back into
the habitation of man, be it lofty or low, wide
or narrow, there is ever somewhat to contend
with, to battle wiih, to smooth and put tc
rights."

Honorio, who, meanwhile, was looking
through the glass at the Town, exclaimed:
"See! see! There is fire in the market!"
They looked, and could observe some smoke,
the flames were smothered in the daylight.
"The fire spreads!" cried he, still looking
through the glass ; the mischief indeed now
became noticeable to the good eyes of the
Princess ; from time to time you observed a
red burst of flame; the smoke mounted aloft;
and Prince-Uncle said: " Lei us return : that
is not good ; I always feared I should see
that misery a second time." They descended,
got back to their horses. "Ride," said the
Princess to the Uncle, " fiist, but not without
a groom ; leave me Honorio, we will follow
without delay. The Uncle felt the reason-
ableness, nay necessity of this ; and started
off down the waste stony slope, at the quickest
pace the ground allowed.

As the Princess mounted, Honorio said:
"Please your Excellency to ride slow! In the
Town as in the Castle, the fire-apparatus is in
perfect order; the people, in this unexpected
accident, will not lo^e their presence of mind.
Here, moreover, we have bad ground, little
stones and short grass ; quick riding is unsafe ;
in any case, before we arrive, the fire will be
got under." The Princess did not think so;
she observed the smoke '•preading, she fancied
that she saw a flanie flash up. that she heard
an explosion; and now in her imagination all
the terrific things awoke, which the wiirthy
Uncles repeated narrative of his experiences
in that market-conflagration had too deeply
implanted there.

Frightful doubtless had that business been,
alarming and impressive enough to leave be-
hind it, painfully through life long, a boding
and image of its recurrence, when, in the "night-
season, on the gieat booth-covered market-
space, a sudden fire had seized booth after

NOVELLE.

379

booth, before the sleepers in these light huts
could be shaken out of deep dreams : the
Prince himself, as a wearied stranger arriving
only for rest, started from bis sleep, sprang to
the window, saw all fearfully illuminated;
flame after flame, from the right, from the left,
darting through each other, rolls quivering to-
wards him. The bouses of the market-place,
reddened in the shine, seemed already glowing,
threatened every moment to kindle, and burst
forth in fire: below, the element raged without
let; planks cracked, laths cracked, the canvas
flew abroad, and its dusky fire-peaked tatters
whined themselves round and aloft, as if bad
spirits, in their own element, with perpetual
change of shape, were, in capricious dance,
devouring one another; and there and yonder
would dart up out from their penal fire. And
then with wild howls each saved what was at
hand : servants and masters laboured to drag
forth bales already seized by the flames, to
[match away yet somewhat from the burning
shelves, and pack it into the chests, which too
they must at last leave a prey to the hastening
flame. How many a one could have prayed
but for a moment's pause to the loud-advanc-
ing fire; as he looked round for the possibility
of some device, and was with all his possession
already seized : on the one side, burnt and
glowed already, what on the other still stood in
dark night. Obstinate characters, will-strong
men grimly fronted tlw grim foe, and saved
much, with loss of their eyebrows and hair.
Alas, all this waste confusion now rose anew
before the fair spirit of the Princess; the gay
morning prospect was all overclouded, and
her eyes darkened ; wood and meadow had
put on a look of strangeness, of danger.

Entering the peaceful vale, heeding little its
refreshing coolness, they were but a few steps
down from the copious fountain of the brook
which flowed by them, when the Princess de-
scried, quite down in the thickets, something
singular, which she soon recognised for the
tiger: springing on, as she a short while ago
had seen him painted, he came towards her ;
and this image, added to the frightful ones she
was already busy with, made the strangest
impression. "Fly! your Grace," cried Honorio,
" fly !" She turned her horse towards the steep
hill they had just descended. The young man,
rushing on towards the monster, drew his
pistol and fired when he thought himself near
enough; but, alas, without eflRjct ; the tiger
sprang to a side, the horse faltered, the pro-
voked wild beast followed his course, upwards
straight after the Princess. She galloped, what
her horse could, up the steep stony space;
scarcely apprehending that so delicate a crea-
ture, unused to such excrtjon, could not hold out.
It overdid itself, driven on by the necessitated
Princess ; ii stumbled on the loose gravel of
the steep, and again stumbled; and at last
fell, after violent efforts, powerless to the
ground. The fair dame, resolute and dextrous,
failed not instantly to get u])on her feet ; the
horse too rose, but the tiger was approaching;
though not with vehement speed; the uneven
ground, the sharp stones seemed to damp his
impetuosity; and only Honorio flying after him,
riding with checked speed along with him, ap-

peared to stimulate and provoke his force
anew. Both runners, at the same instant,
reached the spot where the Princess was stand-
ing by her horse: the Knight bent himself^
fired, and with this second pistol hit the mon-
ster through the head, so that it rushed down ;
and now, stretched out in full length, first
clearly disclosed the might and terror where-
of only the bodily hull was left lying. Honorio
had sprung from his horse ; was already kneel-
ing on the beast, quenching its last movements,
and held his drawn hanger in his right hand.
The youth was beautiful ; he had come dash-
ing on as in sports of the lance and the ring
the Princess had often seen him do. Even so
in the riding-course would his bullet, as he
darted by, hit the Turk's-head on the pole,
right under the turban in the brov/ ; even so
would he, lightly prancing up, prick his naked
sabre into the fallen mass, and lift it from the
ground. In all such arts he was dextrous
and felicitous; both now stood him in good
stead.

"Give him the rest," said the Princess: "I
fear he will hurt you with his claws." — "Par-
don !" answered the youth : " he is already
dead enough; and I would not hurt the skin,
which next winter shall shine upon your
sledse." — " Sport not," said the Princess :
" whatsoever of pious feeling dwells in the
depth of the heart unfolds itself in such a mo-
ment."— "I too," cried Honorio, "was never
more pious than even now; and therefore do I
think of what is joyfullest ; I look at the tiger's
fell only as it can attend you to do you plea-
sure."— "It would for ever remind me," said
she, " of this fearful moment." — " Yet is it,"
replied the youth with glowing cheeks, "a more
harmless spoil than when the weapons of slain
enemies are carried for show before the vic-
tor."— "I shall bethink me, at sight of it, of
your boldness and cleverness; and need not
add that you may reckon on my thanks and
the Prince's favour for your life long. But
rise; the beast is clean dead, let us consider
what is next: before all things rise!" — "As I
am once on my knees," replied the youth,
"once in a posture which in other circum-
stances would have been forbid, let me beg at
this moment to receive assurance of the favour,
of the grace which you vouchsafe me. I have
already asked so often of your high consort for
leave and promotion to go on my travels. He
who has the happiness to sit at your table,
whom you honour with the privilege to entei-
tain your company, should have seen the
world. Travellers stream in on us from all
parts; and when a town, an important spot in
any quarter of the world comes in course, the
question is sure to be asked of us, were we
ever there ? Nobody allows one sense, till one
has seen all that: it is as if you had to instruct
yourself only for the salce of others."

" Iiise !" repeated the Princess : " I were loth
to wish or request aught that went against the
will of my Husband; however, if I mistake
not, the cause why he has retained you hitherto
will soon be at an end. His intention was tc
see you ripened into a complete self-guided
nobleman, to do yourself and him credit -a
1 foreign parts, as hitherto at court ; and I should

380

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

think this deed of yours was as good a recom-
mendatory passport as a young man could
wish for to take abroad with him."

That, instead of a youthful joy, a certain
mournfulness came over his face, the Princess
had not time to observe, nor had he to indulge
his emotion ; for, in hot haste, up the steep,
came a woman, with a boy at her hand, straight
to the group so well known to us ; and scarcely
had Honorio, bethinking him, arisen, when
they howling and shrieking cast themselves on
the carcass; by which action, as well as by
their cleanly decent, yet party-coloured and
unusual dress, might be gathered that it was
the mistress of this slain creature, and the
black-eyed, black-locked boy, holding a flute in
his hand, her son ; weeping like his mother,
less violent but deeply moved, kneeling beside
her.

Now came strong outbreakings of passion
from this woman; interrupted, indeed, and
pulse-wise ; a stream of words, leaping like a
stream in gushes from rock to rock. A natu-
ral language, short and discontinuous, made
itself impressive and pathetic: in vain should
we attempt translating it into our dialects; the
approximate purport of it we must not omit.
"They have murdered thee, poor beast! mur-
dered without need! Thou wert tame, and
wouldst fain have laid down at rest and waited
our coming; for thy foot-balls were sore, thy
claws had no force left. The hot sun to ripen
them was wanting. Thou wert the beautifuUest
of ihy kind: who ever saw a kingly tiger so
gloriously stretched out in sleep, as thou here
liest, dead, never to rise more. When thou
awokest in the early dawn of morning, and
openedst thy throat, stretching out thy red
tongue, thou wert as if smiling on us ; and
even when bellowing, thou tookest thy food
from the hands of a woman, from the fingers
of a child. How long have we gone with thee
on thy journeys; how long has thy company
been useful and fruitful to us! To us, to us
of a very truth, meat came from the eater, and
sweetness out of the strong. So will it be no
more. Wo ! wo !"

She had not done lamenting, when over the
smoother part of the Castle Mountain, came
riders rushing down ; soon recognised as the
Prince's Hunting-train, himself the foremost.
Following their sport, in the backward hills,
they had observed the fire-vapours; and fast
through dale and ravine, as in fierce chase,
taken the shortest path towards this mournful
sign. Galloping along the stony vacancy, they
stopped and stared at sight of the unexpected
group, which in that empty expanse stood out
so markworlhy. After the first recognition
there was silence; some pause of breathing-
time; and then what the view itself did not
impart, was with brief words exjilained. So
stood the Prince, contemplating the strange
unheard-of incident; a circle round him of
riders, and followers that had run on foot.
What to do was still undetermined; the Prince
intent on ordering, executing, when a man
pressed forward into the circle ; large of sta-
ture, party-coloured, wondrously-apparelled,
like wife and child. And now the family in
n.iion testified their sorrow and astonishment.

The man, however, soon restrained himseilj
bowed in reverent distance before the Prince,
and said: "It is not the time for lamenting;
alas, my lord and mighty hunter, the lion too
is loose, hither towards the mountains is he
gone: but spare him, have mercy that he
perish not like this good beast."

"The Lion!" said the Prince: "Hast thou
the trace of him V — "Yes, Lord ! A peasant
down there, who had heedlessly taken shelter
on a tree, directed me farther up this way, to
the left; but I saw the crowd of men and
horses here; anxious for tidings of assistance,
I hastened hither." — "So then," commanded
the Prince, "draw to the left. Huntsmen ; you
will load your pieces, go softly to work, if you
drive him into the deep woods, it is no matter:
but in the end, good man, we shall be obliged
to kill your animal ; why were you improvi-
dent enough to let him loose V — "The fire
broke out," replied he, " we kept quiet and
attentive; il spread fast, but at a distance from
us, we had water enough for our defence; but
a heap of powder blew up, and threw the
brands on to us, and over our heads ; we were
too hasty, and are now ruined people."

The Prince was still busy directing; but for
a moment all seemed to pause, as a man was
observed hastily springing down from the
heights of the old Castle ; whom the troop soon
recognised for the watchman that had been
stationed there to keep the Painter's apart-
ments, while he lodged there and took charge
of the workmen. He came running, out of
breath, yet in few words soon made known
that the Lion had laid himself down, within
the high ring-wall, in the sunshine, at the foot
of a large beech, and was behaving quite
quietly. With an air of vexation, however,
the man concluded: "Why did I take my rifle
to town yester-night, to have it cleaned ; he
had never risen again, the skin had been mine,
and I might all my life have had the credit of
the thing."

The Prince, whom his military experiences
here also stood in stead, for he had before now
been in situations where from various sides
inevitable evil seemed to threaten, said here-
upon: "What surety do you give me that if
we spare your lion, he will not work destruc-
tion among us, among my people ]"

"This woman and this child," answered the
father hastily, "-engage to tame him, to keep
him peaceable, till I bring up the cage, and
then we can carry him back unharmed and
without harming any one."

The boy put his flute to his lips; an instru-
ment of the kind once named soft, or sweet
flutes; short-beaked like pipes: he, who un-
derstood the art, could bring out of it the
gracefullest tones. Meanwhile the Prince had
inquired of the watchman how the lion came
up. " By the hollow-way," answered he,
" which is walled in on both sides, and was
formerly the only entrance, and is to be the
only one still: two footpaths, which led in
elsewhere, we have so blocked uj) and de-
stroyed that no human being, except by that
first narrow passage, can reach the Magic Cas-
tle which Prince Friedrich's talent and taste
is making of it."

NOVELLE.

SB!

After a liftlc thought, during which the
Prince looked round at the boy, who still con-
-tinued as if softly preluding, he turned to
llonorio, and said: "Thou hast done much
to-day, complete thy task. Secure that nar-
row path; keep your rifles in readiness, but
do not shoot till the creature can no otherwise
be driven back : in any case, kindle a fire,
which will frighten him if he make down-
wards. The man and woman take charge of
the rest." Honorio rapidly bestirred himself
to execute the>>e orders.

The child continued his tune, which was no
tune; a series of notes without law, and per-
haps even on that account so heart-touching:
thf bv-stande?i seemed as if enchanted by the
mc Yemeni oi a song-like melody, when the
father with dignified enthusiasm began to
speak in this sort :

-' God has given the Prince wisdom, and also
knowledge to discern that all God's works are
wise, each after its kind. Behold the rock,
how he stands fast and stirs not, defies the
weather and the sunshine; primeval trees
adorn his head, and so crowned he looks
abroad ; neither if a mass rush away, will this
continue what it was, but falls broken into
many pieces and covers the side of the de-
scent. But there too they will not tarry, ca-
priciously they leap far down, the brook re-
ceives them, to the river he bears them. Not
resisting, not contradictory, angular; no,
smooth and rounded they travel now quicker
on iheir way, arrive, from river to river, finally
at the ocean, whither march the giants in
hosts, and in the depths whereof dwarfs are
busy.

" But who shall exalt the glory of the Lord,
whom the stars praise from Eternity to Eter-
nity! Why look ye far into the distance?
Consider here the bee: late at the end of har-
vest she still busily gathers, builds her a house,
tight of corner, straight of wall, herself the
architect and mason. Behold the ant: she
knows her way, and loses it not; she piles her
a dwelling of grass-halms, earih-crumbs, and
needles of the fir; she piles it aloft and arches
it in ; but she has laboured in vain, for the
horse stamps, and scrapes it all in pieces: lo I
he has trodden down her beams, and scattered
her planks; impatiently he snorts and cannot
rest; for the Lord has made the horse comrade
of the wind and companion of the storm, to
carry man whither he wills, and woman
whither she desires. But in the Wood of
Palms arose he, the Lion, with earnest step
traversed the wildernesses ; there rules he over
all creatures, his might -who shall withstand 1
Yet man can tame him; and the fieicest of
living things has reverence for the image of
God, in which too the angels are made, who
serve the Lord and his servants. Por in the
den of Lions Daniel was not afraid : he re-
mained fast and faithful, and the wild bellow-
ing interrupted not his song of praise."

This speech, delivered with expression of a
natural enthusiasm, the child accompanied
heie and there with graceful tones; but now,
the father having ended, he, with clear melo-
dious v(>ire and skilful passagin?, struck up
his warble, whereupon the father took the

flute, and gave note in unison, while the child
sang:

From the Dens, I, in n deeper.

Prophet's song of praise can hear;
Angelhost he hath for keeper,

Needs the good man there to fear f

Lion, Lioness, agazing,

Mildly pressing round him came;

Yea, that hiiinhle, holy praising,
It hath made them tame.

The father continued accompanying this
strophe with his flute; the mother here and
there touched in as second voice.

Lnpressive, however, in a quite peculiar
degree, it was, Avhen the child now began to
shuflle the lines of the strophe into other
arrangement; and thereby if not bring out a
new sense, yet heighten the feeling by leading
it into self-excitement:

Angelhost around doth hover,

Us in heavenly ton'-s to cheer :
In the dens our head doth cover:

Needs the poor child there lo fearl

For that humble Imly praising

Will permit tio evil nigh :
AniTols hover, kee|iing, gazing,

Who so safe as I ?

Hereupon with emphasis and elevation be-
gan all three :

Fiir th' Eternal rules above us,

I,a!ids and oceans rules his will;
Lions rven as lambs sliall love us,

And the proudest waves be still.

Whetted sword to srahbard cleaving,

Failh r'.nd Hope victorious see :
Sirons, who, l.iviu'.' and believing,

Prays, O Lord, to thee.

All were silent, hearing, hearkenmg; and
only when the tones ceased could you remark
and distinguish the impression they had made.
All was as if appeased ; each afl^ected m his
wa}^ The Prince, as if he now first saw the
misery that a little ago had threatened him,
looked down on his spouse, who leaning on
him forebore not to draw out the little em-
broidered handkerchief, and therewith covered
her eyes. It was blessedness for her to feel
her young bosom relieved from the pressure
with which the preceding minutes had loaded
it. A perfect silence reigned over the crowd;
they seemed to have forgotten the dangers:
the conflagration below; and above, the rising
up of a dubiously-reposing Lion.

By a sign to bring the horses, the Prince
first restored the group lo motion ; he turned
to the woman, and said : " You think then that,
once find the lion, you could, by your singing,
by the singing of this child, with help of these
flute-tones, appease him, and carry him back
to his prison, unhurt and hurting no onel"
They answered Yes, assuring and affirming;
the Castellan was given them as guide. And
now the Prince started ofl^ in all speed with
a few; the Princess followed slower with the
rest of the train: mother and son, on their
side, under conduct of the warder, who had
got himself a musket, inounted up the steeper
part of the height.

342

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Before the entrance of the hollow-way which
opened their access to the Castle, they found
the hunters busy heaping up dry brushwood,
to have, in any case, a large fire ready for
kindling. " There is no need," said the woman :
•'it will all go well and peaceably, without
that."

Farther on, sitting on a wall, his double-
barrel resting in his lap, Honorio appeared ; at
his post, as if ready for every occurrence.
However, he seemed hardly to notice our
party; he sat as if sunk in deep thoughts, he
looked round like one whose mind was not
(here. The woman addressed him with a
prayer not to let the fire be lit; he appeared
not to heed her words ; she spoke on with
vivacity, and cried: "Handsome young man,
thou hast killed my tiger, I do not curse thee;
spare my lion, good young man, I will bless
thee."

Honorio was looking straight out before him,
to where the sun on his course began to sink.
"Thou lookest to the west," cried the woman ;
"thou dost well, there is much to do there;
hasten, delay not, thou wilt conquer. But first
conquer thyself." At this he appeared to give
a smile ; the woman slept on ; could not, how-
ever, but look back once more at him : a ruddy
sun was overshining his face; she thought she
had never seen a handsomer youth.

"If your child," said the warder now, "with
his fluting and singing, can, as you are per-
suaded, entice and pacify tlie lion, we shall
soon get mastery of him after, for the creature
has lain down quite close to the perforated
vaults through which, as the main passage
was blocked up with ruins, we had to bore
ourselves an entrance into the Castle-Court.
If the child entice him into this latter, I can
close the opening with Utile difficulty ; then the
boy, if he like, can glide out by one of the lit-
tle spiral stairs he will find in the corner. We
must conceal ourselves; but I shall so take
my place that a rifle-ball can, at any moment,
help the poor child in case of extremity."

"All these precautions are unnecessary;
God and skill, piety and a blessing, must do the
work." — "May be," replied ihe warder, "how-
ever, I know my duties. First, I must lead
you, by a difficult path to the top of the wall,
right opposite the vaults and opening I have
'mentioned: the child may then go down, as
into the arena of the show, and lead away the
animal, if it will follow him." This was
done : warder and mother looked down in
concealment as the child, descending the screw-
stairs, showed himself in the open space of
the Court, and disappeared opposite them in
the gloomy opening; but forthwith gave his
flute voice, which by and by grew weaker, and
at last sank dumb. The pause was bodeful
enough; the old Hunter, familiar with danger,
felt heart-sick at the singular conjuncture ; the
mother, however, with cheerful face, bending
over lo listen, showed not the smallest discom-
posure.

At last the flute was again heard ; the child
step! forth f 'om the cavern with glittering sa-

tisfied eyes, the lion after him, but slowly, and
as it seemed, with diflicully. He showed here
and there desire to lie down; yet the boy led
him in a half-circle through the few disleaved,
many-tinted trees, till at length, in the last
rays of the sun which poured in through a
hole in the ruins, he set him down, as if trans-
figured in the bright red light ; and again com-
menced his pacifying song, the repetition of
which we also cannot forbear:

From tlie Uens, I, in a deeper.

Prophet's song of praise can liear;

Ancel-host he halh for keeper,
Needs tlie good man there to fearl

Lion, Lioness, agazing,

Mildly pressing round him came ;

Vea, that humble, lioly praising.
It hath made them tame.

Meanwhile the lion had laid itself down
quite close to the child, and lifted its heavy
right fore-paw into his bosom; the boy as he
sung gracefully stroked it; but was not long
in observing that a sharp thorn had stuck it-
self between the balls. He carefully pulled it
out; with a smile, took the parly-coloured silk
handkerchief from his neck, and bound up the
frightful paw of the monster; so that his mo-
ther for joy bent herself back with outstretched
arms, and perhaps, according to custom, would
have shouted and clapped applause, had not a
hard hand gripe of the warder reminded her
that the danger was not yet over.

Triumphantly the child sang on, having with
a few tones preluded:

For th' Eternal rnlea above us,
Lands and oceans rules his will ;

Lions even as lanilis shall love us.
And the proudest waves be still.

Whetted sword to scabbard cleaving,
Faith and Hope victorious see :

Strong, who, loving and believing,
Prays, O Lord, to thee.

Were it possible to fancy that in the counte-
nance of so grim a creature, the tyrant of the
woods, the despot of the animal kingdom, an
expression of friendliness, of thankful con-
tentment could be traced, (hen here was such
traceable; and truly the child in his illustrated
look had the air as of a mighty triumphant
victor ; the other figure, indeed, not of that one
vanquished, for his strength lay concealed in
him ; but yet of one tamed, of one given up to
his own peaceful will. The child fluted and
sang on, changing the lines accor(\ing to his
\vay, and adding new:

And so to good children bringeth

Blessed Angi'l hel|) in need ;
Fetters o'er the cruel flingeth,
Worthy art with wings drth spet J

So have tamed, and firmly iron'd
To a poor child's feeble knee,
Him the forest's lordly tyrant.
Song and Piety.

THE TALE.

383

THE TALE.

BY GOETHE.

[Fraser's Magazine, 1832.]

That Goethe, many years ago, wrote a piece
named Das Mdhrchen, (The Tale :) which the
admiring critics of Germany contrived to cri-
ticise by a stroke of the pen; declaring that it
was indeed The Tale, and worthy to be called
the Tale of Tales, {das Mdhrchen aller Mdhrdicn,)
— may appear certain to most English readers,
for they have repeatedly seen as much in
print. To some English readers it may ap-
pear certain, furthermore, that they personally
know this Tale of Tales ; and can even pro-
nounce it to deserve no such epithet, and the
admiring critics of Germany to be little other
than blockheads.

English readers ! the first certainty is alto-
gether indubitable; the second certainty is not
worth a rush.

That same Mdhrchen aller Mdhrchen you may
see with your own eyes, at this hour, in the
Fifteenth Volume of Gucihe's Wcrke ; and see-
ing is believing. On the other hand, that
English " Tale of Tales," put forth some years
ago as the Translation thereof, by an indivi-
dual connected with the Periodical Press of
London, (his Periodical vehicle, if we remem-
ber, broke down scjon after, and was rebuilt,
and still runs, under the name oi Court Jour-
nal,)— was a Translation, miserable enough,
of a quite different thing; a thing, not a Mdhr-
chen (Fabulous Tale) at all, but an Erzdhlung
or common fictitious Narrative; having no
manner of relation to the real piece, (beyond
standing in the same volume ;) not so much
as Milton's Teirachordon of Divorce has to his
Allegro and Penscmso! In this way do indivi-
duals connected with the Periodical Press of
London play their part, and commodiously
befool thee, 0 Public of English readers, and
can serve thee with a mass of roasted grass,
and name it stewed venison ; and will con-
tinue to do so, till thou-r-open thy eyes, and
from a blind monster become a seeing one.

This mistake we did not publicly note at the
time of its occurrence ; for two good reasons :
first, that while mistakes are increasing, like
Population, at the rate of Twelve Hundred a
day, the benefit of seizing one, and throttling
it, would be perfectly inconsiderable: second,
that we were not then in existence. The \
highly composite, astonishing Entity, which
here as " O. Y." addresses mankind for a sea-
son, still slumbered (his elements scattered
over Infinitude, and working under other
shapes) in the womb of Nothing! Meditate
on us a little, O Reader: if thou wilt consider
who and what we are; what Powers, of (Jash,
Esurience, Intelligence, S^tupidity, and Mystery
created us, and what work we do and will do,
there shall be no end to thy amazement.

'J'his mistake, however, we do ncnvnote; in-
iuced thereto by occasion. Bv the fact, name-
ly, that a genuine English Tran.slation of that
Mdhrchen has been handed in to us for judg-
moat; and now (such judgment having proved

merciful) comes out from us lU the way of
publication. Of the Translation we cannot
say much ; by the colour of the paper, it may
be some seven years old, and have lain per-
haps in smoky repositories: it is not a good
Translation ; yet also not wholly bad; faithful
to the original, (as we can vouch, al'tet strict
trial;) conveys the real meaning, though with
an effort : here and there our pen has striven
to help it, but could not do much. The poor
Translator, who signs himself " D. T.," and
aflects to carry matters wiih a high hand,
though, as we have ground to surmise, he is
probably in straits for the necessaries of life,
— has, at a more recent dale, appended nu-
merous Notes; wherein he will convince him-
self that more meaning lies in his M^Lhrchen
"than in all the Literaiure of our century:"
some of these we have retained, now and then
with an explanatory or exculpatory word of
our own; the most we have cut away, as su-
perfluous and even absurd. Superfluous and
even absurd, we say: D. T. can take this of
us as he likes ; we know him, and what is iu
him, and what is not in him ; believe that he
will prove reasonable; can do either way. At
all events, let one of the noiablest Perform-
ances produced for the last thousand years, be
now, through his organs, (since no other, in
this elapsed half-century, have offered them
selves,) set before an undiscerning public.

We too will premise our conviction that
this Mahrchoi presents aphantasmagr>ric Adum-
bration, pregnant with deepest significance;
though nowise that D. T. has so accurately
evolved the same. Listen, notwithstanding to
a remark or two, extracted from his immea-
surable Proem :

"Dull men of this country," says he, " who
pretend to admire Goethe, smiled on me when
I first asked the meaning of this Tale. ' Mean-
ing!' answered they : ' it is a wild arabesque,
without meaning or purpose at all, except to
dash together, copiously enough, confused hues
of Imagination, and see what will come of
them.' Such is still the persuasion of several
heads; which nevertheless would porhrps
grudge to be considered wigblocks." — Not m-
possible : the first Sin in our llniveite Aas
Lucifer's, that of Self-conceii. But hear again ;
what is more to the point:

"The difficulties of interpretation are ex-
ceedingly enhanced by one circumstance, not
unusual in other such writings of Goethe's ;
namely, that this is no Allegory; which, as in
the Pd'.roii's Progress, you have onlv once for
all to find the key of and so go on unlocking:
it is a Phantasmagory, rather; wh<Tein things
the most heterogeneous are, vxiih hi.mogeneity
of figure, emblemed firth: which would re-
quire not one key to unlock it, but, at diffVrent
stages of the business, a dozen .successi','**
keys." Here you ha\e epiichs of time slia«
dowed forth, there Qualities of the Humar

3R4

CARLYLE'S MISCEl.LANEOUS WRITINGS.

Soul; now it is Institutions, Historical Events,
now Doctrines, Philosophic Truths: thus are
all manner of 'entities and quiddities and
ghosts of defunct bodies' set flying; you have
the whole Tour Elements chaotico-creativcly
jumbled together, and spirits enough imbody-
ing themselves, and roguishly peering through,
in the confused wild-working mass!" * * *
"So much, however, I will stake my whole
money capital and literary character upon :
that here is a wonderful Emblem of Univer-
sal HisTORX set forth; more especially a
wonderful Emblem of this our wonderful and
woful ' Age of Transition ;' what men have
been and done, what they are to be and do, is,
in this Tale of Tales, poetico-prophetically
typified, in such a style of grandeur and celes-
tial brilliancy and life, as the Western Imagi-
nation has not elsewhere reached; as only the
Oriental Imagination, and in the primeval ages,
was wont to attempt."— Here surely is good
wine, with a big bush ! Study the Tale of
Tales, O reader: even in the bald version of
D. T., there will be meaning found. He con-
tinues in this triumphant style:

" ('an any mortal head (notawigblock) doubt
that the Giant of this Poem means Supersti-
tion 1 That the Ferryman has something to
do with the Puiksthood ; his Hut with the
Church 1

"Again, might it not be presumed that the
River were Time; and that it flowed (as Time
does) between two worlds'? Call the world,
or country on this side, where the fiiir Lily
dwells, the world of Supeunaturalism ; the
country on that side, Naturalism, the work-
ing week-day world where we all dwell and
toil : whosoever or whatsoever introduces it-
self, and appears in the firm earth of human
business, or as we well say, roincs 7rt/o Exist-
ence, must proceed from Lily's supernatural
country; whatsoever o^ a material sort de-
ceases" and disappears might be expected to
go ihitha: Let the reader consider this, and
note what comes of it.

"To get a free solid communication esta-
blished over this same wondrous River of
Time, so that the Natural and Supernatural
may stand in friendliest neighbourhood and
union, forms the grand action of this Phantas-
magoric Poem : is not such also, let me ask
thee, the grand action and summary of Uni-
versal History; the one problem of Human
Culture ; the thing which Mankind (once the
three daily meals of victual were moderately
secured) has ever striven after, and -must ever
strive after! — Alas! we observe very soon,
matters stand on a most distressful footing, in
this of Natural and Supernatural: there are
three conveyances across, and all bad, all in-
cidental, temporary, uncertain: the M'orst of
ihe three, one would think, and the worst con-
ceivable, were the Giant's Shadow, at sunrise
and sunset; the best that Snake-bridge at noon,
yet still only a bad best. Consider again our
trustless, rotten, revolutionary 'age of transi-
tion,' and see whether this too does not fit it!
"If you ask next. Who these other strange
characters are, the Snak^, the Will-o'-Wisps,
the Man with the Lamp 1 I will answer, in
peroral and afar ofl', that Lt^ht must signify

human Insight, Cultivation, in one sort or
other. As for the Snake, I know not well what
name to call it by ; nay perhaps, in our scanty
vocabularies, there is no name for it, though
that does not hinder its being a thing, genuine
enough. Meditation; Intellectual Research;
Understanding; in the most general accepta-
tion. Thought: all these come near designat-
ing it; none actually designates it. Were I
bound, under legal penalties, to give the crea-
ture a name, I should say Thought rather than
another.

"But what if out Snake, and so much else
that works here beside it, were neither a (juidi-
ly, nor a rcaliiy, nor a slate, nor an arlion, in
any kind ; none of these things purely and
alone, but something intermediate and partak-
ing of them all ! In which case, to name it, in
vulgar speech, were a still more frantic at-
tempt: it is unnameable in speech; and re-
mains only the allegorical Figure known in
this Tale by the name of Snake, and more or
less resembling, and shadowing forth somewhat
that speech has named, or might name. It is
this heterogeneity of nature, pitching your
solidest Predicables heels over head, throwing
you half a dozen Categories into the melting-
pot at once, — that so unspeakably bewilders a
Commentator, and for moments is nigh reduc-
ing him to delinwn saltans.

"The Will-o'-wisps, that laugh and jig, and
compliment the ladies, and eat gold and shake
it from them, I for my own share take the li-
berty of viewing as some shadow of Elegant
Culture, or modern Fine Literature ; which
by and by became so skeptical-destructive;
and did, as French Philosophy, eat Gold (or
Wisdom) enough, and shake it out again. In
which sense, their coming (into Existence) by
the old Ferryman's (by the Priesthood's) as-
sistance, and almost oversetting his boat, and
then laughing at him, and trying to skip off'
from him, yet being obliged to stop till they
had satisfied him : all this, to the discerning
eye, has its significance.

" As to the Man with the Ijamp, in him and
his go]d-giving, jewel-forming, and otherwise
so miraculous Light, which 'casts no shadow,'
and 'cannot illuminate what is wholly other-
wise in darkness,' — I see what you might
name the celestial Reason of Man, (Reascm as
contrasted with Understanding, and superordi-
nated to it,) the purest essence of his seeing
Faculty; which manifests itself as the Spirit
of Poetry, of Prophecy, or whatever else of
highest in the intellectual sort man's mind can
do. We behold this respectable, venerable
Lamp-bearer everywhere present in time of
need ; directing, accomplishing, working, won-
der-working, finally victorious ; — as, in strict
reality, it is ever (if we will study it) the Po-
etic Vision that lies at the bottom of all other
Knowledge or Action ; and is the source and
creative fountain of whatsoever mortal ken or
row, and mystically and miraculously guides
them forward whither they are to go. Be the
Man with the Lamp, then, named Reason ,
mankind's noblest inspired Insight and Light;
whereof all the other liglits are but effluences,
and more or less discoloured cmanatinns
" His Wife, poor old woman, we shall call

THE TALE.

385

Practicai. Endeavour ; which as married to
Reason, to spiritual Vision and Belief, first
makes up man's being here below. Unhappi-
ly the ancient couple, we find, are but in a de-
cayed condition : the better emblems are they
of Reason and Endeavour in this our "transi-
tionaryage!" The Man presents himself in
the garb of a peasant, the Woman has grown
old, garrulous, querulous; both live neverthe-
less in their ' ancient cottage,' better or worse,
the roof-tree of which still holds together over
ihem. And then those mischievous Will-o'-
wisps, who pay the old lady such court, and
eat all the old gold (all that was wise and beau-
tiful and desirable) off" her walls; and show
the old stones, quite ugly and bare, as they had
not been forages! Besides, they have killed
poor Mops, the plaything, and joy and fondling
of the house; — as has not that same Elegant
Culture, or French Philosophy done, whereso-
ever it has arrived? Mark, notwithstanding,
how the Man with the Lamp puts it all right
again, reconciles every thing, and makes the
finest business out of what seemed the worst.

"With regard to the Four Kings, and the
Temple which lies fashioned under ground,
please to consider all this as the Future lying
prepared and certain under the Present: you
observe, not only inspired Reason (or the Man
with the Lamp) but scientific Thought (or the
Snake) can discern it lying there: neverthe-
less much work must be done, innumerable
difficulties fronted and conquered, before it can
rise out of the depths, (of the Future,) and re-
alize itself as the actual worshipping-place of
man, and 'the most frequented Temple in the
whole Earth.'

"As for the fair Lily and her ambulatory
necessitous Prince, these are objects that I
shall admit myself incapable of naming; yet
nowise admit myself incapable of attaching
meaning to. Consider them as the two dis-
jointed Halves of this singular Dualistic Being
of ours ; a Being, I must say, the most utterly
Dualistic; fashioned, from the very heart of
it, out of Positive and Negative, (what we hap-
pily call Light and Darkness, necessity and
Freewill, Good and Evil, and the like;) every-
where out of livo mortally opposed things,
which yet must be united in vital love, if there
is to be any Life . — a being, I repeat, Dualistic
beyond expressing; which will split in two,
strike it in avy direction, on any of its six
sides ; and does of itself split in two, (into Con-
tradiction,) every hour of the day, — were not
Life perpetually there, perpetually knitting it
together aa;ain! But as to that cutting up, and
parcelling, and labelling of the indivisible
Human Soul into what are called "Faculties,"
it is a thing I have from of old eschewed, and
even hated. A thing which you nimt some-
tiuies Oo, (or you cannot speak ;) yet which is
never d.)ne without Error hovering near you ;
for most part, without her pouncing on you,
and quite blindfolding you.

"Let not us, therefore, in looking at Lily
and her l*iiiice be tempted to that practice:
why should we try to nanu' them at all 1 Enough
if we do fi'el that man's whole Being is riven
asunder every way (in this ' transitionary age,')
and vawning in hostile, irreconcilable contra-
49

diction with itself: what good were it to kno\r
farther in what direciion the rift (as our Poet
here pleased to represent it) had taken effect 1
Fancy, however, that these two Halves of
Man's Soul and Being are separated, in pain
and enchanted obstruction, from one another.
The better, fairer Half sits in the Supernatural
country, deadening and killing; alas, not per-
mitted to come across into the Natural visible
country, and there make all blessed and alive!
The rugged stronger Half, in such separation,
is quite lamed and paralytic ; wretched, for-
lorn, in a state of death-life, must he wander to
and fro over the River of Time ; all that is dear
and essential to him, imprisoned there; which
if he look at he grows still weaker, which if
he touch, he dies. Poor Prince ! And let the
judicious reader, who had read the Era he lives
in, or even spelt the alphabet thereof, say
whether, with the paralytic-lamed Activity of
man (hampered and hamstrung ' in a transi-
tionary age' of Skepticism, Methodism ; atheis-
tic Sarcasm, hysteric Orgasm; brazen-faced
Delusion, Puffery, Hypocrisy, Stupidity, and
the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill,) it is
not even so] Must not poor man's Activity
(like this poor Prince) wander from Natural to
Supernatural, and back again, disconsolate
enough; unable to do any thing, except merely
wring its hands, and, whimpering and blub-
bering, lamentably inquire : What shall I dol
"But Courage! Courage! The Temple is
built, (though under-ground;) the Bridge shall
arch itself, the divided Two shall clasp each
other as flames do, rushing into one ; and all
that ends well shall be well ! Mark only how,
in this imitable Poem, worthy an Olympic
crown, or prize of the Literary Society, it is
represented as proceeding!"

So far D. T. ; a commentator who at least
does not want confidence in himself; whom
we shall only caution not to be too confident;
to remember always that, as he once says,
" Phantasmagory is not Allegory;" that much
exists, under our very noses, which has no
"name," and can gel none; that the "River
of Time" and so forth may be one thing, or
more than one, or none; that, in short, there
is risk of the too valiant D. T.'s bamboozling
himself in this matter; being led from puddle
to pool; and so left standing at last, like a
foolish mystified nose-of-wax, wondering where
the devil he is.

To the simpler sort of readers we shall also
extend an advice ; or be it rather, proffer a
petition. It is to fancy themselves, for the
time being, delivered altogether from D. T.'s
company: and to read this Miihrchcn, as if it
were there only for its owi. sake, and those
tag-rag Notes of his were so much blank
paper. Let the simpler sort of readers say
now how they like it! If unhappily on look-
ing back, some spasm of " the malady of
thought," begin afflicting them, let such Notes
be then inquired of, but not till then, and then
also with distrust. Pin thy faith to no man's
sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thy own ■•

The Commentator himself cannot, it is to be
hoped, imagine that he has exhausted the mat-
ter. To decipher and represent the genesis of
2K

386

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

this extraordinary Production, and what was
the Author's state of mind in producing it; to
«e, with dim, common eyes, what the great
Goethe, with inspired poetic eyes, then saw;
and paint to oneself the thick-coming shapes
and many-coloured splendours of his " Pros-
p?ro's Grotto," at that hour: this were what
we could call complete criticism and com-
mentary ; what D. T. is far from having done,
and ought to fall on his face, and confess that
he can never do.

We shall conclude with remarking two
things. First, that D. T. does not appear to
have set eye on any of those German Com-
mentaries on this Tale of Tales ; or even to
have heard, credently, that such exist: an
omission, in a professed Translator, which he
himself may answer for. Secondly, that with
all his boundless preluding, he has forgot to
insert the Author's own prelude; the passage,
namely, by which this Miihrchen is especially
ushered in, and the key-nole of it struck by the
Composer himself, and the tone of the whole
prescribed! This latter altogether glaring
omission we now charitably supply; and then
let D. T., and his illustrious Original, and the
Readers of this Magazine take it among them.
Turn to the latter part of the Deutsriien Ju;^s:e-
wanderten (page 208, Volume XV. of the last
Edition of Goethe's Werke :) it is written there
as we render it:

"'The Imagination,' said Karl, 'is a fine
faculty ; yet I like not when she works on
what has actually happened : the airy forms
she creates are welcome as things of their
own kind; but uniting with Truth she pro-
duces oftenest nothing but monsters; and
seems to me, in such cases, to fly into direct
variance with Reason and Conimon sense.
She ought, you might say, to hang upon no
object, to force no object on us; she must, if
she is to produce Works of Art, play like a
sort of music upon us; move us within our-
selves, and this in such a way that we forget
there is any thing without us producing the
movement.'

"'Proceed no farther,'* said the old man,
'with your conditionings! To enjoy a pro-
duct of Imagination this also is a condition,
that we enjoy it unconditionally; for Imagina-
tion herself cannot condition and bargain ; she
must wait whai shall be given her. She forms
no plans, prescribes for herself no path; but
is borne and guided by her own pinions ; and
hovering hither and thither, marks out the
strangest courses; which in their direction
are ever altering. Let me but, on my evening
walk, call up again to life within me, some
wondrous figures I was wont to play with in
earlier years. This night I promise you a Tale,
which shall remind you of Nothing and of All.'"

And now for it ! O. Y.

THE TALE.

In his little Hut, by the great River, which
a heavy rain had swoln to overflowing, lay the
ancient Ferryman, asleep, wearied by the toil
of the day. In the middle of the nighl,* loud

♦In the middle of the nia:httriilv! In the middle of the
Paris Ages, when what with Mohammedan Conquests,

voices awoke him; he heard that it was travel-
lers wishing to be carried over.

Stepping out, he saw two large Will-o'-wisps,
hovering to and fro on his boat, which lay
moored ; they said, they were in violent haste,
and should have been already on the other
side. The old Ferryman made no loitering;
pushed off, and steered with his usual skill
obliquely through the stream : while the two
strangers whitiied and hissed together, in an
unknown very rapid tongue, and every now
and then broke out in loud laughter, hopping
about, at one time on the gunwale and the
seats, at another on the bottom of the boat.

" The boat is heeling!" cried the old man
"if you don't be quiet, it will overset; bt
seated, gentlemen of the wisp!"

At this advice they burst into a fit of laugh-
ter, mocked the old man, and were more un-
quiet than ever. He bore their mischief with
patience, and soon reached the farther shore.

" Here is foryour labour !" cried the travellers,
and as they shook themselves, a heap of glit-
tering gold-pieces jingled down into the wet
boat. " For Heaven's sake, what are you
about ?" cried the old man ; " you will ruin me
for ever! Had a single piece of gold got
into the water, the stream which cannot sutTer
gold, would have risen in horrid waves, anj
swallowed both my skiff and me; and who
knows how it might have fared with you in
that case: here, take back your gold."

" We can take nothing back, which we have
once shaken from us," said the Lights.

" Then you give me the trouble," said the olj
man, stooping down, and gathering the pieces
into his cap, " of raking them together, and
carrying them ashore, and burying ihem."

The Lights had leaped from the boat, but the
old man cried : " Stay ; where is rny fare 1"

" If you take no gold, you may work for no-
thing," cried the Will-o'-wisps. — "You must
know that I am only to be paid with fruits of
the earth." — " Fruits of the earth ? we despise
them and have never tasted them." — " And yet
I cannot let you go, till you have promised that
you will deliver me three Cabbages, three Arti-
chokes, and three large Onions."

The Lights were making off with jests ; but
they felt themselves, in some inexplicable
manner, fastened to the ground: it was the un-
pleasantest feeling they had ever had. They
engaged to pay him his demand as soon as
possible : he let them go, and pushed away.
He was gone a good distance, Avhen they called
to him : " Old Man ! Holla, old man ! the main
point is forgotten !"* He was off, however, and
did not hear tliem. He had fallen quielly down
that side of the River, where, in a rocky spot,
which the water never reached, he meant to
bury the pernicious gold. Here, between two
high crags, he tbund a monstrous chasm ; shook

what with Christian Crusadinsrs. Destiiirtions ( f Con-
stanlinn|)le. Discoveries of America, the Time-River
was indeed swoln to nverflowini; ; and the iTves Fntiti
(of Elpgant Culture, of Literature ) must needs feel in
haste to iret over into Existence, heintr niurh wnnli'd ;
ami api)ly to the Priesthood, (resnect-ilile old Fcrrvm.in,
roused oul of sleep thereliy '■) wtio williii'.'lv inlrodiiccd
them, mischievous, ungrateful imps astliev were.— I). T.
♦ What could this he? To ask wliitfier liieir next
road lay ? It was useless to nsk there : the respectable
old Priesthood " did not hear ihein." — D. T.

THE TALE.

387

the metal into it, and steered back to his cot-
tage.

Now, in this chasm, lay the fair green Snake,
who was roused from her sleep by the gold
coming chinking down.* No sooner did she
fix her eye on the glittering coins, than she
ate them all up, with the greatest relish, on the
spot; and carefully picked out such pieces as
were scattered in the chinks of the rock.

Scarcely had she swallowed them, when, with
extreme delight, she began to feel the metal
melting in her inwards, and spreading all over
her body; and soon, to her lively joy, she ob-
served that she was grown transparent and
luminous. Long ago she had been told that
this was possible; but now being doubtful
whether such a light could last, her curiosity
and the desire to be secure against the future,
drove her from her cell, that she might see
who it was that had shaken in this precious
metal. She found no one. The more delight-
ful was it to admire her own appearance, and
her graceful brightness, as she crawled along
through roots and bushes, and spread out her
light among the grass. Every leaf seemed of
emerald, every flower was dyed with new glory.
It was in vain thai she crossed the solitary
thickets ; but her hopes rose high, when, on
reaching the open country, she perceived from
afar a brilliancy resembling her own. "Shall
I find my like at last, then 1" cried she, and
hastened to the spot. The toil of crawling
through bog and reeds gave her little thought ;
for though she liked best to live in dry grassy
spots of the mountains, among the clefts of
rocks, and for most part fed on spicy herbs,
and slaked her thirst with mild dew and fresh
spring water, yet for the sake of this dear gold,
and in the hope of this glorious light, she
would have undertaken any thing you could
propose to her.

At last, with much fatigue, she reached a wet
rushy spot in the svvainp, where our two Will-
o'-wisps were frisking to and fro. She shoved
herself along to them ; saluted them, was happy
to meet such pleasant gentlemen related to her
family. The Lights glided towards her,
skipped up over her, and laughed in their
fashion. "Lady Cousin," said they, "you are
of the horizontal line, yet what of that 1 It is
true we are related only by the look; for ob-
serve you," here both the Flames, compressing
their whole breadth, made themselves as high
and peaked as possible, "how prettily this
taper length beseems us gentlemen of the ver-
tical line! Take it not amiss of us, good
Lady; what family can boast of such a thingi
Since there ever was a Jack-o'-lanthorn in the
world, no one of them has either sat or Iain."

The Snake felt exceedingly uncomfortable
in the company of these relations ; for let her
hold her head as high as possible, she found
that she must bend it to the earth again, would
she stir from the spot ;f and if in the dark

• Thought, Understandinp, roused from her long
Bleep by the first produce of itiodern Belles Leltres ;
wlii'-h she oairerly devours. — I). T.

+ True enoiiL'h : Thouffht cannot flv and dance, as
your wildfire nf Belies Letlres may; siie proceeds in the
gystole-diastole, np-and-dnwn method; and must ever
"bend her head to the earth a£r;iin," (in the way of Ba-
conian E.xperiinent,) or she will not sti' from the spot.—
D. T.

thicket she had been extremely satisfied with
her appearance, her splendour in the presence
of these cousms seemed to lesson every mo-
ment, nay she was afraid that at last it would
go out entirely.

In this embarrassment she hastily asked:
if the gentlemen could not inform her, whence
the glittering gold came, that had fallen a
short while ago into the cleft of the rock ; her
own opinion was, that it had been a golden
shower, and had trickled down direct from the
sky. The Will-o'-wisps laughed, and shook
themselves, and a multitude of gold-pieces
came clinking down about them. The snake
pushed nimbl}^ forward to eat the coin. " Much
good may it do you. Mistress," said the dap-
per gentlemen :" we can help you to a little
more." They shook themselves again several
times with great quickness, so that the Snake
could scarcely gulp the precious victuals fast
enough. Her splendour visibly began increas-
ing; she was really shining beautifully, while
the Lights had in the mean time grown rather
lean and short of stature, without however in
the smallest losing their good-humour.

"I am obliged to you for ever," said the
Snake, having got her wind again after the re-
past ; " ask of me what you will ; all that I can
I will do."

"Very good!" cried the Lights. "Then tell
us where the fair Lily dwells 1 Lead us to the
fair Lily's palace and garden ; and do not lose a
moment, we are dying of impatience to fall
down at her feet."

"This service," said the Snake with a deep
sigh, " I cannot now do for you. The fair Lily
dwells, alas, on the other side of the water." —
" Other side of the water ] And we have come
across it, this stormy night ! How cruel is the
River to divide us! Would it not be possible
to call the old man back V

"It would be useless," said the Snake; "for
if you found him ready on the bank, he would
not take you in; he can carry any one to this
side, none to yonder."

"Here is a pretty kettle offish!" cried the
Lights: "are there no other means of getting
through the water?" — " 'J'here are other means,
but not at this moment. I myself could take
you over, gentlemen, but not till noon." — '• That
is an hour we do not like to travel in." — " Then
you may go across in the evening:, on the great
Giant's shadow." — " How is that V — " The great
Giant lives not far from this ; with his body he
has no poAver ; his hands cannot lift a straw, hia
shoulders could not bear a fagot of twigs; but
with his shadow he has power over much, nay
all.* At sunrise and sunset therefore he is strong-
est; so at evening you merely put yourself upon
the back of his shadow, the Giant walks softly to
the bank, and the shadow carries you across the
water. But if you please, about the hour of
noon, to be in waiting at that corner of the
wood, where the bushes overhang the bank, I
myself will take you over and present you to
the fair Lily: or on the other hand, if you dis-
like the noontide, you have just to go at night-
fall to that bend of the rocks, and pay a visit to

♦ Is not Superstition strongest when the sun Islowl
with body, powerless; with shadow, omnipolenl t--

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

the Giant; he will certainly receive you like
a gentleman."

With a slight bow, the flames went off; and
the Snake at bottom was not discontented to
get rid of them ; partly that she might enjoy
the brightness of her own light, partly satisfy a
curiosity with which, for a long time, she had
been agitated in a singular way.

In the chasm, where she often crawled hither
and thither, she had made a strange discovery.
For although in creeping up and down this
abyss, she had never had a ray of light, she
could well enough discriminate the objects in
it, by her sense of touch. Generally she met
with nnhing but irregular productions of
nature; at one time she would wind between
the teeth ol large crystals, at another she would
feel th; barbs and hairs of native silver, and
now and then carry out with her to the light
some straggling jewels.* But to her no small
wonder, in a rock which was closed on every
side, she had come on certain objects which
betrayed the shaping hand of man : smooth
walls on which she could not climb, sharp
regular corners, well-formed pillars; and what
seemed strangest of all, human figures which
she had entwined more than once, and which
appeared to her to be of brass, or of the finest
polished marble. All these experiences she
now wished to combine by the sense of sight,
thereby to confirm what as yet she only guessed.
She believed she could illuminate the whole of
that subterranean vault by her own light; and
hoped to get acquainted with these curious
things at once. She hastened back; and soon
found, by thp usual way, the cleft by which she
used to penetrate the Sanctuary.

On reaching the place, she gazed around with
eager curiosity; and though her shining could
not enlighten every object in the rotunda, yet
those nearest her were plain enough. With
astonishment and reverence she looked up into
a glancing niche, where the image of an
august King stood formed of pure Gold. In
size the figube was beyt)nd the stature of man,
but by its shape it seemed the likeness of a
little rather than a tall person. His handsome
body was encircled with an unadorned mantle ;
and a garland of oak bound his hair together.

No sooner had the Snake beheld this reve-
rend figure, than the King began to speak, and
asked: "Whence comest thou?" — "From the
chasms where the gold dwells," said the Snake.
"What is grander than gold 1" inquired the
King. — "Light," replied the Snake. "What
is more refreshing than light 1" said he. —
" Speech," answered she.

During this conversation she had squinted
to a side, and in the nearest niche perceived
another glorious image. It was a Silver King
in a sitting posture; his shape was long and
rather linguid; he was covered with a deco-
rated robe; crown, girdle, and sceptre were
adorned with precious stones: the cheerfulness
of pride was in his countenance ; he seemed

♦ Primitive employments, and attainments, of
Tti(Hi!;hI, in this dark den wliilher it is sent to dwell.
For miiiy lon_' ases, it discerns -'noihins but irreL-uhir
prodnulions of Nature ;" triviiif; indeed to pick material
bed and t)oard out of Nature and her irregular produc-
tions.—C T.

about to speak, when a vein which ran dimly-
coloured over the marble wall, on a sudden
became bright, and dilfused a cheerful light
throughout the whole Temple. By this bril-
liancy the Snake perceived a third King, made
of Brass, and sitting mighty in shape, leaning
on his club, adorned with a laurel garland, and
more like a rock than a man. She was looking
for the fourth, which was standing at the
greatest distance from her ; but the wall opened,
while the glittering vein started and split, as
lightning does, and disappeared.

A Man of middle stature, entering through
the cleft, attracted the attention of the Snake.
He was dressed like a peasant, and carried in
his hand a little Lamp, on whose still flame you
liked to look, and which in a strange manner,
without casting any shadow, enlightened the
whole dome.*

" Why comest thou, since we have light?"
said the golden King, — " You know that I may
not enlighten what is dark."! — "Will my
Kingdom end ?" said the silver King. — "Late
or never," said the old Man.

With a stronger voice the brazen 'King
began to ask: "When shall I arise?" —
"Soon," replied the Man. — " With whom shall
I combine 1" said the King. — " With thy elder
brothers," said the Man. — " What will the
youngest do?" inquired the King. — " He will
sit down," replied the Man.

"I am not tired," cried the fourth King, with
a rough faltering voiced

While this speech was going on, the Snake
had glided softly round the temple, viewing
every thing ; she was now looking at (he f lurth
King close by him. He stood leaning on a
pillar; his considerable form was heavy rather
than beautiful. But what metal it was made
of could not be determined. Closely inspected,
it seemed a mixture of the three metals which
its brothers had been formed of. But in the
founding, these materials did not seem to have
combined together fully ; gold and silver veins
ran irregularly through a brazen mass, and
gave the figui'e an unpleasant aspect.

Meanwhile the gold King was asking of the
Man, "How manj' secrets knowest thou?" —
" Three," .replied the Man. — "Which is the
most important ?" said the silver King. — "The
open one," replied the other.^ — " Wilt thou
open it to us also?" said the brass King. —
" When I know the fourth," replied the Man. —
" What care I ?" grumbled the composite King,
in an under tone.

"I know the fourth," said the Snalce; ap-
proached the old Man, and hissed somewhat in
his ear. "The time is at hand !" cried the old
Man, with a strong voice. The temple re-

* Poetic Li2ht, celestial Reason ! — D. T.

Let the render, in one word, attend well to these four
Kinsrs : much ann'itation from D. T. is here necessarily-
swept out. — O. Y.

f What is wholly dark. Understanding precedes
Reason : modern Science is come : modern Poesy is still
but coining, — in Goeihe, (and whom else?)— D. T.

t Consider these Kings as Eras of the World's History ;
CO, not as Eras, but as I'riuciples which ji>inlly or seve-
rally rule Eras. Alas, poor we, in ihis chaotic sofl-
soldered " transitionary age," are so unfortunate as to
live und<'r I he Kourlli King. — U. T.

1/ (leader, hast Ihou any glimpse of the " open secret?"
I fear, not.— D. T.— Writer, art thou a goose 1 1 fe.ir,
yes.— O. Y.

THE TALE.

389

echoed, the metal statues sounded ; and that
instant the old Man sank away to the west-
ward, and the Snake to the eastward; and both
of them passed through the clefts of the rock,
with the greatest speed.

All the passages, through which the old
Man travelled, tilled themselves immediately
behind him with gold; for his Lamp had the
strange property of changing stone into gold,
wood into silver, dead animals into precious
stones, and of annihilating all metals. But to
display this power, it must shine alone. If
another light were beside it, the Lamp only
cast from it a pure clear brightness, and all
living things were refreshed by it.*

The old Man entered his cottage, which was
built on the slope of the hill. He found his
Wife in extreme distress. She was sitting at
the fire weeping, and refusing to be consoled.
" How unhappy am I !" cried she : " Did I not
entreat thee not to go away to-night 1" — " What
is the matter, then 1" inquired the husband,
quite composed.

" Scarcely wert thou gone," said she, sobbing,
" when there came two noisy Travellers to the
door: unthinkingly I let them in ; they seemed
to be a couple of genteel, very honourable
people; they were dressed in flames, you
would have taken them for Will-o'-wisps.
But no sooner were they in the house, than
they began, like impudent varlets, to compli-
ment me,f and grew so forward that I feel
ashamed to think of it."

"No doubt," said the husband with a smile,
"the gentlemen were jesting: considering thy
age, they might have held by general politeness."

"Age! what age 1" cried the Wife: "wilt
thou always be talking of my age ? How old
am I theri 1 — General politeness ! But I know
what I know. Look round there what a face
the walls have; look at the old stones, which I
have not seen these hundred years ; every film
of gold have they licked away, thou couldstnot
think how fast ; and still they kept assuring me
that it tasted far beyond common gold. Once
they had swept the walls, the fellows seemed
to be in high spirits, and truly in that little
while they had grown much broader and
brighter. They now began to be impertinent
again, they patted me, and called me their
queen, they shook themselves, and a shower
of gold pieces sprang from them ! See how they
are shining there under the bench ! But ah !
what misery ! Poor Mops ate a coin or two ;
and look, he is lying in the chimney, dead. Poor
Pug ! O well-a-day ! I did not see it till they
were gone ; else I had never promised to pay
the Ferryman the debt they owe him." — "What
do they owe him 1" said the Man. — " Three
Cabbages,'' replied the Wife," three Artichokes
and three Onions : I engaged tc go when it was
day, and lake them to the River."

"Thou mayest do them that civility," said

♦ In Illuminated Afros, the Age of Miracles is said to
cease ; lint i( is only we that cease to see it, for we are
■till " refreshed l>y it."— D.T.

+ Poor old Prarlical Endeavour ! Listen to many an
£nci/e/»7)Wic-I)iderot, humanized Philosnphe, didactic
Binder, march-of-intellert men, and olher '• impudent
vnrlets" (that would never put their own finger to the
work;) and liear what "compliments" they uttered. —
D. T.

the old Man ; " they may chance to be of use
to us again."

" Whether they will be of use to us I know
not ; but they promised and vowed that thej
would."

Meantime the fire on the hearth had burnt
low; the old Man covered up the embers with
a heap of ashes, and put the glittering gold
pieces aside; so that his little Lamp now
gleamed alone, in the fairest brightness. The
walls again coated themselves with gold, and
Mops changed into the prettiest onyx that
could be imagined. The alternation of the
brown and black in this precious stone made
it the most curious piece of workmanship.

"Take thy basket," said the Man, "and
put the onyx into it; then take the three
Cabbages, the three Artichokes, and the three
Onions; place them round little Mops, and
carry them to the River. At noon the Snake
will lake thee over; visit the fair Lily, give
her the onyx, she will make it alive by her
touch, as by her touch she kills whatever is
alive already. She will have a true com-
panion in the little dog. Tell her not to
mourn; her deliverance is near; the greatest
misfortune she may look upon as the greatest
happiness; for the time is at hand."

The old Woman filled her basket, and set
out as soon as it was day. The rising sun
shone clear from the other side of the River,
which was glittering in the distance: the old
Woman walked with slow steps, for the bas-
ket pressed upon her head, and it was not the
onyx that so burdened her. Whatever lifeless
thing she misht be carrying, she did not feel
the weight of it; on the other hand, in those
cases the basket rose aloft, and hovered along
above her head. But to carry any fresh herb-
age, or any little living animal, she found ex-
ceedingly laborious.* She had travelled on
for some time, in a sullen humour, when she
halted suddenly in fright, for she had almost
trod upon the Giant's shadow, which was
stretching towards her across the plain. And
now, lifting up her eyes, she saw the monster
of a Giant himself, who had been bathing in
the River, and was just come out,-j- and she
knew not how she should avoid him. The
moment he perceived her, he began saluting
her in sport, and the hands of his shadow soon
caught hold of the basket; with dexterous
ease they picked away from it a Cabbage, an
Artichoke, and an Onion, and brought them to
the Giant's mouth, who then went his way up
the River, and let the Woman go in peace.

She considered whether it would not be bet-
ter to return, and supply from her garden the
pieces she had lost ; and amid these doubt;.,
she still kept walking on, so that in a little
while she was at the bank of the River. She
sat long waiting for the Ferryman, whom she
perceived at last, steering over with a very

♦ Why sol Is it because with "lifeless things"
(with inanimate maehinery) all goes like clock-work,
which it is, and "the basket hovers aloft ;" while with
living things, (were it but the culture of forest-trees)
poor Endeavo\ir has more difficulty t—D. T.— Or, is It
chiefly because a Tale must be a Tale ■!— O. Y.

t Very proper in Ihe huge Loggerhead Superstition, t*
bathe himself in the element of Time, and get refresh*
aient thereby. — D. T.

2S.2

390

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

singular traveller. A young, noble-looking,
handsome man, whom she could not gaze
upon enough, stepped out of the boat.

"What is it you bring"!" cried the old man.
"The greens which those two Will-o'-wisps
owe you," said the Woman, pointing to her
ware. As the Ferryman found only two of
each sort he grew angry, and declared he
would have none of them. The Woman ear-
nestly entreated him to take them ; told him
that she could not now go home, and that her
burden for the way which still remained was
very heavy. He stood by his refusal, and as-
sured her that it did not rest with him. " What
belongs to me," said he "I must leave lying
nine hours in a heap, touching none of it, till
I have given the River its third." After much
higgling, the old man at last replied: "There
is still another way. If you like to pledge
yourself to the River, and declare yourself ^ts
debtor, I will take the six pieces ; but there is
some risk in it." — "If I keep my word, I shall
run no risk I" — "Not the smallest. Put your
hand into the stream," continued he, "and pro-
mise that within four-and-twenty hours you
will pay the debt."

The old Woman did so ; but what was her
affright, when, on drawing out her hand, she
found it black as coal ! She loudly scolded
the old Ferryman ; declared that her hands
had always been the fairest part of her ; that
in spite of her hard work, she had all along
contrived to keep these noble members white
and dainty. She looked at the hand with in-
dignation, and exclaimed in a despairing tone:
"Worse and worse! Look, it is vanishing
entirely ; it is grown far smaller than the
other."*

"For the present it but seems so," said the
old man ; if you do not keep your word, how-
ever, it may prove so in earnest. The hand
will gradually diminish, and at length disap-
pear altogether, though you have the use of it
as formerly. Every thing as usual you will
be able to perform with it, only nobody will
see it." — "I had rather that I could not use it,
and no one could observe the want," cried
she; "but what of that, I will keep my word,
and rid myself of this black skin, and all anxi-
eties about it." Thereupon she hastily took
up her basket, which mounted of itself over
her head, and hovered free above her in the
air, as she hurried after the Youth, who was
walking softly and thoughtfully down the bank.
His noble form and strange dress had made a
deep impression on her.

His breast was covered with a glittering
coat of mail ; in whose wavings might be
traced every motion of his fair body. From
his shoulders hung a purple cloak ; around his
uncovered head flowed abundant brown hair
in beautiful locks : his graceful face, and his
well-formed feet were exposed to the scorch-
ing of the sun. With bare soles he walked
composedly over the hot sand ; and a deep in-
ward sorrow seemed to blunt him against all
external things.

» A dangerous thins to pledue yoiiraelf to the Time-
iliver ;— as many a National Deht, and the like, black-
fining, bewitching the " beantiful hand " of Endeavour,
can witness.— D. T.— Heavens 1 — 0. Y.

The garrulous old Woman tried to lead hiu»
into conversation ; but with his short answers
he gave her small encouragement or informa-
tion; so that in the end, notwithstanding the
beauty of his eyes, she grew tired of speaking
with him to no purpose, and took leave of him
with these words: "You walk too slow for
me, worthy sir ; I must not lose a moment, for
I have to pass the River on the green Snake,
and carry this fine present from my husband
to the fair Lily." So saying she stepped faster
forward; but the fair Youth pushed on with
equal speed, and hastened to keep up with
her. "You are going to the fair Lily!" cried
he; "then our roads are the same. But
what present is this you are bringing her?"

"Sir," said the Woman, "it is hardly fair,
after so briefly dismissing the questions I put
to you, to inquire with such vivacity about
my secrets. But if you like to barter, and tell
me your adventures, I will not conceal from
you how it stands with me and my presents."
They soon made a bargain ; the dame disclosed
her circumstances to him ; told the history of
the Pug, and let him see the singular gift.

He lifted his natural curiosity from the bas-
ket, and took Mo):>s, who seemed as if sleeping
softly, into his arms. "Happy beast!" cried
he ; "thou wilt be touched by her hands, thou
wilt be made alive by her; while the living
are obliged to fly from her presence to escape
a mournful doom. Yet why say I mournful !
Is it not far sadder and naore frightful to be in-
jured by her look, than it would be to die by
her hand 1 Behold me," said he to the Wo-
man ; "at my years, what a miserable fate
have I to undergo. This mail which I have
honourably borne in war, this purple which I
sought to merit by a wise reign, Destiny has
left me ; the one as a useless burden, the other
as an empty ornament. Crov/n, and sceptre,
and sword are gone ; and I am as bare and
needy as any other son of earth : for so un-
blessed are her bright eyes, that they take from
every living creature they look on all its force,
and those whom the touch of her hand does
not kill are changed to the state of shadows
wandering alive."

Thus did he continue to bewail, nowise con-
tenting the old Woman's curiosity, who wished
for information not so much of his infernal as
of his external situation. She learned neither
the name of his father, nor of his kingdom.
He stroked the hard Mops, whom the sun-
beams and the bosom of the j-outh had warmed
as if he had been living. He inquired nar-
rowly about the man with the Lamp, about
the influences of the sacred light, appearing
to expect much good from it in his melan-
choly case.

Amid such conversation, they descried from
afar the majestic arch of the Bridge, which
extended from the one bank to the other, glit-
tering with the strangest colours in the splen-
dours of the sun. Both were astonished ; for
until now they had never seen this edifice so
grand. "How!" cried the Prince! "was it
not beautiful enough, as it stood before our
eyes, piled out of jasper and agate? Shah
we not fear to tread it, now that it appears
combined in gracefnl complexity, of emerald

THE TALE

391

and chrysopras and chrysolite 1" Neither of
them knew the alteration that had taken place
upon the Snake : for it was indeed the Snake,
who every day at noon curved herself over
the River, and stood forth in the form of a
bold-swelling bridge.* The travellers stepped
upon it with a reverential feeling, and passed
over it in silence.

No sooner had they reached the other shore,
than the bridge began to heave and stir; in a
little while, it touched the surface of the water,
and the green Snake in her proper form came
gliding after the wanderers. They had scarcely
thanked her for the privilege of crossing on
her back, when they found that, besides them
three, there must be other persons in the com-
pany, whom their eyes could not discern. They
heard a hissing, which the Snake also answer-
ed with a his.-iing; they listened, and at length
caught what follows: "We shall first look
about us in the fair Lily's Park," said a pair
of alternating voices ; " and then request you
at nightfall, so soon as we are anywise pre-
sentable, to introduce us to this paragon of
beauty. At the shore of the great Lake,
you will find us." — " Be it so," replied the
Snake; and a hissing sound died away in the
air.

Our three travellers now consulted in what
order they should introduce themselves to the
■fair Lady; for however many people might be
in her company, they were obliged to enter and
depart singly, under pain of suflering very hard
severities.

The Woman with the metamorphosed Pug
in the basket first approached the garden,
looking round for her Patroness ; who was not
ditlicult 10 find, being just engaged in singing
to her harp. The finest tones proceeded from
ner, first like circles on the surface of the still
lake, then like a light breath they set the grass
and the bushes in motion. In a green enclo-
sure, under the shadow of a stately group of
many diverse trees, was she sealed ; and again
did she enchant the eyes, the ear, and the heart
of the woman, who approached with rapture,
and swore within herself that since she saw
her last, the fair one had grown fairer than
ever. With eager gladness from a distance
she expressed her reverence and admiration
for the lovely maiden. " What a happiness to
see you, what a Heaven does your presence
spread around you ! How charmingly the
harp is leaning on your bosom, how softly
your arms surround it, how it seems as if
longing to be near you, and how it sounds so
meekly under the touch of your slim fingers!
Thrice happy youth, to whom it were permitted
to be there !"

So speaking she approached; the fair Lily
raised her eyes: let her hands drop from the
harp, and answered: "Trouble me not v/ilh
untimely praise ; I feel my misery but the more
deeply. Look here, at my feet lies the poor
Canary-bird, which used so beautifully to ac-
company my singing; it would sit upon my
harp, and was trained not to touch me ; but to-

*If !i\isht can overspan the Time-Rivpr, then what
but Understanding, but Thought, in its moment of ple-
nitude, in its favourable noon-moinent T— D. T.

day, while I, refreshed by sleep, was raising a
peaceful morning hymn, and my little singer
was pouring forth his harmonious tones more
gaily than ever, a Hawk darts over my head;
the poor little creature, in affright, takes refuge
in my bosom, and I feel the last palpitations
of its departing life. The plundering Hawk
indeed was caught by my look, and fluttered
fainting down into the water; but what can
his punishment avail me? my darling is dead,
and his grave will but increase the mournful
bushes of my garden."

"Take courage, fairest Lily!" cried the
Woman, wiping off a tear, which the story of
the hapless maiden had called into her eyes;
"compose yourself; my old man bids me tell
you to moderate your lamenting, to look upon
the greatest misfortune as a forerunner of the
greatest happiness, for the time is at hand;
and truly," continued she, "the world is going
strangely on of late. Do but look at my hand,
how black it is ! As I live and breathe, it is
grown far smaller: I must hasten, before it
vanish altogether! Why did I engage to do
the Will-o'-wisps a service, why did I meet the
Giant's shadow, and dip my hand in the Riverl
Could you not afford me a single cabbage, an
artichoke, and an onion 1 I would give them
to the River, and my hand were white as ever,
so that I could almost show it with one of
yours.

"Cabbages and onions thou mayest still find;
but artichokes thou wilt search for in vain. No
plant in my garden bears either flowers or
fruit; but every twig that I break, and plant
upon the grave of a favourite, grows green
straightway, and shoots up in fair boughs. All
these groups, these bushes, these groves my
hard destiny has so raised around me. These
pines stretching out like parasols, thjese
obelisks of cypresses, these colossal oaks and
beeches, were all little twigs planted by my
hand, as mournful memorials in a soil that
otherwise is barren."*

To this speech the old Woman had paid
little heed ; she was looking at her hand, which,
in presence of the fair Lily, seemed every mo-
ment growing blacker and smaller. She was
about to snatch her basket and hasten off, when
she noticed that the best part of her errand had
been forgotten. She lifted out the onyx Pug,
and set him down, not far from the fair one, in
the grass. "My husband," said she, "sends
you this memorial ; you know that you can
make a jewel live by touching it. This pretty
faithful dog will certainly afford you much
enjoyment; and my grief at losing him is
brightened only by the thought that he will be
in your possession."

The fair Lily viewed the dainty creature
with a pleased, and as it seemed, with an as-
tonished look. " Many signs combine," said
she, " that breathe some hope into me : but ah!
is it not a natural deception which makes us
fancy, when misfortunes crowd upon us, that a
better day is near?

* In SuPERNATi'RALisM, truly, what is there either of
flower or of fruit •> Nothins that will (altneether)
content the greedy Time-River. Stupendous, funeresi
sacred-groves, "in a soil that otherwise is barren!"—
D. T.

893

CAKLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

" What can these many signs avail me,

My Singer's Death, thy coal-black Handl
This Dug of Onyx, that can never fail inel
And coming at the Lamp's command !

••From human jnys removed fur ever.

With sorrows compassed round I sit :
Is there a Temple at the River 1
Is there a Bridge ■? Alas, not yet!"

The good old dame had listened with impa-
tience to this singing, which the fair Lily ac-
companied with her harp, in a way that would
have charmed any other. She was on the
point of taking leave, when the arrival of the
green Snake again detained her. The Snake
had caught the last lines of the song, and on
this matter forthwith began to speak comfort
to the fair Lily.

" The Prophecy of the Bridge is fulfilled!"
cried the Snake: "you may ask this worthy
dame how royally the arch looks now. What
formerly was untransparent jasper, or agate,
allowing but a gleam of light to pass about its
edges, is now become transparent precious
stone. No beryl is so clear, no emerald so
beautiful of hue.""

"I wish you joy of it," said Lily; "but you
will pardon me if I regard the prophecy as yet
unaccomplished. The lofty arch of your bridge
can still but admit foot-passengers ; and it is
promised us that horses and carriages and
travellers of every sort shall, at the same mo-
ment, cross this bridge in both directions. Is
there not something said, too, about pillars,
which are to arise of themselves from the
waters of the River?

The old Woman still kept her eyes fixed on
her hand ; she here interrupted their dialogue,
and was taking leave. " Wait a moment,"
said the fair Lily, "and carry my little bird
with you. Bid the Lamp change it into topaz ;
I will enliven it by my touch; with your good
Mops it shall form my dearest pastime : but
hasten, hasten ; for, at sunset, intolerable
putrefaction will fasten on the hapless bird,
and tear asunder the fair combination of its
form for ever."

The old Woman laid the little corpse, wrap-
ped in soft leaves, into her basket, and hast-
ened awa}-.

" However it may be," said the Snake, re-
commencing their interrupted dialogue, " the
Temple is built."

" But it is not at the River," said the fair
one.

"It is yet resting in the depths of the Earth,"
said the Snake ; " I have seen the Kings and
conversed wiih them."

" But when will they arise ?" inquired Lily.

The Snake replied: "I heard resounding in
the Temple these deep words. The time is at
hand."

A pleasing cheerfulness spread over the fair
Lily's face: "'Tis the second time," said she,
"that I have heard these happy words to-day :
when will the day come for me to hear them
thrice V

She rose, and immediately there came a
lovely maiden from the grove, and took away her
harp. Another followed her, and folded up the
fiue-carved ivory stool, on which the fair one

had been sitting, and put the silvery cushion
under her arm. A third then made her ap-
pearance, with a large parasol worked with
pearls; and looked whether Lily would require
her in walking. These three maidens were
beyond expression beautiful; and yet their
beauiy but exalted that of Lily, for it was plain
to every one that they could never be com-
pared to her.*

Meanwhile the fair one had been looking,
with a satisfied aspect, at the stranse onyx
Mops. She bent down, and touched him, and
that instant he started up. Gaily he looked
around, ran hither and thither, and at last, in
his kindest manner, hastened to salute his
benefactress. She took him in her arm,s, and
pressed him to her. "Cold as thou art," cried
she, "and though but a half-life works in thee,
thou art welcome to me; tenderly Mill I love
thee, prettily will I play with thee, softly caress
thee, and firmly press thee to my bosom." She
then let him go, cha>:ed him from her, called
him back, and played so daintily with him,
and ran about so gayly and so innocently with
him on the grass, that with new rapture you
viewed and participated in her joy, as a little
while ago her sorrow had attuned every heart
to sympathy.

This cheerfulness, these graceful sports
were interrupted by the entrance of the woful
Youth. He stepped forward, in his former-
guise and aspect; save that the heat of the
day appeared to have fatigued him still more,
and in the presence of his mistress he grew
paler every moment. He bore upon his hand
a Hawk, which was sitting quiet as a dove,
with its body shrunk and its wings drooping.

"It is not kind in thee," cried Lily to him,
"to bring that hateful thing before my eyes,
the monster, which to-day has killed my little
singer."

"Blame not the unhappy bird!" replied the
Youth ; "rather blame thyself and thy destiny;
and leave me to keep beside me the companion
of my wo."

Meanwhile Mops ceased not teasing the fair
Lily; and she replied to her transparent
favourite, with friendly gestures. She clapped
her hands to scare him off; then ran, to entice
him after her. She tried to get him when he
fled, and she chased him away when he
attempted to press near her.- The Youth
looked on in silence, with increasing anger;
but at last, when she took the odious beast,
which seemed to him unutterably ugly, on her
arm, pressed it to her white bosom, and kissed
its black snout with her heavenly lips, his pa-
tience altogether failed him, and full of despe-
ration he exclaimed: "Must I, who by a bale-
ful fate exist beside thee, perhaps to the end,
in an absent presence, who by thee have lost
my all, my very self, must I see before my
eyes, that so unnatural a monster can charm
vhee into gladness, can awaken thy attachment,
and enjoy thy embrace? Shall I any longer
keep wandering to and fro, measuring my
dreary course to that side of the River and to

* Who are these three ■? Faith, ir pe, and Charity, or
others of that kin 1- D. T— Faith, tiope, and Fiddle-
stick ;~o. Y.

THE TALE.

393

thisl No, there is still a spark of the old
heroic spirit sleeping in my bosom , let it start
this instant into its expiring flame ! If stones
may rest in thy bosom, let me be chans^ed to
stone ; if thy touch kills, I will die by thy
hands."

So saying he made a violent movement; the
Hawk flew from his finger, but he himself
rushed towards the fair one; she held out her
hands to keep him off", and touched him only
the sooner. Consciousness forsook him ; and
she felt with horror the beloved burden lying
on her bosom. With a shriek she started
back, and the gentle youth sank lifeless from
her arms upon the ground.

The misery had happened ! The sweet Lily
stood motionless, gazing on the corpse. Her
heart seemed to pause in her bosom ; and her
eyes were without tears. In vain did Mops
try to gain from her any kindly gesture; with
her friend, the world for her was all dead as
the grave. Her silent despair did not look
round for help; she knew not of any help.

On the other hand, the Snake bestirred her-
self the more actively; she seemed to meditate
deliverance; and in fact her strange move-
ments served at last to keep away, for a little,
the iinmediate consequences of the mischief.
With her limber body, she formed a wide cir-
cle round the corpse, and seizing the end of
her tail between her teeth, she lay quite still.

Ere long one of Lily's fair waiting-maids
appeared; brought the ivory folding-stool, and
with friendly beckoning constrained her mis-
tress to sit down on it. Soon afterwards there
came a second ; she had in her hand a fire-
coloured veil, with which she rather decorated
than concealed the fair Lily's head. The third
handed her the harp, and scarcely had she
drawn the gorgeous instrument towards her,
and struck some tones from its strings, when
the first maid returned with a clear round
mirror; took her station opposite the fair one ;
caught her looks in the glass, and threw back
to her the loveliest image that was to be found
in nature.* Sorrow heightened her beauty,
the veil her charms, the harp her grace; and
deeply as you wished to see her mournful
situation altered, not less deeply did you wish
to keep her image, as she now looked, for ever
present with you.

With a still look at the mirror, she touched
the harp; now melting tones proceeded from
the strings, now her pain seemed to mount,
and the music in strong notes responded to
her wo; sometimes she opened her lips to
sing, but her voice failed her; and ere long
her sorrow melted into tears, two maidens
caught her helpfully in their arms, the harp
sank from her bosom, scarcely could the quick
servant snatch the instrument and carry it
aside.

" Who gets us the Man with the Lamp, be-

♦ Does not man's soijl rest liy Faitti, and Innk in the
mirror of F;iith1 Dors not Flope "decorate rather than
conceaH" Is not Charily (l,ove) the h(;2inniiia of
music .'—Behold, too, how tlie Serpent, in this great hour,
has made herself a Serpent-of-Eternity ; and (even as
genuine Thought, in oiir age. has to do for so much)
preserves the seeming-dead within her folds, that sus-
pended animation issue not in noisoiue, horrible, irrevo-
table dissolution !— D. T.

50

fore the sun set1" hissed the Snake, faintly,
but audibly: the maids looked at one another,
and Lily's tears fell faster. At this moment
came the Woman with the Basket, panting
and altogether breathless. "I am lost and
maimed for life!" cried she; "see how my
hand is almost vanished; neither Ferryman
nor Giant would take me over, because I am
the River's debtor; in vain did I promise
hundreds of Cabbages and hundreds of Onions;
they will take no more than three; and no
Artichoke is now to be found in all this
quarter."

"Forget your own care," said the Snake,
"and try to bring help here; perhaps it may
come to yourself also. Haste with your ut-
most speed to seek the Will-o'-wisps ; it is too
light for you to see them, but perhaps you will
hear them laughing and hopping to and fro
If they be speedy, they may cross upon the
Giant's shadow, and seek the Man with thf
Lamp and send him to us."

The Woman hurried off at her quickest
pace, and the Snake seemed expecting as im
patiently as Lily the return of the Flatnes
Alas ! the beam of the sinking Sun was already
gilding only the highest summits of the tree?
in the thicket, and long shadows were stretch-
ing over lake and meadow; the Snake hitched
up and down impatiently, and Lily dissolved
in tears.

In this extreme need, the Snake kept look
ing round on all sides; for she was afraid
every moment that the Sun would set, and
corruption penetrate the magic circle, and the
fair youth immediately moulder away. Ai
last she noticed sailing high in the air, with
purple-red feathers, the Prince's Hawk, whoso
breast was catching the last beams of the Sun-
She shook herself for joy at this good omen i
nor was she deceived ; for shortly afterward?
the Man with the Lamp was seen gliding
towards them across the Lake, fast and
smoothly, as if he had been travelling on skates.
The Snake did not change her posture; but
Lily rose and called to him: "What good
spirit sends thee, at the moment when we
were desiring thee, and needing thee, so
much 1"

"The spirit of my Lamp," replied the Man,
"has impelled me, and the Hawk has con-
ducted me. My Lamp sparkles when I am
needed, and I just look about me in the sky
for a signal ; some bird or meteor points to the
quarter towards which I am to turn. Be calm,
fairest Maiden ! whether I can help I know
not; an individual helps not, but he who com-
bines himself with many at the proper hour.
We will postpone the evil, and keep hoping.
Hold thy circle fast," continued he, turning to
the Snake; then set himself upon a hillock
beside her, and illuminated the dead body.
"Bring the little Bird* hither too, and lay it in
the circle !" The maidens took the little corpse
from the basket, \vhich the old Woman had
left standing, and did as he dirocted.

♦ What are the flawk and this Canary-bird, wnica
here prove so destructive to one anoljier'! Ministering
servants, implements, of these two di ided Halves of th«
Human Soul ; name them I will not ■ more is not wrlU
ten — D. T.

394

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Meanwhile the Sun had set, and as the
darkness increased, not only the Snake and the
old Man's Lamp began shining in their ik.shion,
but also Lily's veil gave out a sol'tliglu, which
gracefully tinged, as with a meek dawning
red, her pale cheeks, and her white robe. The
party looked at one another, silently reflecting;
care and sorrow were mitigated by a sure
hope.

It was no unpleasing entrance, therefore,
Ihat the woman made, attended by the two gay
Flames, which in truth appeared to have been
very lavish in the interim, for they had again
become extremely meager; yet they only bore
themselves the more prettily for that, towards
Lily and the other ladies. With great tact,
and expressiveness, they said a multitude of
rather common things to these fair persons;
and declared themselves particularly ravished
by the charm which the gleaming veil* spread
over Lily and her attendant. The ladies mo-
d.istly cast down their eyes, and ihe praise of
their beauty made them really beautiful. All
were peaceful and calm, except the old Wo-
man. In spite of the assurance of her husband,
that her hand could diminish no farther, while
the Lamp shone on it, she asserted more than
once, that if things went on thus, before mid-
night this noble member would have utterly
vanished.

The Man with the Lamp had listened atten-
tively to the conversation of the Lights ; and
was gratified that Lily had been cheered, m
some measure, and amused by it. And, in
truth, midnight had arrived they knew not how.
The old Man looked to the stars, and then be-
gan speaking: " We are assembled at the pro-
pitious hour; let each perform his task, let
each do his duty; and a universal happiness
will swallow up our individual sorrt)WS, as a
universal grief consumes individual joys."

At these words arose a wondrous hubbub ;|
for all the persons in the party spoke aloud,
each for himself, declaring what they had to
do; only the three maids were silent; one of
them had fallen asleep beside the harp, an-
other near the parasol, the third by the stool ;
and you could not blame them much, for it was
late. The Fiery youths, after some passing
compliments which they devoted to the wait-
ing-maids, had turned their sole attention to
the Princess, as alone worthy of exclusive
homage.

"Take the mirror," said the Man to the
Hawk; "and with the first sunbeam illumi-
nate the three sleepers, and awake them, with
light reflected from above."

The Snake now began to move ; she loosen-
ed her circle, and rolled slowly, in large rings,
forward to the River. The two Will-o'-wisps
followed with a solemn air; you would have
taken them for the most serious Flames in na-

♦ Have not your march-of-intellect Literators al-
ways expressed tliemselves pnrticiilarly ravished witti
any glitter from a veil of Hope ; with "'progress of the
species," and ihe lilce f — D. T.

fToo true: dost tlioii not hear it, Reader? In this
our Revolutionary " twelfili lioiir of the niftht," all per-
sons speak aloud (some of Iheiii by cannon and drums 1)
"declaring what they have to do;" and Failh. Hope,
nnd Charity (after a kvf passing compliments from the
Belles-Lettres Department,) tiiou seest, have fallen
•alter /— D. T.

ture. The old Woman and her husband seized
the Basket, whose mild light they had scarcely
observed till now; they lifted it at both sides,
and it grew still larger and more luminous;
they lifted the body of the Youth into it, laying
the Canary-bird upon his breast; the Basket
rose into the air and hovered above th** old
Woman's head, and she followed the Willc'-
wisps on foot. The fair Lily took Mops on her
arm, and followed the Woman ; the Man with
the Lamp concluded the procession, and the
scene was curiously illuminated by these many
lights.

But it was with no small wonder that the
party saw, when they approached the River, a
glorious arch mount over it, by which the help-
ful Snake was affiirding them a glittering path.
If by day they had admired the beautiful trans-
parent precious stones, of which the Bridge
seemed I'ormed; by night they were astonished
at its gleaming brilliancy. On the upper side
the clear circle marked itself sharp against
the dark sky, but below, vivid beams were
darting to the centre, and exhibiting the airy
firmness of the edifice. The procession slow-
ly moved across it; and the P'erryman who
saw it from his hut afar ofiT, considered with
astonishment the gleaming circle, and the
strange lights which were passing over it.*

No sooner had they reached the other shore,
than the arch began, in its usual way, to swag
up and down, and with a wavy motion to ap-
proach the water. The Snake then came on
land, the Basket placed itself upon the ground,
and the Snake again drew her circle around it.
The old Man stooped towards her, and said:
" What hast thou resolved on 1"

"To sacrifice myself rather than be sacri-
ficed," replied the Snake; "promise me that
thou wilt leave no stone on shore."

The old Man promised; then addressing
Lily : "Touch the Snake," said he, "with thy
left hand, and thy lover with thy right." Lily
knelt, and touched the Snake, and the Prince's
body. The latter in the instant seemed to come
to life; he moved in the basket, nay he raised
himself into a sitting posture; Lily was about
to clasp him; but the old Man held her back,
and himself assisted the youth to rise, and led
him forth from the Basket and the circle.

The Prince was standing; the Canary-bird
was fluttering on his shoulder; there was life
again in both of Ihem, but the spirit had not
yet returned ; the fair youth's eyes were open,
yet he did not see, at least he seemed to look
on all without participation. Scarcely had
their admiration of this incident a little calm-
ed, when they observed how strangely it had
fared in the meanwhile with the Snake. Her
fair taper body had crumbled into thousands
and thousands of shining jewel? : the old Wo-
man reaching at her Basket had chinced to
come against the circle; and of the shape or
structure of the Snake there was now nothing
to be seen, only a bright ring of luminous
jewels was lying in the grass.-(-

* Well he might, worthy old man ; as Pope Pius, for
example, did, when he lived in Fontainhleau I— D. T. —
As our Bishops, when voting for the Reform Bill 1 — U Y.

f tSo ; Your LoL'ics, mechanical Philosophies, Politics,
Sciences, your whole modern System of Thought, n

THE TALE.

39fi

The old Man forthwith set himself to gather
the stones into the basket; a task in which his
wife assisted him. They next carried the Bas-
ket to an elei^aled point on the bank ; and here
the man threw its whole lading, not without
contradiction from the fair one and his wife,
who would gladly have retained some part of
it, down into the River. Like gleaming twink-
ling stars the stones floated down with the
waves; and you could not say whether they
lost themselves in the distance, or sank to the
bottom.

"Gentlemen," said he with the Lamp, in a
respectful tone to the Lights, "I will now show
you the way, and open you the passage ; but
you will do us an essential service, if you
please to unbolt the door, by which the Sanc-
tuary must be entered at present, and which
none but you can unfasten."

The Lights made a stately bow of assent,
and kept their place. The old Man of the Lamp
went foremost into the ro(;k, which opened at
his presence ; the Youth followed him, as if
mechanically; silent and uncertain, Lily kept
at some distance from him; the old Woman
would not be left, and stretched out her hand
that the Light of her husband's Lamp might
still fall upon it. The rear was closed by the
two Will-o'-wisps, who bent the peaks of their
flames towards one another, and appeared to
be engaged in conversatiim.

They had not gone far till the procession
halted in front of a large brazen door, the
leaves of which were bolted with a golden
lock. The Man now called upon the Lights
to advance ; who required small entreaty, and
with their pointed flames soon ate both bar
and lock.

The brass gave a loud clang, as the doors
sprang suddenly asunder; and the stately
figures of the Kings appeared within the Sanc-
tuary, illuminated by the entering Lights. All
bowed before these dread sovereigns, especially
the Flames made a profusion of the daintiest
reverences.

A Iter a pause, the gold King asked: "Whence
come yeV — "From the world," said the old
Man. — "Whither go ye ]" said the silver King.
— " Into the world," replied the Man. — " What
would ye with us 1" cried the brazen King. —
"Accompany you," replied the Man.

'I'he composite King was about to speak,
when the gold one addressed the Lights, who
had got too near him : " Take yourselves away
from me, my metal was not made for you."
Thereupon they turned to the silver King, and
clasped themselves about him ; and his robe
glittered beautifully in their yellow brightness.
" You are welcome," said he, " but I cannot
feed you; satisfy yourselves elsewhere, and
bring me your light." They removed; and
gliding past the brazen King who did not seem
to notice thein, they fixed on the compounded
King. "Who will govern the world?" cried
he with a broken voice. — " He who stands up-
on his feet," replied the old Man. — "I am he,"

to decease; and old Endeavour, " {rr:isping at her
basket," shall "come against" the inanimate remains,
arid "only a hriu'ht rin;; of luminous jewels" shall he
left there ! Mark well, however, what next becomes of
U— 1>. T.

said the mixed King. — " We shall see," replied
the Man; "for the time is at hand."

The fair Lily fell upon the old Man's neck,
anii kissed him cordially. "Holy Sage!"
cried she, "a thousand times I thank thee;
for I hear that fateful word the third time."
She had scarcely spoken, when she clasped
the old Man still faster; for the ground began
to move beneath them; the Youth and the
old Woman also held by one another; the
Lights alone did not regard it.

You could feel plainly that the whole Temple
was in motion ; as a ship that softly glides
away from the harbour, when her anchors are
lifted ; the depths of the Earth seemed to open
for the Building as it went along. It struck
on nothing; no rock came in its way.

For a few instants, a small rain seemed to
drizzle from the opening of the dome; the old
Man held the fair Lily fast, and said to her:
"We are now beneath the River: we shall
soon be at the mark." Ere long they thought
the Temple made a halt; but they were in an
error; it was mounting upwards.

And now a strange uproar rose above their
heads. Planks and beams in disordered com-
bination now came pressing and crashing
in, at the opening of the dome. Lily and the
Woman started to a side; the Man with the
Lamp laid hold of the Youth, and kept stand-
ing still. The little cottage of the Ferryman,
for it was this which the Temple in ascend. ng
had severed from the ground and cariied up
with it, sank gradually down, and covered the
old Man and the Youth.

The women screamed aloud, and the Tem-
ple shook, like a ship running unexpectedly
aground. In sorrowful perplexit}% the Prin-
cess and her old attendant wandered round the
collage in the dawn ; the door was bolted, and
to their knocking, no one answered. They
knocked more loudly, and were not a liitle
struck, when at length the wood began to ring.
By virtue of the Lamp locked up in it, the
hut had been converted from the inside to the
outside into solid silver. Ere long too its
form changed ; for the noble metal shook aside
the accidental shapes of planks, posts, and
beams, and stretched itself out into a noble
case of beaten ornamented workmanship. Thus
a fair little temple stood erected in the middle
of the large one; or if you will, an Altar worthy
of ihe Temple.*

By a stair which ascended from within, the
noble Youlh now mounted aloft, lighted by the
old man with the Lamp; and, as it seemed,
supported by another, who advanced in a
white short robe, with a silver rudder in his
hand; and was soon recognised as the Ferry-
man, the former possessor of the collage.

The fair Lily mounted the outer steps, which
led from the floor of the Temple to the Altar;
but she was still obliged to keep herself apart
from her Lover. The old Woman, whose
hand in the absence of the Lamp had grown

* nond ! The old Thnrrh. shaken down " in disordered
oomhinalion." is admitted, in this way, into the new
perennial Tpniple of the Future; anil, cluified into
endiirinir silver, hy the Lamp, hecomes an Altar woithy
to stand there. The Ferryman too is not forgcttea.—
D. T.

896

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITIl^GS.

still smaller, cried: "Am I then to be unhappy
after all 1 Among so many miracles, can there
be nothing done to save my handl" Her
husband pointed to the open door, and said to
her: "See, the day is breaking; haste, bathe
thyself in the River." — " What an advice !"
cried she; "it will make me all black; it will
make me vanish altogether; for my debt is
not jTt paid." " Go," said the man, " and do
as I advise thee: all debts are now paid."

The old Woman hastened away ; and at that
moment appeared the rising sun, upon the
rim of the dome. The old Man slept between
the Virgin and the Youth, and cried with a
loud voice: "There are three which have
rule on Earth; Wisdom, Appearance, and
Strength." At the first word, the gold King
rose, at the second the silver one; and at the
third the brass king slowly rose, while the
mixed King on a sudden very awkwardly
plumped down.*

Whoever noticed him could scarcely keep
from laughing, solemn as the moment was ;
for he was not sitting, he was not lying, he
was not leaning, but shapelessly sunk to-
gether.f

The Lights,t who till now had been employed
upon him, drew to a side; they appeared,
although pale in the morning radiance, yet
once more well-fed, and in good burning con-
dition ; with their peaked tongues, they had
dexterously licked out the gold veins of the
colossal figure to its very heart. The irregular
vacuities which this occasioned had continued
empty for a time, and the figure had main-
tained its standing posture. But when at last
the very tenderest filaments were eaten out,
the image crashed suddenly together ; and that,
alas, in the very parts which continue un-
altered when one sits down ; whereas the
limbs, which should have bent, sprawled them-
selves out unbowed and stiff. Whoever could
not laugh was obliged to turn away his eyes;
this miserable shape and no-shape was offen-
sive to behold.

The Man with the Lamp now led the hand-
some Youth, who still kept gazing vacantly
before him, down from the altar, and straight
to the brazen King. At the feet of this mighty
Potentate, lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The
young man girt it around him. "The sword
on the left, the right free !" cried the brazen
voice. They next proceeded to the silver
King; he bent his sceptre to the youth; the
latter seized it with his left hand, and the King
in a pleasing voice said: "Feed the sheep !'
On turning to the golden King, he stooped
with gestures of paternal blessing, and press-
ing his oaken garland on the young man's
head, said: "Understand what is highest!"

♦ Dost thou note this, O Reader ; anil Innit back with
new clearness on former things? A pnld King, a silver,
and a lir.izen Kini; : Wisdom, dignified Appearance,
Stuength ; these three harmoniously uniled bear rule :
liiiharnionioiisly cot)l)led togelher in sham-union (as in
the foolish composite Iviii); of our foolish "Transition-
era,") they, once the Gold (or wisdom) is nl/ out of them,
"very awkwardly plump down. — D T.

tAs, for example, does not Charles X. (one of fhe
poor fractional composite Realities emblemed herein)
rest, even now, " shapelessly enough sunk together,"
at Holyrood, in the city of Edinburgh t — I). T.

t March-of-intellect Lights were well capable of such
atbing.— D "^

During this progress, the old Man had care--
fully observed the Prince. After girding on
the sword, his breast swelled, his arms waved,
and his feel trod firmer; when he took the
sceptre in his hand, his strength appeared to
soften, and by an unspeakable charm to be-
come still more subduing; but as the oaken
garland came to deck his hair, his features
kindled, his eyes gleamed with inexpressible
spirit, and the first word of his mouth was
"Lily!"

"Dearest Lily!" cried he, hastening up the
silver stairs to her, for she had viewed his
progress from the pinnacle of the altar:
"Dearest Lily! what more precious can a
man, equipt with all, desire for him'^elf than
innocence and the still afToction which thy
bosom brings me 1 O my friend !" continued
he, turning to the old Man, and looking at the
three statues ; glorious and secure is the
kingdom of our fathers; but thou hast forgot-
ten the fourth power, which rules the world,
earlier, more universally, more certainly — the
power of Love." With these words, he fell
upon the lovely maiden's neck; she had cast
away her veil, and her cheeks were tinged
with the fairest, most imperishable red.

Here the old Man said with a smile : " Love
dees not mile ; but it trains,* and that is more."

Amid this solemnity, this happiness and
rapture, no one had observed that it was now
broad day; and all at once, on lookinsr through
the open portal, a crowd of altogether unex-
pected objects met the eye. A large space
surrounded with pillars formed the fore-court,
at the end of which was seen a broad and
stately Bridge stretching with many arches
across the River. It was furnished, on both
sides, with commodious and rnagnificent
colonnades for foot-travellers, many thousands
of whom were already there, busily passing
this way or that. The broad pavement in the
centre was thronged with herds and mutes,
with horsemen and carriages, flowing like two
streams, on their several sides, and neither
interrupting the other. All admired the splen-
dour and convenience of the structure ; and the
nevv King and his Spouse were delighted with
the motion and activity of this great people, as
they were already happy in their own mutual
love.

"Remember the Snake in honour," said the
man with the Lamp ; "thou owest her thy life,
thy people owe her the Bridge, by which these
neighbouring banks are now animated and
combined into one land. Those swii:nmii)g
and shining jewels, the remains of her sacri-
ficed body, aie the piers of this royal bridge;
upon these she has built and will maintain
herselfj-

The party were about to ask some explana-
tion of this strange mystery, when there entered
four lovely maidens at the portal of the Tem-
ple. By the Harp, the Parasol, and the folding
Stool, it was not di-fRcult to recognise the

* It fiishions (bildet.) or educates. — O. Y.

t Honour to her indeed ! The Mechanical Philosophy,
though dead, has not died and lived in vain ; but her
works are there: "upon these she" (Thoiight, new-
born, in glorified shape) "has built herself and will
maintain herself;" and the Natural and Supernatural
shall henceforth, thereby, be one. — D. T.

THE TALE.

397

\raiting-maids of Lily; but the fourth, more
beautiful than any of the rest, was an unknown
fair one, and in sisterly sportfuiness she hast-
ened with them through the Temple, and
mounted the steps of the Altar.*

" Wilt thou have hetter trust in me another
time, good wife!" said the man with the Lamp
to the fair one: "Well for thee, and every
living thing that bathes this morning in the
River !"

The renewed and beautified old Woman, of
whose former shape no trace remained, em-
braced with youns eager arms the man with
the Lamp, who kindly received her caresses.
"If I am too old for thee," said he, smiling,
" '.hou mayest choose another l)usband to-day;
from this hour no marriage is of force, which
is not contracted anew."

"D.ist thou not know, then," answered she,
"that thou too art grown younger 1" — "It de-
lights me if to thy young eyes I seem a hand-
pome youth : I take thy hand anew, and am
well content to live with thee another thousand
years."f

The Queen welcomed her new friend, and
went down with her into the interior of the
altar, while the King stood between his two
men, looking towards the bridge, and attentively
contemplating the busy tumult of the people.

But his satisfaction did not last; for ere
long he saw an object which e.vcited his dis-
pleasure. The great Giant, who appeared not
yet to have awoke completely from his morn-
ing sleep, came stumbling along the Bridge,
producing great confusion all around him. As
usual, he had risen stnpified with sleep, and
had meant to bathe in the well-known bay of
the River; instead of which he found firm
land, and plunged upon the broad pavement
of the Bridge. Yet although he reeled into the
midst of men and cattle in the clumsiest way,
his presence, wondered at by all, was felt by
none; but as the sunshine came into his eyes,
and he raised his hands to rub them, the sha-
dows of his monstrous fists moved to and fro
behind him with such force and awkwardness,
that men and beasts were heaped together in
great masses, were hurt by such rude contact,
and in danger of being pitched into the River.-t

The King, as he saw this mischief, grasped
with an involuntapy movement at his sword;
but he bethought himself, and looked calmly
at his sceptre, then at the Lamp and the Rud-
der of his attendants. " I guess thy thoughts,"
said the inan with the Lamp ; " but we and our
gifts are powerless against this powerless
mon..;er. Becalm! He is doing hurt for the last
time, and happily his shadow is not turned to us,"

Meanwhile the Giant was approaching
nearer; in astonishment at what ,he saw with
open eyes, he had dropt his hands; he was
now doing no injury, and came staring and
agape into the fore-court.

* M:irl< wtiat comes of bntliin? in the TiiWE-River, at
tlip tiilr;iii<<' of a New Era :— D. T.

t Aii.l so Reason and Endeavour Iicins once more
niarricil, and in the honey-nioon, need we wish tliein
joy 1^1). T.

X Tlioii rememberest the Catholic Relief Bill ; wit-
nesses! the Iri.ih F.'hicatjnn Bill ? Hast lieanl, five llun-
dred liiiios, lliat ttie •'Chiinh" was "in I);in?er," and
now at InnL'th h-dievost it l-D. T.— Is D. T. of the
Fourlh Estate, and I'opisli-Inlidel, then 1— O. Y.

He was walking straight to the door of the
Temple, when all at once in the middle of the
court, he halted, and was fixed to the ground.
He stood there like a strong colossal statue, of
reddish glittering stone, and his shadow point
ed out the hours,* which were marked in a
circle on the floor around him, not in numbers,
but in noble and expressive emblems.

Much delighted was the King to see the
mcuister's shadow turned to some useful pur-
pose; much astonished was the Queen; who,
on mounting from within the Altar, decked in
royal pomp with her virgins, first noticed the
huge figure, which almost closed the prospect
from the Temple to the Bridge.

Meanwhile the people had crowded after the
Giant, as he ceased to move; they were walk-
ing round him, wondering at his metamoi*-
phosis. From him they turned to the Temple,
which they now first appeared to notice.f and
pressed towards the door.

At this instant the Hawk with the mirror
soared aloft above the dome ; caught the light
of the sun, and reflected it upon the group,
which was standing on the altar. The King,
the Queen, and their attendants, in the dusky
concave of the Temple, seemed illuminated by
a heavenly splendour, and the people fell upon
their faces. When the crowd had recovered
and risen, the King with his followers had
descended into the Altar, to proceed by secret
passages into his palace; and the multitude
dispersed about the Temple to content their
curiosity. The three Kings that were standing
erect they viewed with astonishment and re-
verence; but the more eager were they to dis-
cover what mass it could be that was hid
behind the hangings, in the fourlh niche; for
by some hand or another, charitable decency
had spread over the resting-place of the Fallen
King a gorgeous curtain, which no eye can pene-
trate, and no hand may dare to draw aside.

The peo})le would have found no end to their
gazing and their admiration, and the crowding
multitude would have even sufl'..)cated one
another in the Temple, had not their attention
been again attracted to the open space.

Unexpectedly some gold-pieces, as if falling
from the air, came tinkling down upon the
marble flags; the nearest passers-by rushed
thither to pick them up; the wonder was re-
peated several times, now here, now there. It
is easy to conceive that the shower proceeded
from our two retiring Flames, who wished to
have a little sport here once more, and were
thus gaily spending, ere they went away, the
gold which they had licked from the mem-
bers of the sunken King. The people still ran
eagerly about, pressing and pulling one ano-
ther, even when the gold had ceased to fall.
At length they gradually dispersed, and went
their way; and to the present hour the Bridge
is swarming with travellers, and the Temple
is the most frequented on the whole Earth.^:

* Rravo!— D. T.

f Now first ; when the beast of a SupERSTiTiON-Giant
has L'ot liis quietus. Risht I— D. T.

i It is the Temple of the vvliole civilized earth. Finally,
may ! take leave to consider this Miilirchen as the
deepest Poem of its sort in existence ; as the only trim
Prophecy emitted for who knows how m.iny ccntnries 1
— D. T — Certainly: England is a free country.— O. \.
2L

398

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

DIDEROT.

[Foreign Quarterly Review, 1833.]

The Jlds of hie Chnstian Jpnstles, on which,
as we may say, the world has now for eighteen
centuries had its foundation, are written in so
small a compass, that they can be read in one
little hour. The Ads of the French Pliilosoplics,
the importance of which is already fast ex-
hausting itself, lie recorded in whole acres of
typography, and would furnish reading for a
lirelime. Nor is the stock, as we see, yet any-
wise complete, or within computable distance
of completion. Here are Four quite new Oc-
tavos, recording the labours, voyages, victo-
ries, amours, and indigestions of the Apostle
Denis: it is but a year or two since a new
contribution on Voltaire came before us;
since Jean Jacques had a new Life written for
him ; and then of those Feuilles de Grimm,
what incalculable masses may yet lie dormant
in the Petersburgh Library, waiting only to be
awakened and let slip! — Reading for a life-
time ! Thomas Parr might begin reading in
long-clothes, and stop in his last hundred and
fiftieth year without having ended. And then,
as to when the process of addition will cease,
and the Acts and Epistles of the Parisian
Church of Antichrist will have completed
themselves; except in so far as the quantity
of paper written on, or even manufactured, in
those days being finite and not infinite, the
business one day or other must cease, and the
Antichristian Canon close for the last lime, —
we yet know nothing.

Meanwhile, let us nowise be understood as
lamenting this stupendous copiousness, but ra-
ther as viewing it historically with patience,
and indeed with satisfaction. Memoirs, so long
as they are true, how stupid soever, can hardly
be accumulated in excess. The stupider they
are, let them simply be the sooner cast into
the oven; if true, they will always instruct
more or less, were it only in the way of con-
firmation and repetition ; and, what is of vast
moment, they do not niw-instruct. Day after
day looking at the high destinies which yet
await Literature, which Literature will ere
long address herself with more decisiveness
than ever to fulfil, it grows clearer to us that
the proper task of Literature lies in the do-
main of Belief; within which "Poetic Fic-
tion," as it is charitably named, will have to
take a quite new figure, if allowed a settle-
ment there. Whereby were it not reasonable
to prophesy that this exceeding great multi-
tude of Novel-writers, and such like, must (in
a new generation) gradually do one of two
things : either retire into nurseries, and work
for children, minors, and semi-fatuous persons

•1. Jilemnires, Curresponilance, et Ovvran-es inedits
ie Diderot ; piiblies d'apris les manusrrits cavjie-'', en
nwuraiitc, par Vauleur ii Grimm. 4 toni. 8vo. t'aris,
1831.

2. O^.uvres de Denis Diderot ; procidees de M'evioircs
Kixturiqiiei et philosophiques sur sa Vie et sen Ouvrages,
par J. A. J^ai/reon. 22 torn. 8vo. Paris, 1821.

of both sexes; or else, what were far better,
sweep their Novel-fabric into the dust-cart,
and betake them with such faculty as they
have to understand and record what is true, —
of which, surely, there is, and will for ever be,
a whole Infinitude unknown to us, of infinite
importance to us! Poetry, it will more and
more come to be understood, is nothing but
higher Knowledge ; and the only genuine Ro-
mance (for grown persons) Reality. The
Thinker is the Poet, the Seer: let him who
sccx write down according to his gift of sight;
if deep and with inspired vision, then cre-
atively, })oetically ; if common, and with only
uninspired, every-day vision, let him at least
be faithful in this and write Memoirs.

Ot^ us still so near at hand, that Eighteenth
century in Paris presenting itself nowise as
portion of the magic web of Universal His-
tory, but only as the confused and ravelled
mass of threads and thrums, ycleped Memoirs,
in process of being woven into such, — im-
poses a rather complex relation. Of which,
however, as of all such, the leading rules may
be happily comprised in this very plain one,
prescribed by Nature herself: to search in them,
so far as they seem worthy, for whatsoever
can help us forward on our own path, were it in
the shape of intellectual instruction, of moral
edification, nay of mere solacement and amuse-
ment. The Bourbons, indeed, took a shorter
method, (the like of which has been often
recommended elsewhere;) they shut up and
hid the graves of the Philosophes, hoping that
their lives and writings might likewise thereby
go out of sight, and out of mind ; and thus the
whole business would be, so to speak, sup-
pressed. Foolish Bourbons! These things
were not done in a corner, but on high places,
before the anxious eyes of all mankind : hid-
den they can in nowise be: to conquer them,
to resist them, our first indispensable prelimi-
nary is to see and comprehend them. To us,
indeed, as their immediate successors, the
right comprehension of them is of prime ne-
cessity ; for, sent of God or of the Devil, they
have plainly enough gone before us, and left
us such and such a world : it is on ground of
their tillage, with the stubble of their harvest
standing on it, that we now have to plough.
Before all things then, let us understand what
ground it is; what manner of men and hus-
bandmen these were. For which reason, be
all authentic Philosophe-Memoirs welcome,
each in its kind! For which reason, let us
now. without the smallest reluctance, pene-
trate into this wondrous Gospel according to
Denis Diderot, and expatiate there to see whe-
ther it will yield us aught.

In any phenomenon, one of the most import-
ant moments is the end. Now this epoch of
the Eighteenth or Philosophe-century was pro

DIDEROT.

399

perly the End ; the End of a Social System
which for above a thousand years had been
buiKHng itself together, and, after that, had
begun, for some centuries, (as human things
all do,) to moulder down. The mouldering
down of a Social S3'stem is no cheerful busi-
ness either to form part of, or to look at: how-
ever, at length, in the course of it, there comes
a time when the mouldering changes into a
rushing; active hands drive in their wedges,
set to their crowbars ; there is a comfortable
appearance of work going on. Instead of
here and there a stone falling out, here and
tnere a handful of dust, whole masses tumble
down, who.e clouds and whirlwinds of dust :
torches too are applied, and the rotten easily
takes fire : so what with flame-whirlwind, what
with dust-whirlwind, and the crush of falling
towers, the concern grows eminently interest-
ing; and our assiduous craftsmen can encou-
rage one another with Vivals, and cries of
Spied the work. Add to this, that of all labour-
ers, no one can see such rapid extensive fruit
of his labour as the Destroyer can and does:
it will not seem unreasonable that measuring
from effect to cause, he should esteem his
labour as the best and greatest : and a Vol-
taire, for example, be by his guild-brethren
and apprentices confidently accounted "not
only the greatest man of this age, but of all
past ages, and perhaps the greatest that Na-
Uire could produce." Worthy old Nature !
She goes on producing whatsoever is needful
in each season of her course; and produces,
with perfect copiposure, that Encyclopedist
opin'on, that she can produce no more.

Su<;h a torch-and-crowbar period of quick
rushing down and conflagration, was this of
the Sicrle ile Louis Qtdnze : when the Social
Systim having all fallen to rottenness, rain-
holes and noisome decay, the shivering na-
tive-^ resolved to cheer their dull abode by the
questionable step of setting it on fire. Ques-
tionable we call their Manner of procedure ;
the thing itself, as all men may now see, was
inevitable; one way or other, whether by
prior burning or milder methods, the old
hf'use must needs be new-built. We behold
the business of pulling down, or at least of as-
si>rting the rubbish, still go resolutely on, all
over Europe: here and there some traces of
new foundation, of new building up, may now
also, to the eye of Hope, disclose themselves.

To get acquainted with Denis Diderot and
his life were to see the significant epitome of
all this, as it works on the thinking and acting
soul of a man, fashions for him a singular
element of existence, gives himself therein a
peculiar hue and figure. Unhappily, after all
that has been written, the matter still is not
luminous : to us strangers, much in that foreign
economy, and method of working and living,
reiuains obscure; much in the man himself,
and his inward nature and structure. But,
indeed, it is several years since the present
Reviewer gave up the idea of what could be
called utiderstamlitig^ any Man whatever, even
himself. Every Man, within that inconsider-
able figure of his. con'ains a whole spnit-
kingdom and Keflex of the All; and though
to the eye but some six standard feet in size,

reaches downwards and up vards, unsurvey-
able, fadmg into the regions of Immensity and
of Eternity. Life everywhere, as woven on
that stupendous ever-marvellous "Loom of
Time," may be said to fashion itself of a woof
of light indeed, yet on a warp of mystic dark-
ness : only he that created it can understand it.
As to this Diderot, had we once got so far that
we could, in the faintest degree, personate him ;
take upon ourselves his character and his en«
vironment of circumstances, and act his Life
over again in that small Private-Theatre of
ours, (under our own Hat,) with moderate II
lusiveness and histrionic effect, — ihai were
what, in conformity with common speech, we
should name understanding him, and could be
abundantly content with.

In his manner of appearance before the
world, Diderot has been, perhaps to an extreme
degree, unfortunate. His literary productions
were invariably dashed off in hottest haste,
and left generally, (on the waste of Accident,)
with an ostrich-like indifference. He had to
live, in France, in the sour days of a Journal
dcs Trevonx ; of a suspicious, decaying Sor-
bonne. He was too poor to set foreign presses,
at Kehl, or elsewhere, in motion ; too headlong
and quick of temper to seek help fn)m those
that could: thus must he, if his pen was not
to lie idle, write much of which there was no
publishing. His Papers accordingly are found
flying about, like Sybil's leaves, in all corners
of the world: for many years no tolerable col-
lection of his Writings was attempted; !o this
day there is none that in any sense can be
called perfect. Two spurious, surreptitious
Amsterdam Editions, " or rather formless, blun-
dering Agglomerations," were all that the
world saw during his life. Diderot did not
hear of these for several years, and then only,
it is said, " with peals of laughter," and no
other practical step whatever. Of the lour
that have since been printed, (or reprinted, for
Naigeon's of 1798, is the great original,') no
one so much as pretends either to be complete
or selected on any system. Briere's, the late>t,
of which alone we have much personal know-
ledge, is a welt-printed book, perhaps better
worth buying than any of the others; yet
without arrangement, without coherence, pur-
port; often lamentably in need of commentary :
on the whole, in reference to the wants and
specialities of this time, as good as iwedited.
Bricre seems, indeed, to have hired some
person, or thing, to play the part of Editor; or
rather more things than one, for they sign
themselves Editors in the plural number; and
from time to time, throughout the work, some
asterisk attracts us to the bottom of the leaf,
and to some printed matter subscribed
"Edits.": but unhappily the journey is for
most part in vain ; in the course of a volume
or two, we learn two well that nothing is to be
gained there; that the Note, whatever it pro-
fessedly treat of, will, in strict logical speech,
mean only as much as to say: "Reader! thou
perceivest that we Editors, to the number of
at least two, are alive, and if we had any in
formation would impart it to thee. — Edits."
For tne res:, these " Edits." are polite peo,)le ;
and with this uncertainty (as to their bein^j

400

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

persons or things) clearly before them, continue,
to all appearance, in moderately good spirits.

One service ihey, or Briere for them, (if,
indeed, Briere is not himself they, as we some-
times surmise,) have accomplished for us :
sought out and printed the long-looked-for,
long-lost Life of Dulcroi by Naigeon. The
lovers of biography had for years sorrowed
over this concealed Manuscript, with a wistful-
ness from which hope had nigh fled. A certain
Naigeon, the beloved disciple of Diderot, had
(if his own word, in his own editorial Preface,
was to be credited) written a Life of him ;
a«d, alas ! whither was it now vanished ?
Surely all that was dark in Denis the Fatalist
had there been illuminated; nay, was there
not, probably, a glorious " Light-street" carried
through that whole Literary Eighteenth Cen-
tury] And was not Diderot, long belauded as
" the most encyclopedical head that perhaps
ever existed," now to show himself as such
in, — the new Practical Encyclopedia, philoso-
phic, economic, speculative, digestive, of Life,
— in three score and ten Years, or Volumes?
Diderot too was known as the vividest, noblest
talker of his time: considering all that Bos-
well, with his slender opportunities, had made
of Johnson, what was there we had not a right
to expect !

By Briere's endeavour, as we said, the con-
cealed Manuscript of Naigeon now lies, as
published Volume, on this desk. Alas ! a
written Ufc, too like many an acted life, where
hopfe is one thing,^ fulfilment quite another!
Perhaps, indeed, of all biographies ever put
together by the hand of man, this of Naigeon's
is the most uninteresting. Foolish Naigeon !
We wanted to see and know how it stood with
the bodily man, the clothed, boarded, bedded,
working, and warfaring Denis Diderot, in that
Paris of his ; how he looked and lived, what
he did, what he said : had the foolish Biographer
so much as told us what colour his stockings
were ! Of all this, beyond a date or two, not a
syllable, not a hint ! nothing but a dull, sulky,
snuffling, droning, interminable lecture on
Atheistic Philosophy ; how Diderot came upon
Atheism, how he taught it, how true it is, how
inexpressibly important. Singular enough, the
zealof t/ie devirs house hath eaten Naigeon up.
A man of coarse, mechanical, perhaps intrin-
sically rather feeble intellect; and then, with
the vehemence of some pulpit-drumming
"Gowkthrapple," or "precious Mr. Jabesh
Rentowel," — only that his kirk is of the ntiier
complexion ! Yet must he too see himself in
a wholly backsliding world, where much the-
ism and other scandal still rules; and many
times Gowkthrapple Naigeon be tempted to
weep by the streams of Babel. Withal, how-
ever, he \s icoodcn : thoroughly mechanical, as
if A''aucanson himself had made him; and that
singularly tempers his fury. — Let the reader,
finally, admire the bounteous produce of this
Earth, and how one element bears nothing but
the other matches it : here have we not the
truest odium theolo<:^rum, working quite demono-
logically, in a worshipper of the Everlasting
Nothing! So much fur Naigeon; what we
looked for from him, and what we have got.
Must Diderot then be given up to oblivion,

or remembered not as Man, but merely as Phi-
losophic-Atheistic Logic-Mill 1 Did not Dide-
rot live, as well as think? An amateur re-
porter in some of the Biographical Dictiona-
ries declares that he heard him talk one day,
in nightgown and slippers, for the space of
two hours, concerning earth, sea, and air, with
a fulgorous impetuosity almost beyond human,
rising from height to height, and at length
finish the climax by "dashing his nightcap
against the wall." Most readers will admit
this to be biography; we, alas, must say, it
comprises nearly all about the Man Diderot
that hitherto would abide with us.

Here, however, comes "Paulin, Publi&hing-
BooK'seller," with a quite new contribution: a
long series of Letters, extending over fifteen
years; unhappily only love-letters, and from a
married sexagenarian ; yet still letters from his
own hand. Amid these insipid floods of
tendj-esse, sensihilite, and so forth, vapid, like long-
decanted small-beer, many a curious biographic
trait comes to light; indeed, we can hereby
see more of the individual Diderot, and his
environment, and method of procedure there,
than by all the other books that have yet been
published of him. Forgetting or conquering
the species of nausea that such a business, on
the first announcement of it, may occasion, and
in many of the details of it cannot but confirm,
the biographic reader will find this well worth
looking into. Nay, is it not something of
itself, to see that Spectacle of the Philosophe
in Love, or, at least, zealously endevivouring
to fancy himself so ? For scientific purposes
a considerable tedium, of " noble sentiment"
(and even worse things) can be undergone.
How the most encyclopedical head that per-
haps ever existed, now on the borders of his
grand climacteric, and already, provided with
wife and child, comports himself in that trying
circumstance of preternuptial (and, indeed, at
such age, and with so many "indigestions,"
almost preternatural) devotion to the queens
of this earth, may, by the curious in science,
(who have nerves for it,) be here seen. There
is besides a lively Memoir of him by Made-
moiselle Diderot, though too brief, and not very
true-looking. Finally, in one large Volume,
his Dream of d^Motth.eri , greatly regretted and
commented upon by Naigeon ; which we could
have done without. For its bjilk, that little
Memoir is the best of the whole. Unfortunately,
as hinted. Mademoiselle, resolute of all things
to be piqunnie, writes, or rather think", in a
smart, antithetic manner, nowise the fittest for
clearness or credibility: without suspicion of
voluntary falsehood, there is no appearance
that this is a camera-lucida picture, or a por-
trait drawn by lejjitimate rules of art. Such
resolution to be piquant is the besetting sin of
innumerable persons of both sexes, and wofully
mars any use there mi^ht otherwise be in their
writing or their speaking, It is, or was, the
fault specially imputed to the French : in a
woman and f^renchwoman, who besides has
much to lell us, it must even be borne with.
And now, from these diverse scattered mate-
rials, let us try how coherent a figure of Denis
Diderot, and his earthly Pilgrimage and Per-
formance, v/e can piece together.

DIDEROT.

401

In the ancient Town of Langres, in the
month of Octobe/', 1713, it begins. Fancy
Langres, aloft on its hill top, amid Roman
ruins, nigh the sources of the Saone and of the
Marne, with its coarse substantial houses, and
fifteen thousand inhabitants, mostly engaged
in knife-gnnding; and one of the quickest,
clearest, most volatile, and susceptive little
figures of that century, just landed in the
World there. In this French Sheffield, Dide-
rot's Father was a Cutler, master of his cr&ft;
a much-respected and respect-worthy man;
one of those ancient craftsmen (now, alas!
nearly departed from the earth, and sought,
with little effect, by idyllists, among the "Scot-
tish peasantry," and elsewhere) who, in the
scho(>l of practice, have learned not only skill
of hand, but the far harder skill of head and
of heart; whose whole knowledge and virtue,
being by necessity a knowledge and virtue to
do somewhat, is true, and has stood trial :
humble modern patriarchs, brave, wise, sim-
ple ; of worth rude, but unperverted, like
genuine unwrought silver, native from the
mine! Diderot loved his father, as he well
might, and regrets on several occasions that he
was painted in holidny clothes, and not in the
workday costume of his trade, "with apron
and grinder's-wheel, and spectacles pushed
up," — even as he lived and laboured, atul
honestly made good f(3r himself the small sec-
tion of the Universe he pretended to occupy-
A man of strictest veracity and integrity was
this ancient master; of great insight and
patient discretion, so that he was often chosen
as umpire and adviser; of great humanity, s(
that one day crowds of poor were to "follow
him with tears to his long home." An out-
spoken Langres neighbour gratified the now
fatherless Philosopher with this saying — "Ah,
Monsieur Diderot, you are a famous man, bui
you will never be your father's equal." Truly.
of all the wonderful illustrious persons that
come to view in the biographic part of these
six-and-twenty Volumes, it is a question whe-
ther this old Langres Cutler is not the wor-
thiest; to us no other suggests himself whose
worth can be admitted, without lamentable
pollutions and defacements to be deducted
from it. The Mother also was a^.loving-hearted
just woman: so Diderot might account him-
self well-born : and it is a credit to the man
that he always (and sometimes in the circle
of kings and empresses) gratefully did so.

'1 he Jesuits were his schoolmasters: at the
age of twelve, the encyclopedical head was
' tonsured." He was quick in seizing, strong
in remembering and arranging ; otherwise
flighty enough; fond of sport, ancj from time
to lime getting into trouble. One grand event,
significant of all this, he has himself com-
memorated: his Daughter records it in these
terms.

"He had chanced to have a quarrel with his
comrades : it had been serious enough to bring
on him a sentence of exclusion from college
on some day of public examination and distri-
bution of prizes. The idea of passing this im-
portant time at home, and grieving his parents,
was intolerable: he proceeded to the college-
gate ; the porter refused him admittance ; he
51

presses in while some crowd is entering, and
sets off running at full speed; the porter gets
at him with a sort of pike he carried, and
wounds him in the side: the boy will not be
driven back; arrives, takes the place that be-
longed to him : prizes of all sorts, for composi-
tion, for memory, for poetry, he obtains them
all. No doubt he had deserved them; since
even the resolution to punish him could not
withstand the sense of justice in his superiors.
Several volumes, a number of garlands had
fallen to his lot; being too weak to carry them
all, he put the garlands round his neck, and,
with his arms full of books, returned home.
His mother was at the door; and saw him
coming through the public square in this
equipment, and surrounded by his school-fel-
lows : one should be a mother to conceive
what she must have felt. He was feasted, he
was caressed: but next Sunday, in dressing
him for church, a considerable wound was
found on him, of which he had not so much as
thought of complaining."

" One of the sweetest moments of m}' life,"
writes Diderot himself, of this same business,
with a slight variation, "was more than thirty
years ago, and I remember it like yesterday,
when my Father saw me coming home from
the college, with my arms full of prizes that I
had carried off, and my shoulders with the gar-
lands they had given me, which, being too big
for my brow, had let my head slip through
them. Noticing me at a distance, he threw
down his work, hastened to the door to meet
me, and could not help weeping. It is a fine
sight, a true man and rigorous falling to
weep !"

Mademoiselle, in her quick-sparkling way,
informs us, nevertheless, that the school-victor,
getting tired of pedagogic admonitions and in-
flictions, whereof there were many, said " one
morning" to his father, "that he meant to give
up school !" — " Thou hadst rather be a cutler,
then V — " With all my heart." — They handed
him an apron, and he placed himself beside
his father. He spoiled whatever he laid hands
on, penknives, whittles, blades of all kinds. ^ It
went on for four or five days; at the end of
which he rose, proceeded to his room, got his
books there, and returned to college, — and
having, it would appear, in this simple man-
ner sown his college wild-oats, never stirred
from it again.

To the Reverend Fathers, it seemed that
Denis would make an excellent Jesuit; where-
fi)re they set about coaxing and courting, with
intent to crimp him. Here, in some mi. Is, a
certain comfortable reflection on the diabolic
cunning and assiduity of these Holy Fathers,
now happily all dissolved and expelled, will
suggest itself. Along with which may another
melancholy reflection no less be in place:
namely, that these Devil-serving Jesuits should
have shown a skill and zeal in their teaching
vocation, such as no Heaven-serving body, of
what .complexion soever, anywhere on our
earth now exhibits. To decipher the talent of
a young vague Capability, who must one day
be a man and a Reality ; to take him by the
hand, and train him to a spiritual trade, and
set him up in it, with tools, shop, and good
2 L 2

402

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

will, were doing him in most cases an un-
speakable service, — on this one proviso, it is
true, that the trade be a just and honest one ;
in which proviso surely there should lie no
hinderance to such servive, but rather a help.
Nay, could many a poor Dermody, Hazlitl, He-
ron, Derrick, and such like, have been trained
to be a good Jesuit, were it greatly worse than
to have lived painfully as a bad Nothing-at-all 1
But indeed, as was said, the Jesuits are dis-
solved; and Corporations of all sorts have
perished, (from corpulence;) and now, instead of
the seven corporate selfish spirits, we have the
one-and-thirty millions of discorporate selfish;
and the rule, Man, mind thyself, makes a jum-
ble and a scramble, and crushing press (with
dead-pressed figures, and dismembered limbs
enough ;) into whose dark chaotic depths (for
human Life is ever unfathomable) one shud-
ders to look. Loneliest of all, weakest and
worst-bested, in that world-scramble, is the
extraordinary figure known in these times as
Man of Letters ! It appears to be indubitable
that this state of matters will alter and im-
prove itself, — in a century or two. But to re-
turn :

"The Jesuits," thus sparkles Mademoiselle,
" employed the temptation, which is always so
seductive, of travelling and of liberty; they
persuaded the youth to quit his home, and set
forth with a Jesuit, to whom he was attached.
Denis had a friend, a cousin of his own age;
he intrusted his secret to him, wishing that he
should accompany them. But the cousin, a
tamer and discreeter personage, discovered the
whole project to the father ; the day of depar-
ture, the hour, all was betrayed. My grandfa-
ther kept the strictest silence; but before going
to sleep he carried off the keys of the street
door; and at midnight, hearing his son de-
scend, he presented himself before him, with
the question,' Whither bound, at such an hour?'
' To Paris,' replied the young man, ' where I
am to join the Jesuits.' — 'That will not be to-
night; but your desires shall be fulfilled: let
us ill the fir.Nt place go to sleep.'

" Next morning his father engaged two
places in the public conveyance, and carried
him to Paris, to the College d'Harcourt. He
settled the terms of his little establishment,
and bade his son good-b'ye. But the worthy
man loved his child too well to leave him
without being quite satisfied about his situa-
tion : he had the constancy to stay a fortnight
longer, killing the time, and dying of tedium,
in an inn, without seeing the sole object he
was delaying for. At the end, he proceeded to
the College; and my father has often told me
that this proof of tenderness would have made
him go to the end of the world, if the old man
had required it. ' Friend,' said he, ' I am come
to know if your health keeps good ; if you are
content with your superiors, with your diet,
with others, an(' with yourself. If you are not
well, if you are not happy, we will go back
again to your mother. If you like better to
.emain here, I have but to speak a word with
you, to embrace you, and give you my bless-
ing.' The youth assured him that he was per-
fectly contented, that he liked his new abode
\ery much. Mj (grandfather then took leave

of him, and went to the Principal, to know ii
he was satisfied with his pupil."

On which side also the answer proving fa-
vourable, the worthy father returned home.
Denis saw little more of him ; never again re-
sided under his roof, though for many years,
and to the last, a proper intercourse was kept
up; not, as appears, without a visit or two on
the son's part, and certainly with the most un-
wearied, prudent superintendence and assist-
ance on the father's. Indeed, it was a worthy
family, that of the Diderots ; and a fair degree
of natural affection must be numbered among
the virtues of our Philosophe. Those scenes
about rural Langres, and the old homely way
of life there, as delineated fictitiously in the
Entrctien d'lm Pere avec ses Evfuns, and now
more fully, as a matter of fact, in this just-
published Correspnu'laiire, are of a most innocent,
cheerful, peacefully-secluded character; more
pleasing, we might almost say more poetical,
than could elsewhere be gathered out of Dide-
rot's whole Writings. Denis was the eldest
of the family, and much looked up to, with all
his short-comings : there was a Brother, who
became a clergyman ; and a truehearted, sharp-
witted Sister, who remained unmarried, and
at times tried to live in partnership with this
latter, — rather unsuccessfully. The Clergyman
being a conscientious, even straight-laced man,
and Denis such as we know, they had, natural
ly enough, their own difficnlties to keep on
brotherly terms; and indeed, at length, aban-
doned the task as hopeless. The Abbe stood
rigorous by his Breviary, from time to time
addressing solemn monitions to the" lost Phi-
losophe, who also went on his way. He is
, somewhat snarled at by the Denisian side of
the house for this ; but surely wiihout ground :
it was his virtue rather; at lowest his destiny.
The true Priest, who could, or should, look
peaceably on an EncyHopMie, is yet perhaps
waited for in the world; and of all false
things, is not a false Priest the falsest?

Meanwhile Denis, at the Cidlege d'Harcourt,
learns additional Greek and Mathematics, and
quite loses taste fi)r the Jesuit career. Mad
pranks enough he played, we doubt not ; fol-
lowed by reprimands. He made several friends,
however; got intimate with the Abbe Beriiis,
poet at that time ; afterwards Cardinal. " They
used to dine tugether, for six sous a-piece, at
the neighbouring Traieur's: and I have often
heard him vaunt the gayety of these repasts.'

" His studies bfing finished," continues Ma-
demoiselle, '• his father wrote to M. Clement de
Ris, a Procureurat Paris, and his countryman,
to take him as boarder, that he might study
Jurisprudence and the Laws. He continued
here two years ; but the business of acics and
inventaircs had few charms for him. .'Ml the
time he could steal from the office-desk was
employed in prosecuting Latin and Greek, in
which he thought himself still imperfect; Ma-
thematics, which he to the last continued pas-
si(mately fond of; Italian, English, &c. In the
end he gave himself up so completely to his
taste for letters, that M. Clement thought it
right to inform his father how ill the youth
was employing his time. My grandfather then
expressly commissioned M. Clement to urge

DroEROT.

403

and constrain him to make choice of some j little toast and wine; he goes to bed. 'Thai

profession, and once for all to become Doctor,
Procureur, or Advocate. My father begged
time to think of it; time was given. At the
« nd of several months these proposals were
again laid before him: he answered that the
profession of Doctor did not please him, for he
could not think of killing any body ; that the
Procureur business was too difficult to execute
with delicacy ; that he would willingly choose
the profession of Advocate, were it not that he
fell an invincible repugnance to occupy him-
self all his life with other people's business.
*But,' said M. Clement, 'what itill you be
then ■? ' — 'On my word, nothing, nothing what-
ever, (Ma foi, rien, mats ricn du tout.) I love
Study ; 1 am very happy, very content, and
want no.hing else.' "

Here clearly is a youth of spirit, determined
to take the world on the broadside, and eat
thereof, and be filled. His decided turn, like
that of so many others, is for the trade of sove-
reign prince, in one shape or other; unhap-
pily, however, the capital and outfit to set it
up is wanting. Under which circumstances,
nothing remains but to instruct M. Clement de
Ris that no more board-wages will henceforth
be paid, and the young sovereign may, at his
. earliest convenience, be turned out of doors.
What Denis, perched aloft in his own-hired
attic, may have though* of it now, does not ap-
pear. The good old Father, in stopping his
allowance, had reasonably enough insisted on
one of two things : either that he should be-
take him to some intelligible method of exist-
ence, wherein all help should be furnished
him; or else return home within the week.
Neither of which could Denis think of doing.
A similar demand continued to be reiterated
for the next ten years, but always with the
like none-eflect. King Denis, in his furnished
attic, with or without money to pay for it, was
now living and reigning, like other kings, " by
the grace of God ;" and could nowise resolve
to abdicate. A sanguineous, vehement, volatile
mortal ; young, and in so wide an earth, it
seemed to him next to impossible but he must
find gold-mines there. He lived, while victual
was to be got, taking no thought for the mor-
row. He had books, he had merry company, a
whole piping and dancing Paris round him ;
he could teach Mathematics, he could turn
himself so many ways; nay, might not he be-
come a Mathematician one day; a glorified
Savant, and strike the stars with his sublime
head! Meanwhile he is like to be overtaken
by one of the sharpest of human calamities,
"cleanness of teeth."

"One 8hrove Tuesday morning, he rises,
gropes in his pocket; he has not wherewith to
dine; will not trouble his friends who have
not invited him. This day, which in child-
hood he had so often passed in the middle of
relations who adored him, becomes sadder by
remembrance: he cannot work; he hopes to
dissipate his melancholy by a walk; goes to
the Invaldes, to the Courts, to the Bibliotheque
du Roi, to the Jardin des Plantes. You may
drive away tedium ; but you cannot jrive hunger

day,' he has often said to me, ' I swore that, if
ever I came to have any thing, I would never
in my life refuse a poor man help, never con-
demn my fellow-creatures to a day as pain-
ful.'"

That Diderot, during all this period, escaped
starvation, is plain enough by the result : but
how he specially accomplished that, and the
other business of living, remains mostly left
to conjecture. Mademoiselle, confined at any
rate within narrow limits, continues as usual
too intenton sparkling: is bnlhmte andpetillanle,
rather than lucent and illuminating. How in-
ferior, for SL'ciiig with, is your brightest train
of fireworks to the humblest farthing candle!
Who Diderot's companions, friends, enemies,
patrons were, what his way of life was, what
the Paris he lived in and from his garret looked
down on was, we learn only in hints, dislocated,
enigmatic. It is in general to be impressed
on us, that young Denis, as a sort of spiritual
swashbuckler, who went about conquering
Destiny, in light rapier-fence, by way of amuse-
ment; or at lowest, in reverses, gracefully
insulting her with mock reverences, — lived
and acted like no other man ; all which being
freely admitted, we ask, with small increase
of knowledge. How he did act then 1

He gave lessons in Mathematics, we find ;
but with the princeliesl indifference as to pay-
ment : " was his scholar lively, and prompt of
conception, he sat by him teaching all day;
did he chance on a blockhead, he returned not
back. They paid him in books, in movables,
in linen, in money, or not at all ; it was quite
the same." Farther, he made Sermons, (to
order ;) as the Devil is said to quote Scripture :
a Missionary bespoke half-a-dozen of him (of
Denis, that is) for the Portuguese Colonies,
and paid for them very handsomely at fifty
crowns each. Once, a family Tutorship came
in his way, with tolerable appointments, but
likewise with incessant duties : at the end of
three months, he waits upon the house-father
with this abrupt communication : " I am come,
Monsieur, to request you to seek a new tutor;
I cannot remain with you any longer." — "But,
Monsieur Diderot, what is your grievance!
Have you too little salary? I will double it.
Are you ill-lodged 1 Choose your apartment.
Is your table ill-served ? Order your own
dinner. All will be cheap to parting with you."
— "Monsieur, look at me: a citron is not so
yellow as my face. I am making men of your
children ; but every day I am becoming a child
with them. I feel a hundred times too rich
and two well off in your house; yet I must
leave it: the object of my wishes is not to live
better, but to keep from dying."

Mademoiselle grants that, if sometimes
"drunk with gayety," he was often enough
plunged in bitterness ; but then a Newtonian
problem, a fine thought, or any small godsend
of that sort, would instantly cheer him again.
The "gold mines" had not yet come to light
Meanwhile, between him and starvation we
can still discern Langres covertly stretching
out its hand. Of any Langres man, comint;

the slip. He returns to his quarters; on enter- in his way, Denis frankly borrows; and tho
ing he feels unwell; the landlady gives him a ' good old Father refuses not to pay. Th«

4Q4

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Mother is still kinder, at least softer : she sends
hmi direct help, as she can; not by the post,
but by a servin5:jmaid, who travelled these
sixty leagues on foot; delivered him a small
sum from his mother; and, without mention-
ing It, added all her own savings thereto. This
Samaritan journey she performed three times.
" I saw her some years ago," adds Mademoi-
selle; " she spoke of my faiher with tears ; her
whole desire was to see him again: sixty
years' service had impaired neither her sense
nor her sensibility."

It is granted also that his company was
"sometimes good, sometimes indifferent, not
tj say bad." Indeed putting all things to-
gether, we can easily fancy that the last sort
was the preponderating. It seems probable
that Den i,>, during these ten years of probation,
walked chielly in the subterranean shades of
R.isca^dom; now swilling from full Circe-
gobltls, now snuffing with hngsard expectancy
the hungry wind; always "sorely flamed on
from the neighbouring hel'." In some of his
fictitious writings, a most intimate acquaint-
ance with the neiher-world of Polis>ons, Es-
crocs, Filles de Joye, Maroutles, M.iquerel]es,
and their ways of doing, comes to light : among
other things, (as may be seen in Jan^uefi le
Fdii'lisie, and elsewhere,) a singular theoretic
expertiiess in what is lechnically named " rais-
ing the wind;" which mir.icie, indeed, Denis
himself is expre>sly (in this Memdiie) found
once perlbrming, and in a style t > require
legal cogni>ance, had not the worthy Father
"sneered at the dupe, and paid." The dupe
here was a proselytizing Abbe, whom the dog
glozed with professions of life-weariness and
turning monk; which all evaporated, fince the
money was in his hands. On other occasions,
it might turn out otherwise, and the gudgeon-
fisher hook some shark of prey.

Literature, except in the way of Sermons for
the Portuiiuese Colonies, or other the like
small private dealings, had not yet opened her
hospitable bosom to him. E[iisiles, precatory
anil amatory, for such as had more cash than
grammar, he may have written ; Catalogues
also, Indexes, Advertisements, and, in these
latter cases, even seen h.msi-lfin print. But
now he ventures forward, with bolder step, to-
wards the interior mysterits, and begins pro-
ducing l'ran^lations from the English. Litera-
ture, it is true, was then, as now, the universal
free-ho.-p'.tal and Refuge for the Destitute,
where all mortals, of what colour and kind so-
ever, had liberty to live, or at le:ist to die: never-
theless, for an enterprising man, its resources at
thatume were comparative'y limited. News-
p^ipers were few; Reporting existed not, still
le.ss the inferior branches, with their fixed rate
per line : Packwood and VVai ren, much more
Panckoucke, and Ladvocat, and Colburn, as
yet slumbered (the last century of their slum-
ber) in the womb of Chaos; Fragmentary
Panegyric-literature had not yet come into
being, therefore could not be pa'd for. Talent
wanted a free staple and workshop, where wages
might be certain; and too often, like virtue,
was praised and left starving. Lest the reader
overrate the ^munificence of the literary cornii-
r.onia In France at this epoch, let us lead him

into a small historical scene, that he may set
with his own eyes. Diderot is the historian ;
the date too is many years later, when times,
if any thing, were mended;

"I had given a poor devil a manuscript to
copy. The time he had promised it at having
expired, and my man not appearing, I grow
uneasy; set off to hunt him out. I find
him in a hole the size of my hand, almost
without daylight, not the wretchedest tatter of
serge to cover his walls ; two straw-bottom
chairs, a flock-bed, the coverlet chiselled with
worms, without curtains; a trunk in a corner
of the chimney, rags of all sorts hooked above
it; a little white-iron lamp, with a bottle for
pediment to it; on a deal shelf a dozen of ex-
cellent books. I chatted with him three quar-
ters of an hour. My gentleman was naked as
a Worm," {mi coinmc un ver: it was August;)
" lean, dingy, dry, yet serene, complaining of
nothing, eating his junk of bread with appe-
tite, and from lime to time caressing bis be-
loved, who reclined on that miserable truckle,
taking up two-thirds of the room. If I had
not known that happiness resides in the soul,
my Epictetus of the Rue Hyacinthe might
have taught it me."

Notwithstanding all which, Denis, now in
his twenty-ninth year, sees himself necessitated
to fall desperately, and over head and ears, in
love. It was a virtuous, pure attachment:
his first of that sort, probably also his last.
Readers who would see the business poetically
delineated, and what talent Diderot had for
such delineations, may read this Scene in the
once-noted Drama of the Pete dc Fuimlle. It
is known that he drew from the life; and with
few embellishments, which too, except in the
French Theatre, do not beautify.

"Act I. — Scene VII.

Snnt-Mbin. Father, you shall know all.
Alas! how else can I move you? — The first
time I ever saw her was at church. She was
on her knees at the foot of the altar, beside an
aged woman, whom I took for her mother.
Ah faiher! what modesty, what charms!....
Her image followed me by day, haunted me by
night, left me rest nowhere. I lost my cheer-
fulness, my health, my peace, I could not

live without seeking to find her She has

changed me ; I am no longer what I was.
From the first moment all shameful desires,
fadeaway from my soul; respect and admira-
tion succeed them. Without rebuke or restraint
on her paiM, perhaps before she had raised her
eyes on me, I became timid; more so from
day to day; and soon I felt as little free to
attempt her virtue as her life.

The Faiher. And who are these women?
How do they live ?

S lint-./llb.n. Ah! if you knew it, unhappy
as they are ! Imagine that their toil begins
before day, and often they have to continue it
through the night. The mother spins on the
wheel; hard coarse cloth is between the soft
small fingers of Sophie, ^nd wounds them.*

* Thft real trade appe.irs to tiave lieen a "sempstress
one in lares ami linens ;" Ihe poverty is snniewliat ex-
airgerated : ottierwise tlie stiadow may be faittiful
enough.

DIDEROT.

405

Her eyes, the brightest eyes ii this world, are
worn at the light of a lamp. She lives in a
garret, within four bare walls; a wooden table,
a couple of chairs, a truckle-bed, that is their
furniture. O Heavens, when ye fashioned
such a creature, was this the lot ye destined
her!

The Father. And how got you access 1 Speak
me truth. i

Sauit-Mbin. It is incredible what obstacles
I had, what I surmounted. Though now lodged
there, under the same roof, I at first did not
seek to see them: if we met on the stairs,
coming up, going down, I saluted them re-
spectfully. At night, when I came home, (for
all day I was supposed to be at my work,) I
would go knock gently at their door; ask them
for the little services usual among neighbours
— as water, fire, light. B}' degrees they grew
accustomed to me ; rather took to me. I
oifered to serve them in little things: for
instance, they disliked going out at night; I
fetched and carried for them."

The real truth here is, " I ordered a set of
shirts from them ; said I was a Church-licen-
tiate just hound for the Seminary of St. Nich-
olas,— and, above all, had the tongue of the
old serpent." But to skip much, and finish:

"Yesterday I came as usual: Sophie was
alone; she was sitting with her elbows on the
table, her head leant on her hand; her work
had fallen at her feet- I entered without her
hearing me : she sighed. Tears escaped from
between her fingers, and rtin along herhrms.
For some time, of late, I had seen her sad.
Why was she weeping] What was it that
grieved her? Want it could no longer be;
her labour and my attentions provided against
that. Threatened by the only misfortune ter-
rible to me, I did not hesitate : I threw myself
at her knees. What was her surprise : Sophie,
said I, you weep; what ails you? Do not
hide your trouble from me: speak to me; oh
speak to me ! She spoke not. Her tears con-
tinued flowing. Her eyes, where calmness no
longer dwelt, but tears and anxiety, bent to-
wards me, then turned away, then turned to
me again. She said only, Poor Sergi! un-
happy Sophie! — I had laid my face on her
knees ; I was wetting her apron with my tears."

In a word, there is nothing for it but mar-
riage. Old Diderot, joyous as he was to see
his Son once more, started back in indignation
and derision from such a proposal; and young
Diderot had to return to Paris, and be forbid
the beloved house, and fall sick, and come to
the point of death, before the fair one's scruples
could be subdued. However, she sent to get
news of him; "learnt that his room was a
perfect dog-kennel, that he lay without nou-
rishment, without attendance, wasted, sad:
thereupon she took her resolution: mounted
to him, promised to be his wife; and mother
and daughter now became his nurses. So
60on as he recovered, they went to Saint-
Pierre, and were married at midnight, (1744)."
It only remains to add, that if the Sophie whom
he had wedded fell much short of this Sophie
whom he delineates, the fault was less in her
qualities, than in his own unstable fancy : as
in youth she was " tall, beautiful, pious, and

wise," so through a long life she seems tc.
have approved herself a woman of courage,
discretion, laithful affection; far loo good a
wife for such a husband-

" My father was of too jealous a character to
let my mother continue a trafiic, which obliged
her to receive strangers and treat with them:
he begged her therefore to give up that busi-
ness; she was very loath to consent; poverty
did not alarm her on her ov/n account, but her
mother was old, unlikely to remain wiih her
long, and the fear of not being able to provide
for all her wants was afflicting: nevertheless,
persuading herself that this sacrifice was ne-
cessary for her husband's happiness, she made
it. A charwoman looked in daily, to sweep
their little lodging, and fetch provisions for the
day; my mother managed all the rest. Often
when my father dined or supped out, she would
dine or sup on bread ; and took a great plea-
sure in the thought that, next day, she could
double her little ordinary for him. Coflee was
too considerable a luxury for a household
of this sort: but she could not think of his
wanting it, and every day gave him six sous to
go and have his cup, at the Cafe de la Kegence,
and see the chess-playing there.

" It was now that he translated the Hhtory of
Greece in three volumes," (by the English
Stanyan ;) "he sold it for a hundred crowns.
This sum brought a sort of supply into the
house. • * *

" My mother had been brought to bed of a
daughter: she was now big a second time. In
spite of her precautions, solitary life, and the
pains she had taken to pass oft' her husband
as her brother, his family, in the seclusion of
their province, learnt that he was living with
two women. Directly the birth, the morals,
the character of my mother became objects
of the blackest calumny. He foresaw that
discussions by letter would be endless; he
found it simpler to put his wife into the stage-
coach, and send her to his parents. She had
just been delivered of a son ; he announced
this event to his father, and the departure of
my mother. ' She set out yesterday,' said he,
" she will be with you in three days. You
will say to her what shall please you, and send
her back when you are tired of her.' Singular
as this sort of explanation was, they determined,
in any case, on sending my father's sister to
receive her. Their first welcome was more
than cold: the evening grew less painful to
her; but next morning betimes sh: "ft^ent in to
her father-in-law; treated him as if h« had
been her own father; her respect and her ca-
resses charmed the good, sensible old man.
Coming down stairs, she began working: re-
fused nothing that could please a family wh^m
she was not afraid of, and wished to be loved
by. Her conduct was the only excuse she
gave for her husband's choice : her appear-
ance had prepossessed them in her favour;
her simplicity, her piety, her talents for house-
hold economy secured her their tenderness;
they promised her that my father's disinheril-
ment should be revoked. They kept her three
months; and sent her back loaded with what»
ever they could think would be useful or agree
able to her."

406

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

All this is beautiful, told with a graceful
fcimplicity ; the beautiful, real-ideal prose-idyl
cf a Literary Life : but, alas, in the music of
your prose-idyl there lurks ever an accursed
dissonance (or the players make one ;) where
men are, there will be mischief. "This jour-
ney," writes Mademoiselle, " cost my mother
many tears." What will the reader say, when
he finds that Monsieur Diderot has, in the in-
terim, taken up with a certain Madame de Piii-
sieux; and welcomes his brave Wife (worthy
to have been a true man's) with a heart and
bosom henceforth estranged from her! Ma-
dame Diderot "made two journeys to Langres,
and both were fatal to her peace." This af-
fair ■-" the Puisieux, for whom he despicably
enojgh not only burned, but toiled and made
money, kept him busy for some ten years; till
at length, finding that she played false, he
gave her up; and minor miscellaneous flirta-
tions seem to have succeeded. But, returning
from her second journey, the much-enduring
House-mother finds him in a meridian glory
with one Voland, the 7«?)-maiden Daughter of a
" Financier's Widow ;" to whom we owe this
present preternuptial Concfpondenrc : to whom
indeed he mainly devoted himself for the rest
of his life, "parting his time between his
study and her;" to his own Wife and house-
hold giving little save the trouble of cooking
for him, and of painfully, with repressed or
irrepressible discontent, keeping up some ap-
pearance of terms with him. Alas ! alas I
and his Puisieux seems to have been a hollow
Mercenary (to whose scandalous soul he
reckons obscenest of Books fit nutriment;)
and the Voland an elderly Spinster, with rmir
sensible, casur konnele, anic tcndre et bonne ! And
then those old dinings on bread; the six sous
spared for his cup of coffee! Foolish Diderot,
scarcely pardonable Diderot! A hard saying
it is, yet a true one: scoundrelism signifies
injustice, and should be left to scoundrels
alone. For thy wronged Wife, whom thou
hast sworn far other things to, ever in her af-
flictions (here so hostilely scanned and writ-
ten of,) a true sympathy will awaken ; and
sorrow that the patient, or even impatient, en-
durances of such a woman should be matter of
speculation and self-gratulation to such another.

But looking out of doors now, from an in-
diflTerently-guided Household, which must have
fallen shamefully in pieces, had not a wife
been wiser and stronger than her husband, —
we find the Philosophe making distinct way
with the Bibliopolic world ; and, likely, in the
end, to pick up a kind of living there. The
Stanyan's History of Greece : the other English-
translated, nameless Medical Dictionary, are
dropped by all editors as worthless : a like
fate might, with little damage, have overtaken
the Essai sur le Merile et la Vertu, rendered or
redacted out of Shaftesbury's Charac! eristics.
In which redaction, with its Notes, of anxious
Orthodoxy, (and bottomless Falsehood looking
through it,) we individually have found no-
thing, save a confirmation of the old twice-
repeated experience. That in Shaftesbury's
famed Book there lay, if any meaning, a
meaning of such Icng-windedness, circumvo-
'utiou, and lubricity, that, like an eel, it must

for ever slip through our fingers, and leave us
alone among the gravel. One reason may
partly be, that Shaftesbury was not only a
Skeptic but an Amateur Skeptic; which sort
a darker, more earnest, have long since swal-
lowed and abolished. The meaning of a deli-
cate, perfumed, gentlemanly individual stand-
ing there, in that war of Titans, (hill meeting
hill with all its woods,) and putting out hand
to it — with a pair of tweezers 1

However, our Denis has now emerged from
the intermediate Hades of Translatorship into
the Heaven of perfected Authorship; empties
his common-place lx)ok of Fensecs Philoso-
phiques, (it is said in the space of four days;)
writes his metaphysico-Baconian phantasma-
gories on the Inta-prelation de la Nature, (an
endless business to "interpret;") and casts
the money-produce of both into the lap of his
Scarlet-woman Puisieux. Then forthwith, for
the same object, in a shameful fortnight, puts
together the beastliest of all past, present, or
future dull Novels; a diflicult feat, unhappily
not an impossible one. If any mortal crea-
ture, even a Reviewer, be again compelled to
glance into that Book, let hina bathe himself
in running water, put on change of raiment,
and be unclean until the even. As yet the
metaphysico-Atheistic Lettre sttr les Sourds et
Miiets, and Lettre sur les Jlveiigles, which brings
glory and a three months' lodging in the Cas-
tle of Vincennes, are at years' distance in th«
background. But already by his gilded tongue,
growing repute, and sanguineous, projecting
temper, he has persuaded Booksellers to pay
off the Abbe Gua, with his lean Version of
Chambers's Dictionary of .^rts, and convert it in-
to an Enryclopedie, with himself and D'Alem-
bert for Editors ; and is henceforth (from the
year of grace 175?) a duly dis-indenlured
Man of Letters, an indisputable and more and
more conspicuous member of that surprising
guild.

Literature, ever since its appearance in our
European world, especially since it emerged
out of Cloisters into the open Market-place,
and endeavoured to make itself room, and
gain a subsistence there, has offered the strang-
est phases, and consciously or unconsciously
done the strangest work. Wonderful Ark of the
Deluge, where so much that is precious, nay
priceless to mankind, floats carelessly onwards
through the Chaos of distracted Times, — if so
be it may one day find an Ararat to rest on,
and see the waters abate ! The History of
Literature, especially for the last two centu-
ries, is our proper Church History ; the other
Church, during that lime, having more and
more decayed from its old functions and influ-
ence, and ceased to have a history. And now,
to look only at the outside of the matter, think
of the Tassos and older or later Racines,
struggling to raise their offir? from its pristine
abasement of Court-jester; and teach and ele-
vate the World, in conjunction with that other
quite heteroclite task of solacing and glorify-
ing some Pnllus Jovis, in plush cloak and other
gill or golden king-tackle, that they in the in-
terim might live thereby ! Consider the Shak-
speares and Molieres, plying a like trade, bui
on a double material : glad of any roval or

DIDEROT.

407

noble patroiivge, but eliciting:, as their surer
stay, some fractional contribution from the
thick skinned, many-pocketed million. Sau-
maises, new bully-fighting "for a hundred
gold Jacobuses," now closeted with Queen
Christinas, who blow the fire with their oM'n
queenly mouth, to make a pedant's breakfast;
anon cast forlh (being scouted and confuted,)
and dying of heartbreak, coupled with hen-
peck. Then tl e Laws of Copyright, the
Quarrels of Authors, the Calamities of Au-
thors ; the Heynej dining on boiled peasecods,
the Jean Pauls on water; the Johnsons bed-
ded and boarded on fourpence-halfpenny a-day.
Lastly, the unutterable confusion worse con-
foun(led of our present Periodical existence;
when, among other phenomena, a young
Fourth Estate (whom all the three elder may
try if they can hold) is seen sprawling and
staggering tumnliuously through the world;
as yet but a huge, raw-boned, lean calf; fast
growing, however, to he a Pharaoh's lean cow,
— of whom let the fatkine beware! All ihisof
the mere exterior, or dwelling-place of Litera-
ture, not yet glancing at the iniernal, at the
Doctf^ines emitted or striven after, will the fu-
ture Eusebius and Atosheim have to record ;
and (in some small degree) explain to us
wh?t it means. Unfathomable is its meaning:
Life, mankind's Life, ever from its unfathom-
abl*? fountains, rolls wondrous on, another
though the same ; in Literature too, the seeing
eye will distinguish Apostles of the Gentiles,
Proto and Deutero-maityrs ; still less will the
Simon Magus, or Apollonius with the golden
thigh be wanting. I3ut all now is on an infi-
nite y wider acah : the elements of it all swim
far scattered, and still only striving towards
union ; — whereby, indeed, it happens that to
the most, under this new figure, they are unre-
cognisable.

French Literature, in Diderot's time, presents
i'self in a certain state of culmination, where
causes long prepared are rapidly becoming
effects; and was doubtless in one of its more
notable epochs. Under the Economic aspect,
in France, as in England, this was the Age of
Booksellers ; when, as a Dodsley and Miller
could risk capital in an Ehs^IikIi Diciiomvy, a
Lebreton and Briasson could become purvey-
ors and commissariat officers fora French En-
cydopeilir. The world for ever loves Knowledge,
and would part its last sixpence in payment
thereof: this your Dodsleys and Lebretons
well saw ; moreover they could act on it, for as
yetPuFFKuv was not. Alas, offences mustcome;
Puffery from the first was inevitable: wo
to them, nevertheless, by whom it did come!
Meanwhile, as we said, it slept in Chaos: the
Word of man and tradesman was still partially
credible to man. Booksellers were therefore a
possible, were even a necessary class of mor-
tals, though a strangely anomalous one; had
they kept from lying, or litd with any sort of
moderation, the anomaly might have lasted
still longer. For the present, they managed in
Paris as elsewhere : the Timber-headed could
perceive that for Thought the world would give
money; farther, by mere shopkeeper cunning,
.hat true Thought, as in the end sure to be re-
cognised, and by nature infinitely more dura-

ble, was better to deal m than false ; farther, by-
credible tradition of p iblic consent, that such
and such had the talent of furnishing true
Thought, (say rather /?i/f/-, as the more correct
word:) on this hint the Timber-headed spake
and bargained. Nay, let us say he bargained,
and worked, for most part with industrious as-
siduity, with patience, suitable prudence ; nay,
sometimes with touches of generosity and
magnanimity, beautiful!}' irradiating the cir-
cumambient mass of greed and dulness. For
the rest, the two high contracting parties
roughed it out as they could; so that if Book-
sellers, in their back parlour Valhalla, drank
wine out of the sculls of Authors, (as they were
fabled to do,) Autht)rs, in the front-apartments,
from time to time, gave them a Rowland for
their Oliver: a Johnson can knock his Os-
borne on the head, like any other Bull of
Bashan ; a Diderot commands his corpulent
Panckouke to "leave the room and go to the
devil ;" ullcz au (liable, sorlez de chcz moil

Under the internal or Doctrinal aspect, again,
French Literature, we can see, knew far better
what it was about than English. That fable,
indeed, first set afloat by some Trevoux Jour-
nalist of that period, and which has floated
foolishly enough into every European ear since
ihen, of there being an Association specially
organized for the cle-^truction of government,
religion, society, civility, (not to speak of tithes,
rents, life, and property,) all over the world;
which hell-serving Association met at the
Baron d'Holbach's, there had its blue-light
sederunts, and published Transactions legible
to all, — was and remains nothing but a fiible.
Minute-books, president's hammer, ballot-box,
punch-bowl of such Pandemonium have not
been produced to the world. The sect of Phi-
losophes existed at Paris, but as other sects
do; held together by loosest, informal, unre-
cognised ties; within which every one, no
doubt, followed his own natural objects, of
proselytism, of glory, of getting a livelihood.
Meanwhile, whether in constituted associatioa
or not, French Philosophy resided in the per-
sons of the French Philosophes; and, as a
mighty deep-struggling force, was at work
there. Deep struggling, irrepressible; the sub-
terranean fire, which long heaved unquietly,
and shook all things with an ominous motion,
was here, we can say, forming itself a decided
spiracle; — which, by and by, as French Revo-
lution, became that voldano-crater, world-
famous, world-appalling, world-maddening, as
yet very far from closed! Fontenelle said,
he wished he could live sixty years longer, and
see what that universal infidelity, depravity, and
dissolution of all ties would turn to. Li three-
score years Fontenelle might have seen strange
things; but not the end of the phenomenon,
perhaps in three hundred.

Why France became such a volcano-crater,
what specialities there were in the Fiench
national character, and political, moral, intel-
lectual condition, by virtue whereof French Phi-
losophy there and not elsewhere, then and not
sooner or later, evolved itself, — is an inquiry
that has been often put, and cheerfully an-
swered; the true answer of which might lead
us far. Still deeper than this Whence were the

40d

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

question of iVlather ; — with which, also, we in-
termeddle not here. Enough for us to under-
stand that there verily a Scene of Universal
History is being enacted (a little living time-
picture in the bosom of kteunitt) — and with
the feeling due in that case, to ask not so much
Why it is, as What it is. Leaving priorities
and posteriorities aside, and cause-and-effect to
adjust itself elsewhere, conceive so many vivid
spirits thrown together into Europe, into the
Paris of that day, and see how they demean
themselves, what they work out and attain
there,

As the mysfiral enjoyment of an object goes
infim'.'.ely farther than the inldlcciua}, and we
can lunk at a picture with delight and profit,
after all that we can be tauj;ht about it is grown
poor and wearisome ; so here, and by far
stronger reason, these light Letters of Diderot
to the Voland, again unveiling and sliowiii^
Parisian Life, are worth more to us than many
a heavy tome laboriously struggling to explain
it. True, we have seen the picture (that same
Parisian life-picture) ten times already; but
can look at it an eleventh time; nay this, as we
said, is not a canvas-picture, but a life-picture,
of whose significance there is no end for us.
Grudge not the elderly Spinster her existence,
then; say not she has lived in vain. For what
of History there is, in this Preternuptial Cor-
respondence, should we not endeavour to for-
give and forget all else, the sensihilile itself?
The curtain which had fallen for almost a cen-
tury is again drawn up ; the scene is alive and
busy. Figures grown historical are here seen
face to face, and again live before us.

A strange theatre that of French Philoso-
phism ; a strange dramatic corps ! Such ano-
ther corps for brilliancy and levity, for gifts
and vices, and all manner of sparkling incon-
sistencies, the world is not like to see again.
There is Patriarch Voltaire, of all Frenchmen
the most French ; he whom the French had, as
it were, long wailed for, "to produce at once,
in a single life, all that French genius most
prized and most excelled in ;" of him and his
wondrous ways, as of one known, we need say
little. Instant enough to " crush the Abomina-
tion" {ecrascr VInfiimc,) he has prosecuted his
Jesuit-hunt over many lands and many centu-
ries, in many ways, with an alacrity that has
made him dangerous, and endangered him :
he now sits at Ferney, withdrawn from the ac-
tive toils of the chase; cheers on his hunting-
dogs mostly from afar: Diderot, a beagle of the
first vehemence, he has rather to restrain. That
all extant and possible Theology be abolished,
wil. not content the fell Denis, as surely it
might have done; the Patriarch must address
him a friendly admonition on his Atheism, and
make him eat it again.

D'Alembert, too, we may consider as one
known; of all the Philosophe fraternity, he
who in speech and conduct agrees best with
our English notions ; an independent, patient,
prudent man; of great faculty, especially of
great clearness and method ; famous in Mathe-
matics; no less so, to the wonder of some, in
the intellectual provinces of Literature. A
foolish wonder; as if the Thinker could think
only on one thing, and not on an?/ thing he had

a call towards. D'Alembert's Melnriges, as the
impress of a genuine spirit, in peculiar posi-
tion and probation, have still instruction, for
us, both of head and heart. The man lives
retired here, in questionable seclusion M-ith his
Espinasse; incurs the suspiciim of aposiasy,
because in the Kniiji!oj,r.i/ir he saw no Evaiigilc
and celestial Revelaticui, but only a huge Folio
Dictionary; and would not venture life and
limb on it, without a "consideration." Sad
was it to Diderot to see his fellow-voyager
malce for port, and disregard signals, when the
sea-krakens rose round him ! 'J'hey did not
quarrel; were always friendly when they met,
but latterly met only at the rate of "one in
the two years." D'Alembert died when Didtrot
was on his death-bed: "My friend," said tie
latter to the news-bringer, "a great light is
gone out."

Hovering in the distance, with wo-struck,
minatory air, stern-beclconing, comes Rous-
seau. Poor Jean Jacques ! Alternately deified,
and cast to the dogs; a deep-minded, high-
minded, even noble, yet wofully misarranged
mortal, with all misfoi mations of Nature in-
lensated to the verge of madness by unfavour-
able Fortune. A lonely man ; his life a long
soliloquy! The wandering Tiresias of the
time; — in whom, however, did lie prophetic
meaning, such as none of the others ofi^er.
Whereby indeed it might partly be that the
world went to such extremes about him; that,
long after his departure, we have seen one
whole nation worship him, and a Burke, in
the name of another, class him with the ofl!"-
scourings of the earth. His true character,
with its lofty aspirings and poor performings;
and how the spirit of the man worked so
wildl}% like celestial fire in a thick dark ele-
ment of chaos, and shot forth ethereal radi-
ance, all-piercing lightning, yet could not
illuminate, was quenched and did not conquer:
this, with what lies in it, may now be pretty
accurately appreciated. Let his history teach
all whom it concerns, to "/iy/jy/cw themselves
against the ills which Mother Nature will try
them with;" to seek within their own soul
what the world must for ever deny them; and
say composedly to the Prince of the Power of
this lower Earth and Air: Go thou thy way;
I go mine!

Rousseau and Diderot were early friends :
who has forgotten how Jean Jacques walked
to the Castle of Vincennes, where Denis (for
heretical Metaphysics, and irreverence to the
Strumpetocracy) languishes in durance; and
devised his first Literary Paradox on the road
thither'! Their Quarrel, which, as a fashion-
able hero of the time complains, occupied all
Paris, is likewise famous enough. The reader
recollects that heroical epistle of Diderot tc
Grimm on that occasion, and the sentence:
" Oh, my friend, let us continue virtuous, for
the state of those who have ceased to be so
makes me shudder." But is the reader aware
what the fault of him "who had ceased to be
so" was1 A series of ravelments and squab-
bling grudges, "which," says Mademoiselle
with much siriiplicity, " the Devil himself could
not understand." Alas, the Devil well under
stood it, and Tyrant Grimm too did, who had

DIDEROT.

409

the ear of Diderot, and poured into it his own
unjust, almost abominable spleen. Clean
paper need not be soiled with a foul story,
where the main actor is only "Tyran le
Blanc;'' enough to know that the " continually
virt\ious" Tyrant found Diderot "extremely
impressionable ;" so poor Jean Jactjues must go
his ways, (with both the scath and the scorn,)
and among his many woes bear this also.
Diderot is notblamabie; pitiable rather; for
who would be a pipe, which not Fortune only,
but any Sycophant may play tunes on T

Of this same Tyrant Grimm, desiring to
speak peaceably, wi shall say little. The
man himself is less remarkable than his for-
tune. Changed times indeed, since the thread-
bare German Bursch quitted Ratisbon, with
the sound of cat-calls in his ears, the con-
demned " Tragedy, Banise," in his pocket ; and
fled southward, on a thin travelling-tutorship;
— since Rousseau met you, Herr Grimm, "a
young man described as seeking a situation,
and whose appearance indicated the pressing
necessity he was in of soon finding one!"
Of a truth, you have flourished since then,
Herr Grimm : his introductions of you to
Diderot, to Holbach, to the black-locked
D'Epinay, where not only you are wormed in,
but he is wormed out, have turned to some-
what; the Thread-bare has become well-
napped, and got ruffles and jewel-rings, and
walks abroad in sword and bag-wig, and
lackers his brass countenance with rouge, and
so (as Tyran le Blanc) recommends himself to
the fair; and writes Parisian Philosophe-
gossip to the Hyperborean Kings, and his
Grimm's Leaves, copied "to the number of
twenty," are bread of life to many ; and cringes
here, and domineers there: and lives at his
ease in the Creation, in an effective tcndrcsse
with the D'Epinay, husband or custom of the
country not objecting! — Poor BiJrne, the new
German flying Sansculotte, feels his mouth
water, at Paris, over these fleshpots of Grimm ;
reflecting with what heart he too could write
"Leaves," and be fed thereby. BiJrne, my
friend, those days are done? While Northern
Courts were a "Lunar Versailles," it was well
to have an Uriel stationed in their Sun there ;
but of all spots in this Universe (hardly ex-
cepting Tophet) Paris now is the one we at
court could best dispcmc with news from ; never
more, in these centuries, will a Grimm be mis-
sioned thither; never a "Leaf of Borne" be
blown court-wards by any wind. As for the
Grimm, we can see that he was a man made
to rise in the world: a fair, even handsome
outfit of talent, wholly marketable; skill in
music, and the like, encyclopedical readiness
in all ephemera; saloon-wit, a trenchant, un-
nesitaling head; above all, a heart ever in the
right place, — in the market-place, namely, and
marked " for sale to the highest bidder."
Really a methodical, adroit, managing man.
By "hero-worship," and the cunning appliance
of alternate sweet and sullen, he has brought
Diderot to be his patient milch-cow, whom he
can milk an Essay from, a Volume from, when
he lists. Victorious Grimm! He even es-
CFpod those same "horrors of the French
52

Revolution," (with loss of his ruffles ;'^ and was
seen at the (Jourt of Golha. sl^ek and well to
live, wiihin the memory of man.

The world has heard of M. le Chevalier de
Saint-Lambert; considerable in Literature, in
Love, and War. He is here aga.n, singing the
frostiest Pastorals; happily, however, only in
the distance, and the jingle of his wires soon
dies away. Of anoiher Chevalier, worthy
Jancouri, be the name mentioned, and little
more : he digs unweariedly, mole-wise, in the
Encyclopedic field, catching what he can, and
shuns the light. Then there is Helvetius, the
well-fed Farmer-general, enlivening his sybari-
tic life with metaphysic paradoxes. His reve-
lations, De Vllotnme and De l' Espril, hrealhe the
freest Philosophe-spirit, with Philanthropy and
Sensibility enough : the greater is our astonish-
ment to find him here so ardent a Preserver
of the Game:

"This Madame de Noce," writes Diderot,
treating of the Bourhonne Hot-springs, " is a
neighbour of Helvetius. She told us, the
Philosopher was the unhappiest man in the
world on his estates. He is surrounded there
by neighbours and peasants M'ho detest him.
They break the windows of his mansion,
plunder his grounds by night, cut his trees,
throw down his walls, tear up his spiked
paling. He dare not go to shodt a hare,
without a train of people to guard him. You
will ask me, how it has come to pass ? By a
boundless zeal for his game. M. Fagon, his
predecessor, used to guard the grounds with
two keepers and two guns. Helvetius has
twenty-four, and cannot do it. These men
have a small premium for every poacher they
can catch ; and there is no sort of mischief
they will not cause to get more and more of
these. Besides, they are themselves so many
hired poachers. Again, the border of his
woods was inhabited by a set of poor people,
who had got huts there ; he has caused all
the huts to be swept away. It is these, and
such acts of repeated tyranny, that have raised
him enemies of all kinds ; and the more inso-
lent, says Madame de Noce, as they have dis-
covered that the worthy Philosopher is a
coward. I would not have his fine estate of
Vore as a present, had I to live there in these
perpetual alarms. What profits he draws from
that mode of management I know not: but
he is alone there; he is hated, — he is in fear.
Ah ! how much wiser was our lady Geoffrin,
when speaking of a lawsuit that tormented her,
she said to me, 'Get done with my lawsuit;
they want money? I have it. Give them
money. What better use can I make of my
money than to buy peace with it?' In Helve-
tius's place, I would have said, 'They kill me
a few hares and rabbits, let them be doing.
These poor creatures have no shelter but my
forest, let them stay there.' I should have
reasoned like M. Fagon, and been adored like
him."

Alas! are not Helvetius's preserves, at this
hour, all broken up, and lying desecrated'
Neither can the others, in what latitude and
longitude soever, remain eternally impregna-
ble. But if a Rome was one ; saved bv geesei
2M

410

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

need we wonder that an England is lost by
partridj^es] We are sons of Eve, who bartered
Paradise for an apple.

But to return to Paris and its Philosophe
Church militant. Here is a Marmontel, an
active subaltern thereof, who fights in a small
wa}', through the Merrurc ; and, in rose-pink
romance-pictures, strives to celebrate the
"m<iral sublime." An Abbe Morellet, busy
wiih the Corn Laws, walks in at intervals,
stooping, shrunk together, "as if to get nearer
himself" {-paw etre plus pics dc hti-niemc.) The
rogue Galiani aliernaies between Naples and
Paris; Galiani, by good luck, has, "for ever
settled the question of the Corn Laws;" an
idle fellow otherwise; a spiritual Lazzarone ;
full of frolics, wanton quips, anti-jesuit ,?es/",
and wild Italian hbmour; the sight of his
swart, sharp face is the signal for Laughter, —
in which indeed, the Man himself has unhap-
pily evaporated, leaving no result behind
him.

Of the Baron d'Holbach thus much may be
said, thai both at Paris and at Grandval he gives
goi'd dinners. His two or three score volumes
of Atheistic Philosophism, which he published,
(at his own expense,) may now be for'a;otten
and even forgiven. A purse open and deep,
a heart kindly-disposed, quiet, sociable, or even
friendly ; these, with excellent wines, gain
him a literary elevation, which no thinking
faculty he had could have pretended to. An
easy, laconic gentleman; of grave politeness;
apt to lose temper at play; yet, on the whole,
good-humoured, eupeptic, and eupractic : there
may he live and let live.

Nor is heaven's last gift to man wanting
here ; the natural sovereignty of women. Your
Chiltelets, Epinays, Espinasses, GeolTrins, Def-
fands, will play their part too; there shall, in
all senses, be not only Philosophers, but Phi-
losophesses. Strange enough is the figure
these women make: good souls, it was a
strange world for them. What M'ith meta-
physics and flirtation, system of nature, fashion
of dress-caps, vanity, curiosity, jealousy,
atheism, rheumatism, trai'.es,botus-rimh, noble-
sentiments, and rouge-pots, — the vehement fe-
male intellect sees itself sailing on a chaos,
where a wiser might have wavered, if not
foundered. For the rest, (as an accurate ob-
server has remarked,) they become a sort of
Lady-Presidents in that society ; attain great
influence ; and, imparting as well as receiving,
communicate to all that is done or said some-
what of their own peculiar tone.

In a world so wide and multifarious, this
little band of Philosophes, acting and speaking
as they did, had a most various reception to
expect; votes divided to the uttermost. The
mass of mankind, busy enough with their own
work, of course heeded them only when forced
'.o do it; these, meanwhile, form the great
neutral element, in which the battle has to
fight itself; the two hosts, according to their
several success, to recruit themselves. Of the
Higher Classes, it appears, the small propor-
tion not wholly occupied in eatingand dressing,
and therefore open to such a question, are in
their favour, — strange as to us it may seem;

the spectacle of a Church pulled down is, in
stagnant times, amusing, nor do the generality,
on either side, yet see whither ulteriorly it is
tending. The Reading World, which was
then more than now the intelligent, inquiring
world, reads eagerly (as it will ever do) what-
soever skilful, sprightly, reasonable-looking
word is written for it; enjoying, appropriating
the same; perhaps without fixed judgment, or
deep care of any kind. Careful enough, fixed
enough, on the other hand, is the Jesuit
Brotherhood; in these days sick unto death;
but only the bitterer and angrier for that.
Dangerous are the death-convulsions of an
expiring Sorbonne, ever and anon filling Paris
with agitation : it behooves your Philosophe
to walk warily, and, in many a critical circum-
stance, to weep with the one cheek, and
smile with the other. Nor is Literature it:>elf
wholly Philosophe : apart from the Jesuit
regulars, in their Trevoux Journals, Sermojjs,
Episcopal Charges, and other camps or case-
mates, a considerable Guerrilla, or Reviewer
force (consisting, as usual, of smugglers, un-
employed destitute persons, deserters who have
been refused promotion, and other the like
broken characters) has organized itself, and
maintains a harassing bush-warfare: of these
the chieftain is Freron, once in tolerable repute
with the world, had he not, carrying too high
a head, struck his foot on stones, and stumbled.
By the continual depreciating of talent, grown
at length undeniable, he has sunli low enough:
Voltaire, in the iVossaisr, can bring him on the
stage, and have him killed by laughter, undei
the name, sufficiently recognisable, of iVasp
(in French, Fitlua.) Another Empecenador,
still more hateful, is Palissot, who has written
and got acted a Comedy of Les Philosopher, at
which the Parisians, spite of its dulness, have
also laughed. To laugh at us ! The so merito-
rious us! Heard mankind ever the like'! For
poor Palissot, had he fallen into Philosophe
hands, serious bodily tar-and-feathering might
have been apprehended : as it was, they do
what the pen, with its gall and copperas, can ;
invoke Heaven and Earth to witness the treat-
ment of divine Philosophy; — with which view,
in particular, friend Diderot seems to have
composed his Km/teaiis Nephew, wherein Palis-
sot and others of his kidney are (figuratively
speaking) mauled and mangled, and left not
in dog's likeness. So divided was 'he world,
Literary, Courtly, Miscellaneous, on this mat-
ter: it was a confused anomalous time.

Among its more notable anomalies may be
reckoned the relations ofFrench Philosophism
to foreign Crowned Heads. In Prussia there
is a Philosophe King; in Russia a Philosophe
Empress : the whole North swarms with king-
lets and queenlets of the like temper. Nay, as
we have seen, they entertain their special am-
bassador in Philosophedom, their lion's-provider
to furnish spiritual Philosophe-provencler; and
pay him well. The great Frederic, me great
Catherine, are as nursing-father and nursing
mother to this new Church of Antichrist, ,u
all straits, ready with money, honourable royal
asylum, help of every sort, — which, however^
except in the money-shape, the wiser of out
Philosophes are shy of receiving. Voltaire has

DIDEROT.

411

tried it in the asylum shape, and found it un-
suitable; D'Alembert and Diderot decline re-
peating the experiment. What miracles are
wrought by the arch-magician Time! Could
these Frederics, Catherines, Josephs, have
looked forward some three-score years; and
beheld the Holy Alliance in conference at
Laybach ! But so goes the world : kings are
not seraphic doctors, with gift of prescience,
but only men, with common eyesight, partici-
pating in the influences of their generation :
kings too, like all mortals, have a certain love
of knowledge; still more infallibly, a certain
desire of applause; a certain deliglit in morti-
fying one another. Thus what is persecuted
here finds refuge there ; and ever, one way or
other, the New works itself out full-formed
from under the Old; nay the Old, as in this
instance, sits sedulously hatching a cockatrice
that will one day devour it.

No less anomalous, confused, and contradic-
tory is the relation of the Philosophes to their
own Government. How, indeed, could it be
otherwise, their relation to Society being still
so undecided; and the Government, which
might have endeavoured to adjust and preside
over this, being itself in a state of anomaly,
death-lethargy, and doting decrepitude! The
true conduct and position for a French Sove-
reign towards French Literature, in that coun-
try, might have been, though perhaps of all
things the most important, one of the most dif-
ficult to discover and accomplish. What chance
was there that a thick-blooded Louis Quinze,
from his Pare aux Cerfs, Should discover it,
should have the faintest inkling of it 1 His
"peaceable soul" was quite otherwise employ-
ed : Minister after Minister must consult his
own several insight, his own whim, above all
his own ease : and so the whole business, now
when we look on it, comes out one of the most
botched, piebald, inconsistent, lamentable, and
even ludicrous objects in the history of State-
craft. Alas, necessity has no law: the states-
man, without light, perhaps even without eyes,
whom Destiny nevertheless constrains to go-
vern (what is still called governing) his nation
in a time of World-Downfal, what shall he do,
but if so may be, collect the taxes, prevent
(in some degree) murder and arson ; and for
the rest, wriggle hither and thither, return upon
his steps, clout up old rents and open new, —
and, on the whole, eat his victuals, and let the
devil take it? Of the pass to which States-
manship had come in respect of Philosophism,
let this one lact be evidence instead of a thou-
sand. M. de Malesherbes writes to warn Di-
derot that next day he will give orders to have
all his papers seized. — Impossible! answers
Diderot:jMs/e del! how shall I sort them, where
shall I hide them, within four-and-twenty
hours 1 Send Uiem lo vie, answers M. de Males-
herbes ! 'i'hither accordingly they go, under
lock and seal; and the hungry catchpoles find
nothing but empty drawers.

The EncijiiojjciHe was set forth first " with
approbation" and Privilege du Hot ,• next, it was
stopped by Authority ; next, the public mur-
muring suffered to proceed; then again, posi-
tively for the last time, stopped, — and, no whit
the less, printed, and written, and circulated,

under thin disguises, some hundrst and fifty
printers working at it with open doors, all
Paris knowing of it, only Authority winking
hard. Choiseul, in his resolute way, had now
shut the eyes of Authority, and kept them shut.
Finally, to crown the whole matter, a copy of
the prohibited Book lies in the King's private
library: and owes favour, and a withdrawal
of the proh-ibition, to the foolishest accident:

" One of Louis Fifteenth's domestics told
me," says Voltaire, " that once, the king his
master supping, in private circle (en petite com-
pui^iiic,) at Trianon, the conversation turned
first on the chase, and from this on gu:jMOwder.
Some one said that the best powder was made
of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal, in equal
parts. The Due de la Valliere, with better
knowledge, maintained that for good powder
there must be but one part of sulphur, one of
charcoal, with five of saltpetre, well filtered,
well evaporated, well crystallized.

" ' It is pleasant,' said the Due de Nivernois,
' that we who daily amuse ourselves with kill-
ing partridges in the Park of Versailles, and
sometimes with killing men, or getting our-
selves killed, on the frontiers, should not know
what that same work of killing is done with.'

"'Alas! we are in the like case with all
things in this world,' answered Madame de
Pompadour; 'I know not what the rouse I put
upon my cheeks is made of; you would bring
me to a nonplus, if you asked how the silk
hose I wear are manufactured.' ' 'Tis a pity,'
said the Due de Valliere, ' that his majesty
confiscated our Diciioiinaires Enrydopediques,
which cost us our hundred pistoles ; we should
soon find the decision of all our questions
there.' The King justified the act of confis-
cation ; he had-been informed that these twen-
ty-one folio volumes, to be found lying on all
ladies' toilettes, were the most pernicious
things in the world for the kingdom of France;
he had resolved to look for himself if this
were true, before sufl^ering the book to circu-
late. Towards the end of the repast, he sends
three of his valets to bring him a copy ; they
enter, struggling under seven volumes each.
The article powder is turned up ; the Due de la
Valliere is found to be right: and soon Ma-
dame Pompadour learns the difference between
the old rouge d'Espugne with which the ladies
of Madrid coloured their cheeks, ar-i iherouge
des dames of Paris. She finds that .he Greek
and Roman ladies painted with a ■ urple ex-
tracted from the mures, and that cc.sequently
our scarlet is the purple of the anc":»nts ; that
there is more purple in the nms:c i'Espugne,
and more cochineal in that of Fr>Jice. She
learns how stockings are woven ; the stock-
ing-frame described there fills her with amaze-
ment. 'Ah, what a glorious book !' cried she.
'Sire, did you confiscate this magazine of all
useful things, that you might have it wholly to
yourself, then, and be the one learned man in
your kingdom V Each threw himself on the
volumes, like the daughters of Lycom»'des oa
the jewels of Ulysses ; each four; . forthwith
whatever he was seeking. Some who had
lawsuits were surprised to find the decision of
them there. The King reads there all the
rights of his crown. ' Well, in truth,' (niaii

412

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

vraimcnt,) said he, ' I know not why they said
so much ill of the book.' 'Ah, Sire,' said the
Due de Nivernois, 'does not your majesty
see,' &c. &c."

In such a confused world, under such un-
heard of circumstances, must friend Diderot
ply his editorial labours. No sinecure is it!
Penetrating into all subjects and sciences;
waiting and rummaging in all libraries, iabo-
ratoi ies ; nay, for many years, fearlessly div-
ing into all manner of workshops, unscrewing
stocking looms, and even working thereon,
(that the department of ^rts tind Trades might
be perfect;) then seeking out contributors, and
flattering them ; quickening their laziness, get-
ting payment for them ; quarrelling with Book-
sellerand Printer; bearing all miscalculations,
misffirtunes, misdoings of so many fallible men
(for there ail at last lands) on his single back:
surely this was enough, without having farther
to do battle with the beagles of Office, peri-
lously withstand them, expensively sop them,
toilsomely elude them! Nevertheless, he per-
severes, and will not but persevere ; — less, per-
haps, with the deliberate courage of a Man,
who has compared result and outlay, than with
the passionate obstinacy of a Woman who,
having made up her mind, will shrink at no
ladder of ropes, but ride with her lover, though
all the four Elements gainsay it. At every
new concussion from the Powers, he roars; say
rather, shrieks, for there is a female shrillness
in it; proclaiming. Murder! Robbery! Rape!
invoking men and angels ; meanwhile proceeds
unweariedly with the printing. It is a hostile
building up (not of the Holy Temple at Jeru-
salem, but of the Unholy one at Paris :) thus
must Diderot, like Ezra, come to sirange ex-
tremities ; and every workman works with his
trowel in one hand, in the other his weapon of
war; that so, in spite of all Tiglaths, the work
go on, and the top-stone of it be brought out
with shouting.

Shouting! Ah! what faint broken quaver is
that in the shout; as of a man that shouted with
the throat only, and inwardly was bowed down
with dispiritment] It is Diderot's faint broken
quaver: he is sick and heavy of soul. Scan-
dalous enough : the Goth, Lebreton, loving,
as he says, his head better even than his profit,
has for years gone privily at dead of night, to
the finished Encyclopedic proof-sheets, and
there with nefarious pen, scratched out what-
ever to him seemed dangerous; filling up the
gap as he could, or merely letting it fill itself
up. Heaven and Earth I Not only are the
finer Philosophe sallies mostly cut out, — but
hereby has the work become a sunken, hitch-
ing, ungainly mass, little better than a mon-
strosity. Goth ! Hun ! sacrilegious Attila of
the book-trade ! Oh, surely for this treason
the hottest of Dante's Purgatory were too tem-
perate. Infamous art thou, Lebreton, to all
ages, — that read the Encyrh^edic : and Phi-
losophes not yet in s\'ad;lling-clothes shall
gnash their teeth over tl ee, and spit upon thy
memory. — Lebreton pockets both the abuse
and the cash, and sleeps sound in a whole
skin. The able Editor could never be said to
get the better of it.

Now, however, it is time that; quitting gen-

eralities, we go, in this fine autumn weather,
to Holbach's at Grandval, where the hard-
worked, but unwearied Encyclopedist, with
plenty of ink and writing paper, is sure to be.
Ever in the Holbach household, his arrival is
a holiday; if a quarrel spring up, it is only
because he will not come, or too soon goes
away. A man of social talent, with such a
tongue as Diderot's, in a mansion where the
only want to be guarded against was that of
wit, could not be other than welcome. He
composes Articles there, and walks, and dines,
and plays cards, and talks; langc.lLl.)ngly
waits letters from his Voland, copiously writes
to her. It is in these copious love-despatches
that the whole matter is graphically painted:
we have an Asmodeus' view of the interior
life there, and live it over again with him.
The Baroness in red silk, tempered with
snow-white gauze, is beauty and grace itself;
her old Mother is a perfect romp of fifteen,
or younger; the house is lively with com-
pany : the Baron, as we said, speaks little,
l3ut to the purpose ; is seen sometimes with
his pipe, in dressing gown and red slippers;
otherwise the best of landlords. Remarkable
figures drop in: generals disabled at Quebec;
fashionable gentlemen rusticating in the neigh-
bourhood; Abbes, such as Galiani, Raynal,
Morellet; perhaps Grimm and his Epinay ;
other Philosophes and Philosophesses. Guests
too of less dignity, acting rather as butts than
as bowmen: for it is the part of every one
either to have wit, or to be the cause of hav-
ing it. .

Among these latter, omitting many, there is
one whom, for country's sake, we must parti-
cularize ; an ancient personage, named Hoop
(Hope,) whom they call PeVeHoop; by birth
a Scotchman. Hoop seems to be a sort of
fixture at Grandval, not bowman, therefore
butt; and is shot at for his lodging. A most
shrivelled, wind-dried, dyspeptic, chill-shiver-
ing individual; Professor of Life-weariness;
sits dozing there, — dozes there, however, with
one eye open. He submits to be caWeA Mummy
without a shrug ; cowers over the fire, at the
warmest corner. Yet is there a certain sar-
donic subacidity in PereHoop ; when he slow-
ly unlocks his leathern jaw, we hear him with
a sort of pleasure. Hoop has been in various
countries and situations ; in that croaking
metallic voice of his, can tell a distinct story.
Diderot apprehended he would one day hang
himself: if so, what Museum now holds his
remains ? The Parent Hoops, it would seem,
still dwelt in the city of Edinburgh ; he, the
second son, as Bourdeaux Merchant, having
helped them thither, out of some proud Manor-
house no longer weather-tight. Can any an-
cient person of that city give us trace of such
a man 1 It must be inquired into. One only
of Father Hoop's reminiscences we shall re-
port, as the highest instance on record of a
national virtue: At the battle of Prestonpans,
a kinsman of Hoop, a gentleman with gold
rings on his fingers, stands fighting and fenc-
ing for life with a rough Highlander; the
Highlander, by some clever stroke, whisks the
jewelled hand clear off, and then — picks it up
fror the ground, sticks it in his sporran for

DIDEROT.

4U

future leisure, and fights on! The force of
Viriw* could no further go.

It cannot be uninteresting to the general
render to learn, that in the last days of October,
in the year oi grace 1770, Denis Diderot over-
ate iumself (as he was in the habit of doing,)
at Grandval ; and had an obstinate " indiges-
tion of bread." He writes to Grimm that it is
the worst of all indigestions : to his fiir Voland
that it lay more than fifieen hours on his sto-
mach, wiih a weight like to crush the life out
of him; would neiiher rcmrmter nor descendrc ;
nor indeed stir a hairsbreadth for warm water,
di quelque cote qua je la (the warm water) ;jnssc.

Clysterium donare,
Ensuita purgare I

Such things, we grieve to say, are of frequent
occurrence : the Holbachian table is all too
plenteous ; there are cooks too, we know, who
boast of 'Jieir diabolic ability to cause the
patient, by successive intensations of their art.
to eat with new and ever new appetite, till he
explode on the spot. Diderot writes to his fair
one, that his clothes will hardly buttfjn, thai
he is thus " stuffed," and thus; and so indiges-
tion succeeds indigestion. Such Narrative^
fill the heart of sensibility with amazement:
nor to the \voes that chequer this imperfect
caco-gastric state of existence, is the tear
wanting.

The society at Grandval cannot be accounted
very dull : nevertheless let no man regretful!)
comf)are it with any neighbourhood he ma\
have drawn by lot, in the present day; or even
with any no-neighbourhood, if that be hi-
affliction. The gayety at Grandval was of the
kind that could not last. Were it not that some
Belief is left in Mankind, how could the spori
of emitting Unbelief continue? On which
ground, indeed, Swift, in his masterly argument
".\gainst abolishing the Christian Religion,"
urges, not without pathos, that innumerable
men of wit, enjoying a comfortable status by
virtue of jokes on the Catechism, would here-
by be left without pabulum, the stnffof life cut
away from their hand. The Holbachs were
blind to this consideration ; and joked away-
as if it would last for ever. So too with regard
to Obscene Talk: where were the merit of p.
riotous Moiher-in-law, saying and doing, in
public, the:.;e never-imagined scandals, had no'
a cunningly-devised fable of Modesty been
set alloat; were there not some remnants of
Modesty still extant among the unphilosophir
classes'! The Samoeids (according to Travel-
lers) have few double meanings; among stall
cattle the witty effect of such is lost altogether.
Be advised, then, foolish old woman ! " Burn
not thy bed ;" the light of it will soon go out.
and then 1 — Apart from the common house-
hold topics, which the "daily household
epochs" bring with them everywhere, two
main elements, we regret to say, come to light
in the conversaticm at Grandval ; these, with a
spicing of Noble-sentiment, are. unfortunately.
Blasphemy and Bawdry. Whereby, at this
distance, the whole matter grows to look poor.

♦ V'irtMS (properly Mia7(lineRS, tlie rhipf duty of nrin)
meant, in olil Rome, pojcer r/./iu-A^!"."- ; inp;ins, in modern
Vo'uo. Cniinoisseurship ; in Scotland, T/irift.~Eo.

and efl^ete; and we can honestly re iiice thati
all has been, and need not be again.

But now, hastening back to Paris, frien.'
Diderot finds proof-sheets enough on his desk
and notes, and invitations, and application:
from distressed men of letters ; nevertheless
runs over, in the first place, to seek news from
the Voland ; will then see what is to be done.
He writes much ; talks and visits much : be-
sides the Savans, Artists, spiritual Notabilities,
domestic or migratory, of the period, he has a
liberal allowance of unnotable Associates ; es-
pecially a whole bevy of young or oldish, mostly
rather spiteful Women ; in whose gossip he is
perfect. We hear the rustling of their silks, the
clack of their pretty tongues, tittle-tattle " like
theirpattens when they walk ;" and the sound of
it, fresh as yesterday, through this long vista of
Time has become significant, almost prophetic.
Life could not hang heavy on Diderot's hands :
he is a vivid, open, all-embracing creature;
could have found occupation anywhere; has
occupation here forced on him, enough and to
spare. "He had much to do, and did much
of his own," says Mademoiselle; "yet three-
fourths of his life was employed in helping
whomsoever had need of his purse, of his
talents, of his management: his study, for the
five and twenty years I knew it, was like a
well-frequented shop, where, as one customer
went, another came." He could not find it in
his heart to refuse any one. He has recon-
ciled Brothers, sought out Tutorages, settled
Lawsuits; solicited Pensions; advised, and
refreshed hungry Authors, instructed ignorant
ones: he has written advertisements for in-
cipient helpless Grocers; he once wrote the
dedication (to a pious Due d'Orleans) of a
lampoon against himself, — and so raised some
five and twenty gold louis, for the famishing
lampooner. For all these things, let not the
light Diderot want his reward wiih us! Other
reward, except from himself,' he got none; but
often the reverse; as in his little Drama, ia
Picrc e' le PnJof^vc, may be seen humorously
and good-humouredly set forth under his own
hand. Indeed, his clients, by a vast majority,
were of the scoundrel species; in any case,
Denis knew well, that to expect gratitude is to
deserve ingratitude. — " Riviere, well contented,''
(hear Mademoiselle,) " now thanks my fither,
both for his services and his advices ; sits
chatting another quarter of an hour, and then
takes leave; my father shows him down. As
they are on the stairs, Riviere stops, turns
round, and asks: ' M. Diderot, are you ac-
quainted with Natural History 1' — 'Why, a
little, I know an aloe from a sago; a pigeon
from a colibri." — 'Do you know the history of
the Furiiiiot-leo ?' — 'No.' — 'It is a little insect
of great industry : it digs a hole in the ground
like a reversed funnel ; covers the top with
fine light sand; entices foolish insects into it;
takes them, sucks them, then says to them : M.
Diderot, I have the honour to wish you good
day.' My fatber stood laughing like to split at
this adventure."

Thus, amid labour and recreation ; question'

able Literature, unquestionable Loves; eating

and digesting, (better or worse;) in giadness

and vexation of spirit, in laughter ending ic

2 M 3

414

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

sighs, does Diderot pass his days. He has
been hard toiled, butthen well flattered, and is
nothing of a hypochondriac. What little ser-
vice renown can do him, may now be consi-
dered as done : he is in the centre of the litera-
ture, science, art, of his nation ; not numbered
among the Academical Forty ; yet, in his
heterodox heart, entitled to be almost proud of
the exclusion ; successful in Criticism, suc-
cessful in Philosophism, nay, (highest of sub-
lunary glories,) successful in the Theatre ;
vanity may whisper, if she please, that ex-
cepting the unattainable Voltaire alone, he is
the first of Frenchmen. High heads are in
correspondence with him, the low-born ; from
Catharine the Empress to Philidor the Chess-
player, he is in honoured relation with all
manner of men ; with scientific Buffons, Eulers,
D'Alemberts; with artistic Falconnels, Van-
loos, Riccobonis,Garricks. He was ambitious
of being a Philosophe ; and now the whole
fast-growmg sect of Philosophes look np to
him as their head and mystagogne. To Denis
Diderot, when he slept out of the Langres Dili-
gen.e at the College d'Harcourt; or after-
wards, when he walked in the subterranean
shades of Rascaldom, with uneasy steps over the
burning marie, a much smaller destiny would
have seemed desirable. Within doors, again,
matiers stand rather disjointed, as surely they
might well do : however, Madame Diderot is
always true and assiduous ; if one Daughter
talk enthusiastically, and at length (though
her father has written the Eeligicu!>€) die mad
in a convent, the other, a quick, intelligent,
graceful girl, is waxing into womanhood, and
lakes after the father's Philosophism, leaving
the mother's Piety far enough aside. To
which elements of mixed good and evil from
without, add this so incalculably favourable
one from within, that of all literary men Dide-
rot is the least a self-listener; none of y(utr
puzzling, repenting, forecasting, earnest-bilious
temperaments, but sanguineous-lymphatic ev-
ery fibre of him, living lightly from hand to
mouth, in a world mostly painted rose-colour.
'J'he EiryclopeiUe, after nigh thirty years of
endeavour, (to which imly the siege of Troy
may otfer some faint parallel,) is finished. Scat-
tered Compositions of all sorts, printed or
manuscript, making many Volumes, lie also
finished; the Philosophe has reaped no golden
harvest from them. He is getting old: can
live out of debt, but is still poor. Thinking to
settle his daughter in marriage, he must re-
solve to sell his Library ; money is not other-
wise to be raised. Here, however, the northern
Cleopatra steps imperially forward ; purchases
his Library for its full value; gives him a
handsome pension, as librarian to keep it for
her; and pays him moreover fifty years thereof
by advance in ready mimey. This we c;ill
imperial, (in a world so necessitous as ours,)
though the whole munificence, did not (we
find) CMSt above three thousand pounds; a
triile to the Empress of all the Russias. In
fact, it is about the sum your first-rate king
eats as board wages, in one day ; who, how-
ever, has seldom sufficient: not to speak of
:nariiaDie oveiphis. In admiration of his Em-
•>iess, the vivid Philosophe is now louder than

ever ; he even breaks forth into (rather husky)
singing. Who shall blame himl The North*
ern Cleopatra (whom, in any case, he must
regard with other eyes than we) has stretched
out a generous, helping hand to him, where
otherwise there was no help, but only hindrance
and injury: all men will, and should, more or
less, obey the proverb, to praise the fair as
their own market goes in it.

One of the last great scenes in Diderot's
Life, is his personal visit to this Benefactress.
There is but . ae letter from him with Peters-
burgh for date, and that of ominous brevity.
The Philosophe was of open, tuiheedful, free-
and-easy disposition ; Prince and Polisson
were singularly alike to him; it was "hail
fellow well met," with every Son of Adam, be
his clothes of one stuff" or the other. Such a
man could be no court-sycophant, was ill cal-
culated to succeed at court. We can imagine
that the Neva-cholic, and the character of the
Neva-water were not the only things hurtful
to his nerves there. For King Denis, who had
dictated such wonderful anti-regalities in the
Abbe Raynal's History ;* and himself, in a mo-
ment of sibylism, emitted that surprising an-
nouncement (surpassing all yet uttered, or
utterable, in the Tyrltean way) how

Ses mains (the freeman's) ourderaient les entrailles du

pretrc,
Jlu defaut d'un cordon, pour itrangler les rois ;

for such a one, the climate of the Neva must
have had something oppressive in it. The
entrailles du pretre were, indeed, much at his
service here, (could he get clutch of them;)
but only for musical philosophe fiddle-strings;
nowise for a cordon! Nevertheless, Cleopatra
is an uncommon woman, (or rather an uncom-
mon man,) and can put up with many things;
and, in a gentle, skilful way, make the crooked
straight. As her Philosophe presents himself
in common apparel, she sends him a splendid
court-suit; and as he can now enter in a
civilized manner, she sees him often, confers
with him largely: by happy chance, Grimm
too at length arrives; and the winter passes
without accident. Returning home in triumph,
he can express himself contented, charmed
with his reception ; has mineral specimens,
and all manner of hyperborean memorials for
friends; unheard-of-things to tell; how he
crossed the bottomless, half-thawed Dwina,
with the water boiling up round his wheels,
the ice bending like leather, yet crackling like

« " But wlio dare stand for this 1" woirtd Diderot ex-
claim. "I will ! I !" eagerly responded the Ablie. '-Do
l)iit proceed." (Mln Memoire de iJvUrot. hy I>e Meister.)
— VVris Ihe fiiUowiiiR one of the passages "i

"Happily these perverse inslriutors (of Kincs) are
chistised, sooner or later, by the incraiitiide and con-
tempt of their pupils. Happily, these pnpils too, niise-
ral)le in iho bosom of grandeur, are lonnetited all their
life by a deep «Hn«i. which they ciuinot banish from their
ptilares Happily, ihe religious pr. jtulices which liave
been planted in (heir souls, return on them to atfright
them. Happily, the mournful silenre of their people
learhes them, from time to lime, the deep hatred that in
borne them. Happily, they are too cowardly to despise
that h itred. Happily, (keureuaeuient.) af(er a tile which
no morlal, not even the meanest of his subjects, would
accept if he knew all its wretchedness, they find Idack
inciuietude, terror and de.^pair, seated on the pillow of
their death-bed, (les iiuires inquietudes, la lerreur ct It
(If'.-espcir assis au cheret, de lettr lit de mort )" Surely,
'■ kitiL's have poor limes of it, to jc run foul of by tho
like of thee !"

DIDEROT.

415

mere ice, — and shuddered, and got through
safe; how he was carried, coach and all, into
the ferry-boat at Miltau, on thirty wild men's
backs, who floundered in the mud, and nigh
broke his shoulder-blade; how he investigated
Holland, and had conversed with Empresses,
and High Mightinesses, and principalities and
powers, and so seen, and conquered (for his
own spiritual behoof) several of the Seven
Wonders.

But, alas, his health is broken; old age is
knocking at the gate, like an importunate
creditor, who has warrant for entering. The
radiant, lightly-bounding soul is now getting
all dim, and stiff, and heavy with sleep ; Dide-
rot too must adjust himself, for the hour draws
nigh. These last years he passes retired and
private, not idle or miserable. Philosophy or
Philosophism has nowise lost its charm ;
whatsoever so much as calls itself Philosopher
can interest him. Thus poor Seneca (on occa-
sion of some new Version of his Works)
having come before the public, and been
roughly dealt with, Diderot, with a long, last,
concentrated efforl, writes his Vic de Seneqve :
struggling to make the holloa solid. Which,
alas! after all his tinkering still sounds hol-
low; and notable Seneca, so wistfully desirous
to stand well with Truth, and yet not ill with
Nero, is and remains only our perhaps nice-
liest-proportioned Half-and-half the plausiblest
Plausible on record; no great man, no true
man, no man at all; yet how much lovelier
than such, — as the mild-spoken, tolerating,
charity-sermoning, immaculate Bishop Dog-
bolt, to a rude, self-helping, sharp-tongued
Apostle Paul! Under which view, indeed,
Seneca (though surely erroneously, for the
origin of the thing was different) has been
called, in this generation, " the father of all
such as wear shovel-hats."

The Vic dc Senequc, as we said, was Diderot's
last eflbrt. It remains only to be added of him.
that he too died; a lingerins but quiet death,
which took place on the 30th of July, 1784.
He once quotes from Montaigne the following,
as Skeptic's viaticum: "I plunge stupidly,
head foremost, into this dumb Deep, which
swallows me, and chokes me, in a moment, —
full of insipidity and indolence. Death, which
is but a quarter of an hour's suffering, without
consequence and without injury, does not re-
quire peculiar precepts." It was Diderot's
allotment to die with all due "stirpidily :" he
was leaning on his elbows; had eaten an
apricot two minutes before, and answered his
wife's lemonstrances with : MoIk qvedialhdc
mal vcn.r-Hi que cein me fafse? (How the dense
can that hurt mel) She spoke again, and he
answered not. His House, which the curious
will visit when they go to Paris, was in the
Rue Taranne, at the intersection thereof with
the Rue Saini-Benoit. The dust that was once
his Body went to mingle with the common
earth, in the church of Saint-Rocli; his I/ife,
the wondrous manifold Force that was in him,
that was He, — returned to Eternitv, and is
there, and continues there !

Two things, as we ,"aw, are celebrated of
Diderot. First, that he had the most encyclo-

pedical head ever seen in this world: second
that he talked as never man talked ; — properly,
as never man his admirers had heard, or as no
man living in Paris then. That is to say, his
was at once the widest, fertilest, and readies!
of minds.

With regard to the Encyclopedical Head,
suppose it to mean that he was of such viva-
city as to admit, and look upon with interest
almost all things which the circle of Existence
could offer him; in M'hich sense, this e.xag
gerated laudation, of Encyclopedism, is no'
without its fraction of meaning. Of extra-
ordinary openness and compass we must grant
the mind of Diderot to be; of a susceptibility,
quick activity; even naturally of a depth, and
in its practical realized shape, of a univer-
sality, which bring it into kindred with the
highest order of minds. On all forms of this
wondrous Creation he can look with loving
wonder; whatsoever thing stands there, has
some brotherhood with him, some beauty and
meaning for him. Neither is the faculty to
see and interpret wanting; as, indeed, this
faculty to see is inseparable from that other
faculty to hnk, from that true wish to look;
moreover (under another figure,) Intellect is
not a lool, but a hand that can handle any tool.
Nay, in Diderot we may discern a far deeper
universality than that shown, or showable, in
Lebreton's Eucyrjojiedie : namely, a poetical;
for, in slisrht sleams, this too manifests itself.
A universality less of the head than of the
character; such, we say, is traceable in this
man, at lowest the power to have acquired
such. Your true Encyclopedical is the Homer,
the Shakspeare; every genuine Poet is a liv-
ing embodied, real Encyclopedia. — in more or
fewer volumes; were his experience, his in-
sight of details, never so limited, the w'
world lies imaged as a whole withi' -.,
whosoever has not seized the whole cannot
yet speak truly (much less can he speak vm-
sirilly, which is harmoniously, cnnrordanlhj) «f
any part, but will perpetually need new guid-
ance, rectification. The fit use of such a
man is as hodman; not feeling the plan of the
edifice, let him cariT stones to it; if he Imdd
the smallest stone, it is likeliest to be wnmg,
and cannot continue there.

But the truth is, as regards Diderot, thia
saying of the encyclopedical head conies
mainly from his having edited a Bookseller's
Encyclopedia, and can afford us little direc-
tion. Looking into the man, and omitting hi-i
trade, we find him by nature gifted iri a high
degree with openness and versatility, yet no-
wise in the highest degree ; alas, in quite an-
other degree than that. Nay, if it be meant
further that in practic'% as a writer and think-
er, he has taken in the Appearances of Life
and the World, and images them back with
such freedom, clearness, fidelity, as we have
not many times witnessed elsewhere, as we
have not various times seen infinitely sur-
passed elsewhere, — this same encyclopedical
praise must nliogetherbe denied him. Diderot's
habitual world, we must on the contrary say,
is a half-world, distorted into looking like a
whole; it is properly, a poor, fractional, insig-
1 nificant world ; partial, inaccurate, perverted

416

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

from end to end. Alas, it was the destiny of
the man to live as a Polemic; to be born also
in the mornin<^ tide and first splendour of the
Mechanical Era; not to know, with the small-
est assurance or continuance, that in the Uni-
verse, other than a mechanical meaninf^ could
exist: which force of destiny acting on him
through his whole course, we have obtained
what now stands before us : no Seer, but only
possibilities cf a Seer, transient irradiations
of a Seer, looking through the organs of a
Philosophe.

These two considerations, which indeed are
properly but one, (for a thinker, especially of
French birth, in the Mechanical Era, could
not be other than a Polemic,) must never for
a moment be left out of view in judging the
works of Diderot. It is a great truth, one side
of a great truth, that the Man makes the Cir-
cumstances, and spiritually as well as econo-
mically, is the artificer of his own fortune.
But there is another side of the same truth,
that the man's circumstances are the element
he is appointed to live and work in ; that he
by necessity takes his complexion, vesture,
imbodyment, from these, and is, in all practi-
cal manifestations, modified by thenn almost
without limit; so that in another no less ge-
nuine sense, it can be said the Circumstances
make the Man. Now, if it continually be-
hoves us to insist on the former truth towards
ourselves, it equally behoves us to bear in
mind the latter when we judge of other men.
The most gifted soul, appearing in France in
the Eighteenth Century, can as little imbody
himself in the intellectual vesture of an Athe-
nian Plato, as in the grammatical one; his
thought can no more be Greek, than his lan-
guage can. He thinks of the things belong-
ing to the French eighteenth century, and in
the dialect he has learned there; in the light,
and under the conditions prescribed there.
Thus, as the most original, resolute, and self-
directing of all the Moderns has written :
"Let a man be but born ten years sooner, or
ten years later, his whole aspect and perform-
ance shall be different." Grant, doubtless,
that a certain perennial Spirit, true for all
times and all countries, can and must look
through the thinking of certain men, be it in
what dialect soever: understand, meanwhile,
that strictly this holds only of the highest
order of men, and cannot be exacted of infe-
rior orders; among whom, if the most sedu-
lous, loving inspection disclose any even
secondary symptoms of such a Spirit, it ought
to seem enough. Let us remember well that
the high-gifted, high-striving Diderot was born
in the point of Tti.'ie and of Space, when of
all uses he could turn himself to, of all dia-
lects speak in, this of Polemical Philosophism,
and no other, seeir.ed the most promising and
fittest. Let us remember too that no earnest
Man, in any Time, ever spoke what was
wholly meaningless; that, in all human con-
TTCtions, mnch more in all human practices,
there was a true side, a fraction of truth;
which fraction is precisely the thing we want
to extract from them, if we want any thing at
ail 10 do with them.

Such palliative considerations (which, for

the rest, concern not Diderot, now departed,
and indifferent to them, but only ourselves
who'could wish to see him, and not to mis-see
him) are essential, we say, through our whole
survey of his Opinions and Proceedings, ge-
nerally so alien to our own ; but most of all
in reference to his head Opinion, properly the
source of all the rest, and the more shocking,
even horrible, to us than all the rest: we
mean his Atheism. David Hume, dining once
in company where Diderot was, remarked
that he did n.:t think there were any Atheists.

" Count us," said a certain Monsieur :

they were eighteen. " Well," said the Mon-
sieur , "it is pretty fair if you have

fished out fifteen at the first cast; and three
others who know not what to think of it." In
fact, the case was common : your Philosophe
of the first water had grown to reckon Athe-
ism a necessary accomplishment. Gowkthrap-
ple Naigeon, as we saw, had made himself
very perfect therein.

Diderot was an Atheist, then ; stranger still,
a proselytizing Atheist, who esteemed the
creed worth earnest reiterated preaching, and
enforcement with all vigour ! The unhappy
man had "sailed through the Universe of
Worlds and found no Maker thereof; had de-
scended to the abysses where Being no longer
casts its shadow, and felt only the rain-drops
trickle down; and seen only the glimmering
rainbow of Creation, which originated from
no Sun ; and heard only the everlasting storm
which no one governs ; and looked upwards
for the DivixE Eye, and beheld only the black,
bottomless, ■ glaring Death's Ete-sockkt:"
such, with all his wide voyages, was the phi-
losophic fortune he had realized.

Sad enough, horrible enough : yet instead
of shrieking over it, or howling and Ernul-
phus'-cursing over it, let us, as the more pro-
fitable method, keep our composure, and in-
quire a little. What possibly it may mean ?
The whole phenomenon, as seems to us, will
explain itself from the fact above insisted on,
that Diderot was a Polemic of decided cha-
racter, in the Mechanical Age. With great ex-
penditure of words and froth, in arguments as
waste, wild-weltering, delirious-dismal as the
chaos they would demonstrate — which argu-
ments one now knows not whether to laugh at
or to weep at, and almost does both, — have Di-
derot and his sect perhaps made this apparent
to all who examine it : That in the French Sys-
tem of Thought, (called' also the Scotch, and
still familiar enough everywhere, which for
want of a better title we have named the Me-
chanical,) there is no room for a Divinity;
that to him for whom "intcllecl, or the power
of knowing and believing is still synonymous
with logir, or the mere power of arranging
and communicating," there is absolutely no
proof discoverable of a Divinity ; and such a
man has nothing for it but either (if he be of
half spirit, as is the frequent case) to trim
despicably all his days between two opin-
ions; or else (if he be of whole spirit) to an-
chor on the rock or quagmire of Atheism, —
and further, should he see fit, proclaim to
others that there is good riding there. So
much may Diderot have demonstrated: a

DIDEROT.

417

conclusion at which we nowise turn pale.
Was it much to know that Metaphysical Spe-
ctilation, by nature, whirls round in endless
Mahlstroms, both "creatinj;; and swallowing —
itself 1" For so wonderful a self-swallowing
product of the Spirit of Time, could any re-
sult to arrive at be fitter than this of the Eter-
nal No? We thank Heaven that the result
is finally arrived at ; and so now we can look
out for something other and further. But,
above ail things, proof of a Godl A prohdble
God ! The smallest of Finites struggling to
prove to itself (that is to say, if we consider it,
to picture out and arrange as diagram, and
inrliifk rt'ithin itself) the Highest Infinite; in
whirh, by hypothesis, it lives, and moves, and
has its being! This, we conjecture, will one
day seem a much more miraculous miracle
than that negative result it has arrived at, — or
any other result a still absurder chance might
have led it to. He who, in some singular
Time of the World's History, were reduced
to wander about, in stooping posture, with
painfully constructed sulphur-match and far-
thing rushlight, (as Gowkthrapple Naigeon,)
or smoky tar-link, (as Denis Diderot,) search-
ing for the Sun, and did not find it; were he
wonderful and his failure; or the singular
Time, and its having put him on that search 1

Two small consequences, then, we fancy,
may have followed, or be following, from poor
Diderot's Atheism. First, that all speculations
of the sort we call Natural-theology, endeavour-
ing to prove the beginning of all Belief by
some Belief earlier than the beginning, are
barren, ineffectual, impossible; and may, so
soon as otherwise it is profitable, be abandoned.
Of final causes, man, by the nature of the case,
can jirove nothing; knows them (if he know
any thing of them) not by glimmering flint-
sparks of Logic, but by an infinitely higher
light of intuition ; never long, by Heaven's
mercy, wholly eclipsed in the human soul ; and
(under the name of Faith, as regards this mat-
ter) familiar to us now, historically or in con-
scious possession, for upwards of four thousand
years. To all open men it will indeed always
be a favourite ct)ntemplation, that of watching
the ways of Being, how animate adjusts itself
to inanimate, rational to irrational ; and this,
that we name Nature, is not a desolate phan-
tasm of a ahaos, but a wondrous existence and
reality. If, moreover, in those same "marks
of design," as he has called them, the contem-
plative man find new evidence of a designing
Maker, be it well for him : meanwhile, surely,
the still clearer evidence lay nearer home, in
the contemplative man's own head that aeeks
after such! In which point of view our ex-
tant Natural-theologies, as our innumerable
Evidences'of the Christian Religion, and such
like, may, in reference to the strange season
they appear in, have an indubitable value and
be worth printing and reprinting; only let us
understand for whom, and how, they are va-
luable; and be nowise wroth with the poor
Atheist, whom they have not convinced, and
could not, and should not convince.

The second consequence seems to be that
this whole current hypothesis of the Universe
being "a Machine," and then of an Architect,
53

who constructed it, sitting as it were apart, and
guiding it, and seeing it go, — may turn out an in-
anity and nonentity; not much longer tenable :
with which result likewise we shall, in the quiet-
est manner, reconcile ourselves. "Think ye,"
says Goethe, " that God made the Universe,
and then let it run round his finger (am Finger
lav/en Hesse?)" On the whole, that Metaphysi-
cal hurly-burly (of our poor, jarring, self-lis-
tening Time) ought at length to compose itself:
that seeking for a God there, and not here ; every-
where outwardly in physical Nature, and not
inwardly in our own Soul, where alone He is
to be found by us, — begins to get wearisome.
Above all, that " faint possible Theism," which
now forms our common English creed, cannot
be too soon swept out of the world. What is
the nature of that individual, who with hysteri-
cal violence theoretically asserts a God, per-
haps a revealed Symbol and Worship of God;
and for the rest, in thought, word, and conduct,
meet with him where you will, is found living
as if his theory were some polite figure of
speech, and his theoretical God a mere distant
Simulacrum, with whom he, for his part, had
nothing further to do ] Fool ! The Eternai.
is no Simulacrum ; God is not only There, but
Here, or nowhere, in that life-breath of thine,
in that act and thought of thine, — and thou
wert wise to look to it. If there is no God, as
the fool hath said in his heart, then live on
with thy decencies, and lip-homages, and in-
ward Greed, and falsehood, and all the hollow
cunningly-devised halfness that recommends
thee to the Mammon of this world: if there is
a God, we say, look to it ! But in either case,
what art thou 1 The Atheist is false ; yet is
there, as we see, a fraction of truth in him : he is
true compared with thee; thou unhappy mortal,
livest wholly in a lie, art wholly a lie.

So that Diderot's Atheism comes, if not to
much, yet to something: we learn this from it
(and from what it stands connected with, and
may represent for us,) that the Mechanical Sys-
tem of Thought is, in its essence. Atheistic; that
whosoever will admit no organ of truth but
logic, and nothing to exist but what can be
argued of, must even content himself with his
sad result, as the only solid one he can arrive
at; and so with the best grace he can "of the
ffither make a gas, of God a force, of the second
world a coffin ;"of man an aimless nondescript,
" little better than a kind of vermin." If Diderot,
by bringing matters to this parting of the roads,
have enabled or helped us to strike into the
truer and better road, let him have our thanks
for it. As to what remains, be pity our only
feeling; was not his creed miserable enough;
nay, moreover, did not he bear its miserablc-
ness, so to speak, in our stead, so that it need
now be no longer borne by any one.

In this same, for him unavoidable circum-
stance, of the age he lived in, and the system
of thought universal then, will be found the
key to Diderot's whole spiritual character and
procedure; the excuse for much in him that
to us is false and perverted. Beyond the
mea?re " rush-light of closet-logic," Diderot
recognised no guidance. That " the Highest
cannot be spoken of in words," was a truth he
had not dreamt of. Whatsoever thing he can-

418

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

not debate of, we might almost say measure
and weigh, and carry off with him to be eaten
and enjoyed, is simply not there for him. He
dwelt all his days in the "thin rind of the
Conscious ;" the deep fathomless domain of the
Unconscious, whereon the other rests, and has
its meaning, was not, under any shape, sur-
mised by him. Thus must the Sanctuary of
Man's Soul stand perennially shut against this
man ; where his hand ceased to grope, the
World ended: within such strait conditions
had he to live and labour. And naturally to dis-
tort and dislocate, more or less, all things he
laboured on : for whosoever, in one way or
another, recognises not that " Divine Idea of
the World, which lies at the bottom of Appear-
ances," can rightly interpret no Appearance ;
and whatsoever spiritual thing he does, must
do it partially, do it falsely.

Mournful enough, accordingly, is the ac-
count which Diderot has given himself of
Man's existence ; on the duties, relations, pos-
sessions whereof he had been a sedulous think-
er. In every conclusion we have this fact of
his Mechanical culture. Coupled loo with
another fact honourable to him: that he stuck
not at half measures; but resolutely drove
on to the result, and held by it. So that
we cannot call him a skeptic ; he has merited
the more decisive name of Denier. He may be
said to have denied that there was any the
smallest Sacredness in Man, or in the Uni-
verse ; and to have both speculated and lived on
thissingularfooting. We behold in him the nota-
ble extreme of a man guiding himself with the
least spiritual Belief that thinking man perhaps
ever had. Religion, in all recognisable shapes
and senses, he has done what man can do to clear
out of him. He believes that pleasure is plea-
sant; that a lie is unbelievable ; and there, his
credo terminates; nay there, what perhaps
makes his case almost unique, his very fancy
seems to fall silent.

For a consequent man, all possible spiritual
perversions are included under that grossest
one of " proselytizing Atheism;" the rest, of
what kind and degree soever, cannot any
longer astonish us. Diderot has them of all
kinds and degrees; indeed, we might say, the
French Philosophe (take him at his word, for
inwardly much that was foreign adhered to
him, do what he could) has emitted a Scheme
of the World, to which all that Oriental Mul-
lah, Bonze, or Talapoin have done in that
kind is poor and feeble. Omitting his whole
unparalleled Cosmoganies and Physiologies ;
coming to his much milder Tables of the
Moral Law, we shall glance here but at one
minor external item, the relation between man
and man; and at only one branch of this,
and with all slightness, the relation of cove-
nants; for example, the most important of
these. Marriage.

Diderot has convinced himself, and, indeed,
as above became plain enough, acts on the
conviction, that Marriage, contract it, solemnize
it in what way you will, involves a solecism
which reduces the amount of it to simple
zero. It is a suicidal covenant; annuls itself
in the very forming. "Thou makest a vow,"
says he, twice or thrice, as if the argument

were a clencher, " thou makest a vow o*
eternal constancy under a rock, which is even
then crumbling away." True, O Denis! the.
rock crumbles away : all things are changing;
man changes faster than most of them. That,
in the meanwhile, an Unchangeable lies under
all this, and looks forth, solemn and benign,
through the whole destiny and workings of
man, is another truth; which no Mechanical
Philosophe, in the dust of his logic-mill, can
be expected to grind out for himself. Man
changes, and will change: the question then
arises. Is it wise in him to tumble forth, in
headlong obedience to this love of change; is
it so much as possible for him? Among the
dualisms of man's wholly dualistic nature, this
we might fancy was an observable one: that
along with his unceasing tendency to change,
there is a no less ineradicable tendency to per-
severe. Were man only here to change, let
him, far from marrying, cease even to hedge
in fields, and plough them ; before the autumn
season, he may have lost the whim of reaping
them. Let him return to the nomadic state,
and set his house on wheels ; nay there too a
certain restraint must curb his love of change,
or his cattle will perish by incessant driving,
without grazing in the intervals. O Denis,
what things thou babblest in thy sleep! How,
in this world of perpetual flux, shall man
secure himself the smallest foundation, except
hereby alone: that he take pre-assurance of
his Fate; that in this and the other high act
of life, his Will, with all solemnity, a6f/ic«/c its
right to change; voluntarily become involun-
tary, and say once for all. Be there then no
farther dubitation on it! Nay, the poor un-
heroic craftsman ; that very stocking-weaver,
on whose loom thou now as amateur weavest:
must not even he do as much, — when he
signed his apprentice-indentures 1 The fool!
who had such a relish in himself for all things,
for kingship and emperorship; yet made a
vow (under penalty of death by hunger) of
eternal constancy to stocking-weaving. Yet
otherwise, were no thriving craftsmen possible;
only botchers, bunglers, transitory nonde-
scripts ; unfed, mostly gallows-feeding. But,
on the whole, what feeling it was in the
ancient devout deep soul, which of Marriage
made a Sacrament: this, of all things in the
world, is what Denis will think of, for aeons,
without discovering. Unless, perhaps, it were
to increase the vestry-fees!

Indeed, it must be granted, nothing yet seen
or dreamt of can surpass the liberality of
friend Denis as migislcr mnruin : nay, often
our poor Philosophe feels called on, in an age
of such Spartan rigor, to step forth into the
public Stews, and emit his inspiring Made
virtu'e! there. Whither let the curious in
such matters follow him : we, having work else-
where, wish him "good journey," — or rather
"safe return." Of Diderot's indelicacy and
indecency there is for us but little to say.
Diderot is not what we call indelicate and in-
decent; he is utterly unclean, scandalous,
shameless, sanscniottic-samoedic. To declare
with lyric fury that this is wrong; or with
historic calmness, that a pig of sensibility
would go distracted did you accuse him of it,

DIDEROT.

4»

may (especially in countries where "indecent
exposure" is cognised at police-offices) be
considered superfluous. The only question
is one in Natural History: Whence comes iti
What may a man, not otherwise without ele-
vation of mind, of kindlycharacter, of immense
professed philanthropy; and doubtless of ex-
traordinary insight, mean thereby 1 To us it
is but another illustration of the fearless, all-
for-logic, thoroughly consistent, Mechanical
Thinker. It coheres well enough with Diderot's
theory of man ; that there is nothing of sacred
either in man or around man ; and that chime-
ras are chimerical. How shall he for whom
nothing, that cannot be jargoned of in debating-
clubs, exists, have any faintest forecast of the
depth, significance, divineness of Silence; of
the sacredness of "Secrets known to alii"

Nevertheless, Nature is great; and Denis
was among her nobler productions. To a
soul of his sort something like what we call
Conscience could nowise be wanting: the
feeling of Moral Relation, of the Infinite charac-
ter thereof, (as the essence and soul of all else
that can be felt or known,) must assert itself
in him. Yet how assert itsejfl An Infini-
tude to one, in whose whole Synopsis of the
Universe no Infinite stands marked] Won-
derful enough is Diderot's method ; and yet
not wonderful, for we see it, and have always
seen it, daily. Since there is nothing sacred
in the Universe, whence this sacredness of
what j'ou call Virtue 1 ' Whence or how comes
it that you, Denis Diderot, must not do a wrong
thing; could not, without some qualm, speak,
for example, one Lie, to gain Mohammed's
Paradise with all its houris! There is no re-
source for it, but to get into that interminable
ravelment of Reward and Approval, virtue
being its own reward; and assert louder and
louder, — contrary to the stern experience of all
men, from the Divine Man, expiring with
agony of bloody sweat on the accursed tree,
down to us two, O reader (if we have ever
done one Duty) — that Virtue is synonymous
with Pleasure. Alas ! was Paul, an apostle
of the Gentiles, virtuous; and was virtue its
own reward, when his approving conscience
told him that he was "the chief of sinners,"
and (bounded to this life alone) "of all men
the most miserable'?" Or has that same so
sublime Virtue, at bottom, little to do with
Pleasure, if with far other things? Are
Eudoxia, and Eusebeia, and Euthanasia, and
all the rest of them, of small account to Eubo-
sia and Eupepsia; and the pains of any
moderately-paced Career of Vice (Denis him-
self being judge) as a drop in the bucket to
the " Career of Indigestions 1" This is what
Denis never in this world will grant.

But what then will he dol One of two
things : admit, with Grimm, that there are
" two justices," — which may be called by many
handsome names, but properly are nothing
but the pleasant justice, and the unpleasant;
whereof onlv the former is binding. Herein,
however. Nature has been unkind to Denis ;
he is not a literary court-toad-cater; hut a free,
genial, even poetic creature. There remains,
therefore, nothing but the second expedient ;
to " assert louder and louder;" in other words,

to become a Philosophe-Sentimentalist. Most
wearisome, accordingly, is the perpetual clat-
ter kept up here about vcrtu, honnetele, grandeur,
sensibilite, ames-nobles ; how unspeakably good it
is to be virtuous, how pleasant, how sublime:
"In the Devil and his grandmother's name, be
virtuous ; and let us have an end of it!" In
such sort (we will nevertheless joyfully recog-
nise) does great Nature in spite of all contra-
dictions, declare her royalty, her divineness;
and, for the poor Mechanical Philosophe, has
prepared since the substance is hidden from
him, a shadow wherewith he can be cheered.

In fine, to our ill-starred Mechanical Phi-
losophe-Sentimentalist, with his loud preaching
and rather poor performing, shall we not, in
various respects, " thankfully stretch out the
hand?" In all ways, "it was necessary that
the logical side of things should likewise be
made available." On the whole, wondrous
higher developments of much, of Morality
among the rest, are visible in the course of the
world's doings, at this day. A plausible pre-
diction were that the Ascetic System is not to
regain its exclusive dominancy. Ever, indeed,
must Self-denial, " .Annihilation of Self, be the
beginning of all moral action:" meanwhile, he
that looks well, may discern filaments of a
nobler System, wherein this lies included as
one harmonious element. Who knows what
new unfoldings and complex adjustments await
us, before, (for example,) the true relation of
moral Greatness to moral Correctness, and
their proportional value, can be established ]
How, again, is perfect tolerance for the Wrong
to co-exist with ever-present conviction that
Right stands related to it, as a God does to a
Devil, — an Infinite to an opposite Infinite?
How, in a word, through what tumultuous vi-
cissitudes, after how many false partial efforts,
deepening the confusion, shall it, at length, be
made manifest, and kept continually manifest
to the hearts of men, that the Good is not pro-
perly the highest, but the Beautiful ; that the
true Beautiful (differing from the false, as
Heaven does from Vauxhall,) comprehends in
it the Good? — In some future century, it may
be found that Denis Diderot, acting and pro-
tessing, in wholeness and with full conviction,
what the immense multitude act in halfness
and without conviction, — has, though by strange
inverse methods, forwarded the result. It was
long ago written, the Omnipotent" maketh the
wrath of the wicked" (the folly of the foolish)
" to praise Him." In any case, Didi^.'-ot acted
it, and not we; Diderot bears it, and not we:
peace be with Diderot !

The other branch of his renown is excel-
lence as a Talker. Or in wider view, (ihink
his admirers,) his philosophy was not more
surpassing than his delivery thereof. What
his philosophy amounts to we have been ex-
amining: but now, that in this other conversa-
tional province he was eminent, is easily be-
lieved. A frank, ever-hoping, social character;
a mind full of knowledge, full of fervour; of
great compass, of great depth, ever on the
alert: such a man could not have other than
a "mouth of gold." It is still plain, what-
soever thing imaged itself before him, Twai

420

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS,

imaged in the most lucent clearness ; was
rendered l>ack, with light labour, in corre-
sponding clearness. Wiiether, at the same
time, Diderot's conversation, relatively so su-
perior, deserved the intrinsic character of su-
preme, may admit of question. The worth
of words spoken depends, after all, on thft
wisdom that resides in them ; and in Diderot's
words there was often too little of this. Vi-
vacity, far-darting brilliancy, keenness of theo-
retic visum, paradoxical ingenuity, gayety,
even touches of humour; all this must have
been here; whosoever had preferred sincerity,
earnestness, depth of practical rather than
theoretic insight, with not less of impetuosity,
of clearness and sureness, with humour, em-
phasis, or such other melody or rhythm as that
utterance demanded, — must have come over
to London; and (with forbearant submissive-
ness) listened to our Johnson. Had we the
fetronger man, then ! Be it rather, as in thai
Duel of Coeur-de-Leon with the light, nimble,
yet also invincible Saladin, that each nation
had the strength which most befitted it.

Closely connected with this power of con-
versation is Diderot's facility of composition.
A talent much celebrated; numerous really
surprising proofs whereof are on record ; how
he wrote long works within the week; some-
times within almost the four-and-twenty hours.
Unhappily, enough still remains to make such
^ feats credible. Most of Diderot's Works bear
the clearest traces of extemporaneousness ;
sians pcde inuno! They are much liker printed
talk, than the concentrated well-considered
utterance, which, from a man of that weight,
we expect to see set in types. It is said, " he
wrote good pages, but could not write a good
book." Substitute ihd not for could not , and
there is some truth in the saying. Clearness,
as has been observed, comprehensibility at a
glance, is the character of whatever Diderot
wrote: a clearness which, in visual objects,
rises into the region of the Artistic, and re-
sembles that of Richardson or Defoe. Yet,
grant that he makes his meaning clear, what
is the nature of that meaning itself] Alas, for
most part, only a hasty, tiirasy, superficial
meaning, with gleams of a deeper vision peer-
ing through. More or less of Disorder reigns
in all Works that Diderot wrote; not order, but
the plausible appearance of such : the true
heart of the matter is not found; "he skips
deftly along the radii, and skips over the centre,
and misses it."

Thus may Diderot's admired Universality
and admired facility have both turned to dis-
advantage tor him. We speak not of his
reception by the world : this indeed is the " age
of specialities ;" yet, owing lo other causes,
]>iderot the Encyclopedist had success enough.
But, what is of far more importance, his in-
ward growth was mar'"ed : the strong tree shot
not up in anyone noble stem, (bearing boughs,
and fruit, and shade all round;) but spread
out horizontally, after a very moderate height,
into innumerable branches, not useless, yet of
quite secondary use. Diderot could have been
an Artist; and he was little better than an En-
cyclopedic Artisan. No smatterer indeed; a
faithful artisan; of really universal equip-

ment, in his sort: he did the work of man^
men, yet nothing, or little, which many could
not have done.

Accordingly, his Literary Works, now lying
finished some fifty years, have already, to the
most surprising degree, sunk in importance.
Perhaps no man so much talked of is so little
known ; to the great majority he is no longer a
Reality, but a Hearsay. Such, indeed, partly,
is the natural fate of Works Polemical, which
almost all Diderot's are. The Polemic anni-
hilates his opponent; but in so doing annihi-
lates himself too, and both, are swept away to
make room for something other and farther.
Add to this, the shght-textured transitory cha-
racter of Diderot's style, and the fact is well
enough explained. Meanwhile, let him, to
whom it applies, consider it; him among
whose gifts it was to rise into the Perennial,
and who dwelt rather low down in the Ephe-
meral, and ephemerally fought and scrambled
there ! Diderot the great has contracted into
Diderot the easily-measurable: so must it be
with others of the like.

In how many sentences can the net-product
of all that tumultuous Atheism, printed over
many volumes, be comprised! Nay, the
whole Knnjclopedic, that world's wonder of the
eighteenth century, the Belus' Tower of an age
of refined Illumination, what has it become!
Alas ! no stone-tower, that will stand there as
our strength and defence through all times ;
but, at best, a wooden Hehpolis, (City-taker,)
wherein stationed, the Philosophus Policaster
has burnt and battered down many an old
ruinous Sorbonne; and which now, when that
work is pretty well over, may, in turn, be taken
asunder, and used as firewood. The famed En-
cyclopedical Tree itself has proved an artificial
one, and borne no fruit. We mean that, in its
nature, it is mechanical only; one of those
attempts to parcel out the invisible mystical
Soul of Man, with its infinitude of phases and
character, into shop-lists of what are called
" faculties," " motives," and such like; which
attempts may indeed be made with all degrees
of insight, from that of a Doctor Spurzheim
to that of Denis Diderot, or Jeremy Bentham;
and prove useful for a day, but for a day only.

Nevertheless it were false to regard Diderot
as a Mechanist and nothing more; as one
working and grinding blindly in the mill of
mechanical Logic, joyful with his lot there,
and unconscious of any other. Call him one
rather who contributed to deliver us theiefrom '
both by his manful whole spirit as a Mechan-
ist, which drove all things to their ultimatum
and crisis ; and even by a dim-struggling fa-
culty, which virtually aimed beyond this. Di-
derot, we said, was gifted by Nature for an
Artist : strangely flashing through his mechani-
cal encumbrances, are rays of thought, which
belong to the Poet, lo the Prophet; which, in
other environment, could have revealed the
deepest to us. Not to seek far, consider this
one little sentence, which he makes the last of
the dying Sanderson : Le temps, la maliire, et
I'e^pace tie sottt peut-etre qu^un point (Time, Mat"
ter, and Space are perhaps but a point!')

So too, in Art, both as a speaker and a doer,
he is to be reckoned as one of those who

DIDEROT.

i9\

pressed forward irresistibly out of the artifi-
cial barren sphere of that time, into a truer
genial one. His Dramas, the Ftls Nulurcl, the
Fere de FaviMc, have indeed ceased to live;
yet is the attempt towards great things visible
in them ; the attempt remains to us, and seeks
otherwise, and has found, and is finding, fulfil-
ment. Not less in his Salons, (Judgments of
Art-Exhibitions,) written hastily for Grimm,
and by ill chance, on artists of quite seconda-
ry character, do we find the freest lecogniiion
of whatever excellence there is; nay, an im-
petuous endeavour, not critically but even crea-
tively, towards something more excellent. In-
deed, what with their unrivalled clearness,
painting the picture over again for us, so that
we too sec it, and can judge it; what with their
sunny fervour, inventiveness, real artistic ge-
nius, (which only cannot manipulate,) they are,
with some few exceptions in the German
tongue, the only Pictorial Criticisms we know
of worth reading. Here too, as by his own
practice in the Dramatic branch of art, Dide-
rot stands forth as the main originator (almost
the sole one in his own country) of that many-
sided struggle towards what is called Nature, and
copying of Nature, and faithfulness to Nature ;
a deep indispensable truth, subversive of the
old error; yet under that figure, only a half-
truth, for Art too is Art, as surely as Nature is
Nature; which struggle, meanwhile, either as
half-truth or working itself into a whole truth,
may be s,een (in countries that have any Art)
still forming the tendency of all artistic en-
deavour. In which sense, Diderot's Essay on
Painting has been judged worth translation by
the greatest modern Judge of Art, and greatest
modern Artist, in the highest kind of Art ; and
may be read anew, with argumentative com-
mentary and exposition, in Goethe s Works.

Nay, let us grant, with pleasure, that for Di-
derot himself the realms of Art were not
wholly un visited; that he too, so heavily im-
prisoned, stole Promethean fire. Among these
multitudinous, most miscellaneous Writings
of his, in great part a manufactured farrago
of Philosophism no longer saleable, and now
looking melancholy enough, — are two that we
can almost call Poems; that have something
perennially poetic in them: Jacques le Fata-
listc ; in a still higher degree, the Neveu de Ru-
meau. The occasional Ijluencss of both; even
that darkest indigo in some parts of the former,
shall not altogether affright us. As it were, a
loose straggling sunbeam flies here over Man's
Existence in France, now nigh a century be-
hind us: "from the height of luxurious ele-
gance to the depths of shamelessness;" all is
here. Slack, careless seems the combination
of the picture ; wriggling, disjointed, like a
bundle of flails ; yet strangely united in the
painter's inward unconscious feeling. Weari-
somely crackling wit gets silent; a grim, taci-
turn, dare-devil, almost Hogarthian humour,
rises in the background. Like this there is
nothing that we know of in the whole range
of French Literature: La Fontaine is shallow
ii) comparision ; the La Bruyere wit-species
not to be named. It resembles Don Quixote,
rather; of somewhat similar stature; yet of
complexion altogether different; through the

one looks a sunny Elysium, through the other
a sulphurous Erebus : both hold of the Infi-
nite. This Jacqr'es, perhaps, was not quite so
hastily put together: yet there too haste is
manifest: the Author finishes it off, not by
working out the figures and movements, but
by dashing his brush against the canvas; a
manoBuvre which in this case has not suc-
ceeded. The llameau's Nephew, which is the
shorter, is also the better; may pass for deci-
dedly the best of all Diderot's Compositions.
It looks like a Sibylline utterance from a heart
all in fusion : no ephemeral thing (for it was
written as a Satire on Palissot) was ever more
perennially treated. Strangely enough, too, it
lay some fifty years, in German and Russian
Libraries ; came out first in the masterly ver-
sion of Goethe, in 1805 ; and only (after a de-
ceptive rf-translation by a M. Saur, a courage-
ous mystifier otherwise,) reached the Paris
public, in 1821, — when perhaps nil, for whom,
and against whom it was written, were no
more ! — It is a farce-tragedy ; and its fate has
corresponded to its purport. One day it must
also be translated into English ; but will re-
quire to be done by head; the common steam-
machiiiery will not meet it.

We here (cwi la bocca dolce) take leave of Di-
derot in his intellectual aspect, as Artist and
Thinker: a richly endowed, unfavourably situ-
ated nature ; whose effort, much marred, yet
not without fidelity of aim, can triumph, on
rare occasions ; is perhaps nowhere utterly
fruitless. In the moral aspect, as Man, he
makes a somewhat similar figure ; as indeed,
in all men, in him especially, the Opinion and
the Practice stand closely united ; and as a wise
man has remarked, " the speculative principles
are often but a supplement (or excuse) to the
practical manner of life." In conduct, Dide-
rot can nowise seem admirable to us; yet
neither inexcusable ; on the whole, not at all
quite worthless. Lavater traced in his physi-
ognomy " something timorous ;" which reading
his friends admitted to be a correct one. Di-
derot, in truth, is no hero: the earnest soul,
wayfaring and warfaring in the complexities
of a World like to overwhelm him, yet where-
in he by Heaven's grace will keep faithfully
warfaring, prevailing or not, can derive small
solacement from this light, fluctuating, not to
say flimsy existence of Diderot : no Gospel ;«
that kind has he left us. The man, in fact,
with all his high gifts, had rather a female
character. Susceptible, sensitive, living by
impulses, which at best he had fashioned into
some show of principles ; with vehemence
enough, with even a female uncontrollableness;
with little of manful steadfastness, considerate-
ness, invincibility. Thus, too, we find him
living mostly in the society of women, or of
men who, like women, flattered him, and made
life easy for him ; recoiling with horror from
an earnest Jean Jacques, who understood not
the science of walking in a vain show; but
imagined (poor man) that truth was there as
a thing to be told, as a thing to be acted.

We call Diderot, then, not a coward; yet
not in any sense a brave man. Neither to-
wards himself, nor towards others, was he
2N

422

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

brave. All the virtues, says M. de Meister,
which require not "a great suite (seqaency)
of ideas," were his : all that do require such a
suite were not his. In other words, what da-
ties were easy lor him, he did: happily Na-
ture had rendered several easy. His spiritual
aim, moreover, seemed not so much to be en-
forcement, exposition of Duty, as discovery
of a Duty-made-easy. Natural enough that
he should strike into that Tprovince of sentiment,
easur-noble, and so forth. Alas, to declare that
the beauty of virtue is beautiful, costs compa-
ratively little; to win it, and wear it, is quite
another enterprise, — wherein the loud brag-
gart, we know, is not the likeliest to succeed.
On the whole, peace be with sLntiment, for that
also lies behind us ! — For the rest, as hinted,
what duties were difficult our Diderot left un-
done. How should he, the ccew sensible, front
such a monster as Pain? And now, since
misgivings cannot fail in that course, what is
to be done but fill up all asperities with floods
of SensibiUte, and so voyage more or less
smoothly along 1 Est-il bon ? Est-il mediant ?
is his own account of himself. At all events,
he was no voluntary hypocrite ; thgt great
praise can be given him. And thus with Me-
chanical Philosophism, and passion viva ; work-
ing, flirting; "with more of softness than of
true affection, sometimes with the malice and
rage of a child, but on the whole an inex-
haustible fund of goodnatured simplicity," has
he come down to us for better for worse : and
what can we do but receive him ?

If now we and our reader, reinterpreting
for our present want that Life and Perform-
ance of Diderot, have brought it clearer be-
fore us, be the hour spent thereon, were it
even more wearisome, no profitless one !
Have we not striven to unite our own brief
present moment more and more compactly
with the Past and with the Future ; have we

not done what lay at our ha.id towards reducing
that same Memoirism of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury into History, and "weaving" a thread or
two thereof nearer to the condition of a " webl"
But finally, if we rise with this matter (as
we should try to do with all) into the proper
region of Universal History, and look on it
with the eye not of this time, or of that time,
but of Time at large, perhaps the prediction
might stand here, that intrinsically, essentially
little lies in it; that one day when the net-
result of our Euro' ean way of life comes to
be summed up, th s whole as yet so boundless
concern of French Philosophism will dwindle
into the thinnest of fractions, or vanish into
nonentity! Alas, while the rude History and
Thoughts of those same '^ Juifs viiscrablo'" the
barbaric War-song of a Deborah and Barak,
the rapt prophetic Utterance of an unkempt
Isaiah, last now (with deepest significance) say
only these three thousand years, — what has the
thrice resplendent Encyrlopedie shrivelled into
within these three-score \ This is a fact
which, explain it, express it, in which way he
will, your Encyclopedist should actually con-
sider. Those were tones caught from the sa-
cred Melody of the All, and having harmony
and meaning for ever; tliese of his are but
outer discords, and their jangling dies away
without result. "The special, sole, and deep-
est theme of the World's and Man's History,"
says the Thinker of our time, " whereto all
other themes are subordinated, remains the
Conflict of Unbelief and Belief. All epochs
wherein Belief prevails, under what form it
may, are splendid, heart-elevating, fruitful for
contemporaries and posterity. All epochs, on
the contrary, wherein Unbelief, under wha'.
form soever, maintains its sorry victory, should
they even for a moment glitter with a sham
splendour, vanish from the eyes of posterity ;
because no one chooses to burden himself
with study of the unfruitful.

ON HISTOEY AGAIN.

[Fraser's Magazine, 183-3.]

JThe following singular fragment on History
forms part, as may be recognised, of the
Inaugural Discourse delivered by our assi-
duous "D. T." at the opening of the Society
for the Diffusion of Common Honesty. The
Discourse, if one may credit the Morning
Papers, " touched in the most wonderful
manner, didactically, poetically, almost pro-
phetically, on all things in this world and
the next, in a strain of sustained or rather
of suppressed passionate eloquence rarely
witnessed in Parliament or out of it : the
chief bursts were received with profound
silence," — interrupted, we fear, by snuflT-

taking. As will be seen, it is one of the
didactic passages that we introduce here.
The Editor of this Magazine is responsible
for its accuracy, and publishes, if not with
leave given, then with leave taken. — 0. Y.]

* * * History recommends itself as the most
profitable of all studies : and truly, for such a
being as Man, who is born, and has to learn and
work, and then after a measured term of years
to depart, leaving descendants and perform-
ances, and so, in all ways, to vindicate him-
self as vital portion of a Mankind, no study
could be fitter. History is the Letter of In-
structions, which the old generations write
and posthumously transmit to the new ; nay

ON HISTORY AGAIN.

423

It may be called, more generally still, the Mes-
sao;e, verbal or written, which all Mankind
delivers to every man ; it is the only articulate
communication (when the inarticulate and
mute, intelligible or not, lie round us and in
us, so strangely through every fibre of our
being, every step of our activity) which the
Past can have with the Present, the Distant
with what is Here. All Books, therefore,
were they but Song-books or treatises on Ma-
thematics, are in the long run historical doc-
uments,— as indeed all Speech itself is : thus
might we say. History is not only the fittest
study, but the only study, and includes all
others whatsoever. The Perfect in History,
he who understood, and saw and knew within
himself, all that the whole Family of Adam
had hitherto turn and hitherto done, were per-
fect in all learning extant or possible; needed
not henceforth to study any more ; and hence-
forth nothing left but to be and to do something
himself, and others might make History of it,
and learn of him.

Perfection in any kind is well known not to
be the lot of man : but of all supernatural per-
fect-characters, this of the Perfect in History
(so easily conceivable too) were perhaps the
most miraculous. Clearly a faultless monster
which the world is not to see, not even on
paper. Had the Wandering Jew, indeed, begun
to wander at Eden, and with a Fortunatus' Hat
on his head! Nanac Shah too, we remember,
steeped himself three days in some sacred
Well ; and there learnt enough : Nanac's was
a far easier method; but unhappily not prac-
ticable,— in this climate. Consider, however,
at what immeasurable distance from this
Perfect Nanac your highest Imperfect Gibbons
play their part? Were there no brave men,
thinkest thou, before Agamemnon 1 Beyond
the Thracian Bosphorus, was all dead and
void ; from Cape Horn to Nova Zembla, round
the whole habitable Globe, not a mouse stirring 1
Or, again, in reference to Time : — the Creation
of the World is indeed old, compare it to the
Year One; yet young, of yesterday, compare
it to Eternity ! Alas, all Universal History is
but a sort of Parish History ; which the " P. P.
Clerk of this Parish," member of "our Ale-
house Club" (instituted for what "Psalmody"
is in request there) puts together, — in such sort
as his fellow-members will praise. Of the thing
now gone silent, named Past, which was once
Present, and loud enough, how much do we
know 1 Our "Letter of Instructions" comes
to us in the saddest state ; falsified, blotted out,
torn, lost, and but a shred of it in existence;
this too so difficult to read or spell.

Unspeakably precious mean while is our shred
of a "Letter," is our "written or spoken Mes-
sage," such as we have it. Only he who un-
derstands what has been, can know what should
be and will be. It is of the last importance
that the individual have ascertained his re-
lation to the whole ; " an individual helps not,"
it has been written ; "only he who unites with
many at the proper hour." How easy, in a sense
for your all-instructed Nanac to work without
waste of force, (or what we call fault ;) and, in
practice, act new History, as perfectly as, in
theory, he knew the old ! Comprehending

what the given world was, what it had and what
it wanted, how might his clear effort strike in
at the right time and the right point ; wholly
increasing the true current and tendency, no-
where cancelling itself in opposition thereto!
Unhappily, such smooth-running, ever-accele-
rated course is nowise the one appointed us;
cross currents we have, perplexed backfloods;
innumerable efforts (every new man is a new
effort) consume themselves in aimless eddies :
thus is the River of Existence so wild-flowing,
wasteful ; and whole multitudes, and whole
generations, in painful unreason, spend and
are spent on what can never profit. Of all
which, does not one half originate in this which
we have named want of Perfection in History;
— the other half, indeed, in another want still
deeper, still more irremediable?

Here, however, let us grant that Nature, in
regard to such historic want, is nowise blama-
ble: taking up the other face of the matter, let
us rather admire the pains she has been at, the
truly magnificent provision she has made,
that this same Message of Instructions might
reach us in boundless plenitude. Endowments,
faculties enough we have : it is her wise will
too that no faculty imparted to us shall rust
from disuse; the miraculous faculty of Speech,
once given, becomes not more a gift than a ne-
cessity ; the Tongue, with or without much
meaning, will keep in motion ; and only in
some La Trappe, by unspeakable self-restraint,
forbear wagging. As little can the fingers that
have learned the miracle of Writing lie idle*
if there is a rage of speaking, we know also
there is a rage of writing, perhaps the more
furious of the two. It is said, "so eager are
men to speak, they will not let one another get
to speech ;" but, on the other hand, writing is
usually transacted in private, and every man
has his own desk and inkstand, and sits inde-
pendent and unrestrainable there. Lastly,
multiply this power of the Pen some ten thou-
sand fold: that is to say, invent the Printing-
Press, with its Printer's Devils, with its Editors,
Contributors, Booksellers, Billstickers, and see
what it will do ! Such are the means where-
with Nature, and Art the daughter of Nature,
have equipped their favourite, man, for publish
ing himself to man.

Consider now two things : first, that one
Tongue, of average velocity, will publish at
the rate of a thick octavo volume per day ; and
then how many nimble enough Tongues may
be supposed to be at work on this Planet
Earth, in this City London, at this hour! Se-
condlj^ that a literary Contributor, if in good
heart and urged by hunger, will many times
(as we are credibly informed) accomplish his
two magazine sheets within the four-and-
twenty hours ; such Contributors being now
numerable not by the thousand, but by the
million. Nay, taking History in its narrower,
vulgar sense, as the mere chronicle of "occur-
rences" (of things '.hat can be, as we say,
"narrated,") our calculation is still but a little
altered. Simple Narrative, it will be observed, .
is the grand staple of Speech : " the common
man," says Jean Paul, " is copious in Narra-
tive, exiguous in Reflection ; only with the
cultivated man is it otherwise, reverse-wise."

484

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Allow even the thousandth part of human pub-
lishing for the emission of Thought, though
perhaps the millionth were enough, we have
still the nine hundred and ninety-niiie employ-
ed in History proper, in relating occurrences,
or conjecturing probabilities of such ; that is
to say, either in History or Prophecy, which
is a new form of History ; — and so the reader
can judge with what abundance this life-
breath of the human intellect is furnished in
our world ; whether Nature has been stingy
to him or munificent. Courage, reader! Never
can the historical inquirer want pabulum,
better or worse; are there not forty-eight lon-
gitudinal feet of small-printed History in thy
Daily Newspaper!

The trulh is, if Universal History is such a
miserable defective " shred" as we have named
it, the fault lies not in our historic organs, but
wholly in our misuse of these; say rather, in
so many wants and obstructions, varying with
the various age, that pervert our right use of
them ; especially two wants that press heavily
in all ages : want of Honesty, want of Under-
standing. If the thing published is not true,
is only a supposition, or even a wilful inveii-
tian, what can be done with it, except abolish
it and annihilate iti But again, Truth, says
Home Tooke, means simply the thing trowed,
the thing believed ; and now, from this to the
thing extant, what a new fatal deduction have
we to suffer ! Without Understanding, Belief
itself will profit little: and how can your pub-
lishing avail, when there was no vision in it,
but mere blindness '! For us in political ap-
pointments, the man you appoint is not he who
was ablest to discharge the duty, but only he
who was ablest to be appointed ; so too, in all
historic elections and selections, the maddest
work goes on. The even worthiest to be known
is perhaps of all others the least spoken of;
nay some say, it lies in the very nature of such
events to be so. Thus, in those same forty-
eight longitudinal feet of History, or even when
they have stretched out into forty-eight longi-
tudinal miles, of the like quality, there may not
be the forty-eighth part of a hair's-breadth that
will turn to any thing. Truly, in these times,
the quantity oif printed Publication that will
need to be consumed with fire, before the
smallest permanent advantage can be drawn
from it, might fill us with astonishment, almost
with apprehension. Where, alas, is the in-
trepid Herculean Dr. Wagtail, that will reduce
all these paper-mountains into tinder, and ex-
tract therefrom the three drops of Tinder-water
Elixir?

For, indeed, looking at the activity of the
historic Pen and Press through this last half-
century, and what bulk of History it yields for
that period alone, and how it is henceforth
like to increase in decimal or vigesimal geo-
metric progression, — one might feel as if a
day were not distant, when perceiving that the
whole Earth would not now contain those
writings of what was done in the Earth, the
human memory must needs sink confounded,
and cease remembering! — To some the reflec-
tion may be new and consolatory, that this
state of ours is not so unexampled as it seems ;
that with memory and things memorable the

case was always intrinsically similar. The
Life of Nero occupies some diamond pages of
our Tacitus: but in the parchment and pa-
pyrus archives of Nero's generation how many
did it fill? The Author of the Vic de Senetjue,
at this distance, picking up a few residuary
snips, has with ease made two octavos of it.
On the other hand, were the contents of the
then extant Roman memories, or, going to the
utmost length, were all that was then spakcn
on it, put in types, how many " longitudinal
feet" of small-pica had we, — in bells that would
go round the Globe?

History, then, before it can become Univer-
sal History, needs of all things lo be com-
pressed. Were there no epitomizing of His-
tory, one could not remember beyond a week.
Nay, go to that with it, and exclude compres-
sion altogether, we could not remember an
hour, or at all: for Time, like Space, is in-
fiiitdy divisible; and an hour with its events,
with its sensations and emotion'*, might be
diffused to such expansion as should cover
the whole field of memory, and push all else
over the limits. Habit, however, and the natural
constitution of man, do themselves prescribe
serviceable rules for remembering; and keep
at a safe distance from us all such fantastic
possibilities; — into which only some foolish
Mohammedan Caliph, ducking his head in a
bucket of enchanted water, and so beating out
one wet minute into seven long years of servi-
tude and hardship, could fall. The rudest
peasant has his complete set of Annual Regis-
ters legibly printed in his brain; and, without
the smallest training in Mnemonics, the pro-
per pauses, sub-divisions, and subordinations
of the little to the great, all introduced there.
Memory and Oblivion, like Day and Night,
and indeed like all other Contradictions in this
strange dualistic Life of ours, are necessary
for each other's existence: Oblivion is the
dark page, whereon Memory writes her light-
beam characters, and makes them legible;
were it all light, nothing could be read there,
any more than if it were all darkness.

As with man and these autobiographic An-
nual-Registers of his, so goes it with Man-
kind and its Universal History, (which also is
its Autobiography :) a like unconscious talent
of remembering and of forgetting again does
the work here. The transactions of the day,
were they never so noisy, cannot remain loud
for ever; the morrow comes with its new
noises, claiming also to be registered : in the
immeasurable conflict and concert of this chaos
of existence, figure after figure sinks, as nil
that has emerged must one day sink: what
cannot be kept in mind will even go out of
mind; History contracts itself into readable
extent; and at last, in the hands of some Bos-
suet or Miiller, the whole printed History of
the World, from the Creation downwards, has
grown shorter than that of the Ward of Port-
soken for one solar day.

Whether such contraction and epitome is
always wisely formed, might admit of question;
or rather, as we say, admits of no question.
Scandalous Cleopatras and Messalinas, Cali-
gulas and Commoduses,in unprofitable propor-
tion, survive for memory ; while a scientific

ON HISTORY AGAIN.

425

PanciroUus must -write his Book of Arts Lost ;
and a moral Pancircilus (were the vision lent
him) might write a still more mournful Book
of Virtues Lost; of noble men, doing, and
daring, and enduring, whose heroic life, as a
new revelation and development of Life itself,
were a possession for all, but is now lost and
forgotten. History having otherwise filled her
page. In fact, here as elsewhere what we call
Accident governs much ; in any case, History
must come together not as it should, but as it
can and will.

Remark nevertheless how, by natural ten-
dency alone, and as it were without man's
forethought, a certain fitness of selection, and
this even to a high degree, becon.es inevitable.
Wholly worthless the selection could not be,
were there no better rule than this to guide it:
that men permanently speak only of what is
extant and actively alive beside them. Thus
do the things that have produced fruit, nay
whose fruit still grows, turn out to be the
things chosen for record and writing of; which
things alone were great, and worth recording.
The Battle of Chalons, where Hunland met
Rome, and the Earth was played for, at sword-
fence, by two earth bestriding giants, the sweep
of whose swords cut kingdoms in pieces,
hovers dim in the languid remembrance of a
few ; while the poor police-court Treachery of
a wretched Iscariot, transacted in the wretched
land of Palestine, centuries earlier, for "thirty
pieces of silver," lives clear in the heads, in
the hearts of all men. Nay moreover, as only
that which bore fruit was great; so of all
things, that whose fruit is still here and grow-
ing must be the greatest, the best worth re-
membering; which again, as we see, by the
very nature of the case, is mainly the thing
remembered. Observe too how this " mainly"
tends always to become a " solely," and the
approximate continually approaches nearer:
for triviality after triviality, as it perishes
from the living activity of men, drops away
from their speech and memory, and the great
and vital more and more exclusively survive
there. Thus does Accident correct Accident;
and in the wondrous boundless jostle of things,
(an aimful Poweh presiding over it, say rather,
dwelling in it,) a result comes out that may
be put up with.

Curious, at all events, and worth looking at
once in our life, is this same compressure of
History, be the process thereof what it may.
How the " forty-eight longitudinal feet" have
shrunk together after a century, after ten
centuries ! Look back from end to beginning,
over any History; over our own England:
how, in rapidest lawof perspective, it dwindles
from the canvas! An unhappy Sybarite, if we
stand within two centuries of him and name
him Charles Second, shall have twelve times
the space of a heroic Alfred ; two or three thou-

sand times, if we name him George Fourth.
The whole Saxon Heptarchy, though events,
to which Magna Charta, and the world-famous
Third Reading, are as dust in the balance,
took place then (for did not England, to men-
tion nothing else, get itself, if not represented
in Parliament, yet converted to Christianity 1)
is summed up practically in that one sentence
of Milton's (the only one succeeding writers
have copied, or readers remembcied) of the
"fighting and flocking of kites and crows."
Neither was that an uv.important wassail-niglit,
when the two b'.ack-browed Brothers, strong-
headed, headstrong, Hengist and Horsa, {Hidl'
Uoii and Horse,) determined on a man-hunt in
Britain, the boar-hunt at home having got
over-crowded ; and so, of a few hungry Angles,
made an English Nation, and planted it here,
and— produced thee, 0 Reader! Of Hengisl's
whole campaignings scarcely half a page of
good Narrative can now be written ; the Lorfl-
Mayor^s Visit to Oxford standing, meanwhile,
revealed to mankind in a respectable volume.
Nay what of this ? Does not the Destruction
of a Brunswick Theatre take above a million
times as much telling as the Creation of a
World"!

To use a ready-made similitude, we might
liken Universal History to a magic web; and
consider with astonishment how, by philoso-
phic insight and indolent neglect, the ever-
growing fabric wove itself forward, out of that
ravelled immeasurable mass of threads and
thrums, (which we name Memoiis :) nay, at
each new lengthening, (at each new epoch,)
changed its whole proportions, its hue and
structure to the very origin. Thus, do not the
records of a Tacitus acquire new meaning,
after seventeen hundred years, in the hands of
a Montesquieu 1 Niebuhr must reinterpret for
us, at a still greater distance, the writings of a
Titus Livius : na3% the religious archaic chroni-
cles of a Hebrew Prophet and Lawgiver escape
not the like fortune; and many a ponderous
Eichhorn scans, with new-ground philosophic
spectacles, the revelation of a Moses, and
strives to re-produce for this century what,
thirty centuries ago, was of plainly infinite
significance to all. Consider History with the
beginnings of it stretching dimly imo the
remote Time ; emerging darkly out of the
mysterious Eternity: the ends of it enveloping
us at this hour, whereof we, at this hour, both
as actors and relators, form part ! In shape
we might mathematically name it Hyperbolic-
Jlsymploiic ; ever of infinite breadth around us ;
soon shrinking within narrow limits: ever
narrowing more and more into the infinite
depth behind us. In essence and significance
it has been called " the true Epic Poem, and
universal Divine Scripture, whose 'plenary in-
spiration' no man (out of Bedlam or in it)
shall bring in question." * » »

64

2k2

426

^ CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

IN TWO FLIGHTS.

[Fraser's Magazine, 1833.]

Flight First.

"The life of every man," says our friend
Herr Sa":erteig, "the life even of the meanest
man, it were good to remember, is a Poem ;
perfect in all manner of Aristotelean requi-
sites ; with beginning, middle, and end; with
perplexities, and solutions; with its Will-
strength, ( iVdknkraft,) and warfare against
Fate, its elegy and battle-singing, courage
marred by crime, everywhere the two tragic
elements of Pity and Fear; above all, with
supernatural machinery enough, — for was not
the man born out of Noxentitt ; did he not
die, and miraculously vanishing return thither 1
The most indubitable Poem ! Nay, whoso will,
may he not name it a Prophecy, or whatever
I'lse is highest in his vocabulary ; since only
1 Reality lies the essence and foundation of
ill that was ever fabled, visioned, sung,
spoken, or babbled by the human species;
and the actual Life of Man includes in it all
Revelations, true and false, that have been,
are, or are to be. Man ! I say therefore, reve-
rence lliy fellow-man. He too issued from Above ;
is mystical and supernatural, (as thou namest
it:) this know thou of a truth. Seeing also
that we ourselves are of so high Authorship,
is not that, in very deed, ' the highest Reve-
rence,'and most needful for us: 'Reverence
for oneself!'

"Thus, to my view, is every Life, more pro-
perly is every Man that has life to lead, a
small strophe, or occasional verse, composed
by the Supernal Powers; and published, in
such type and shape, with such embellish-
ments, emblematic head-piece and tail-piece
as thou seest, to the thinking or unthinking
universe. Heroic strophes some few are;
full of force and a sacred fire, so that to latest
ages the hearts of those that read therein are
made to tingle. Jeremiads others seem : mere
weeping laments, harmonious or disharmo-
nious Remonstrances against Destiny ; whereat
we too may sometimes profitably weep. Again
have we not (flesh-and-blood) strophes of the
idyllic sort, — though in these days rarely,
owing to Poor I/aws, Game Laws, Population
Theories, and the like ! Farther, of the comic
laughter-loving sort; yet ever with an un-
fathomable earnestness, as is fit, lying under-
neath : for, bethink thee, what is the mirth-
fullest, grinning face of any Grimaldi, but a
transitory ■mni<k, behind which quite otherwise
grins — the most indubitable Deatl's-hend! How-
ever, I say farther, there are strophes of the
pastoral sort, (as in Ettrick, Aflghaunistan,
and elsewhere ;) of the farcic-tragic, melo-
dramatic, of all named and a thousand un-
nameable sorts there are poetic strophes, writ-
ten, as was said, in Heaven, printed on Earth,
and published, (bound in woollen cloth, or
clflhes,) for the use of the studious. Finally, a

small number seem utter Pasquils, mere ribald
libels on Humanity: these too, however, are at
times worth reading.

" In this wise," continues our too obscure
friend, " out of all imaginable elements, awak-
ening all imaginable mocids of heart and soul,
' barbarous enough to excite, tender enough
to assuage,' ever contradictory yet ever co-
alescing, is that mighty world-old Rhapsodia
of Existence, page after page, (generation after
generation,) and chapter, (or epoch,) after
chapter, poetically put together ! This is what
some one names ' the grand sacred Epos, or
Bible of World-History; infinite in meaning
as the Divine Mind it emblems ; wherein he
is wise that can read here a line and there a
line.

" Remark, too, under another aspect, whether
it is not in this same Bible of World-H'story
that all men, in all limes, with or without clear
consciousness, have been unwearied to read,
(what we may call read :) and again to write,
or rather to be M'ri/i!e*i.' What is all History,
and all Poesy, but a deciphering somewhat
thereof, (out of that mystic heaven-written
Sanscrit,) and rendering it into the speech of
men 1 A'lioic //(//at//, value thyself, is a moral-
ist's commandment, (which I only half approve
of;) but Know oificrs, value others, is the best
of Nature herself. Or again, IVork while it is
called To-day: is not that also the irreversible
law of being for mortal man 1 And now, what
is all working, what is all knowing, but a faint
interpreting and a faint showing forth of that
same Mystery of Life, which ever remains in-
finite,— heaven-written mystic Sanscrit ? View
it as we will, to him that lives Life is a divine
matter; felt to be of quite sacred significance.
Consider the wretchedest 'straddling biped
that wears breeches' of thy acquaintance;
into whose wool-head, Thought, as thou rashly
supposest, never entered ; who, in froth-element
of business, pleasure, or what else he names
it, walks forever in a vain show ; asking not
Whence, or Why, or Whither; looking up to
the Heaven above as if some upholsterer had
made it, and down to the Hell beneath as if he
had neither part nor lot there: yet tell me,
does not he too, over and above his five finite
senses, acknowledge soinci sixth infinite sense,
were it only that of Vanity ? For, sate him in
the other five as you may, will this sixth sense
leave him rest ? Does he not rise early and
sit late, and study impromptus, and, (in con-
stitutional countries,) parliamentary motions,
and bursts of eloquence, and gird himself in
whalebone, and pad himself and perk himself,
and in all ways painfully take heed of his
goings; feeling (if we must admit it) that an
altogether infinite endowment has bsen in-
trusted him also, namely, a Life to lead ? Thus
does he too, with his whole force, in his own
way, proclaim that the world-old Rhapsodia of

COU]NT CAGLIOSTRO.

427

Existence is divine, and an inspired Bible;
and, himself a wondrous verse therein, (be it
heroic, be it pasquillic) study with his whole
soul, as we said, both to lead and to be xcrillen!

"Here also I will observe, that the manner
in which men read this same Bible is, like all
else, proportionate to their stage of culture, to
the circumstances of their environment. First,
and among the earliest Oriental nations, it
was read wholly like a Sacred Book; most
clt-arly by the most earnest, those wondrous
Hebrew Readers ; whose reading accordingly
was itself sacred, has meaning for all tribes
of mortal men ; since ever, to the latest genera-
tion of the world, a true utterance from the
innermost of man's being will speak signifi-
ijanily to man. But, again, in how different a
style was that other Oriental reading of the
Magi ; of Zeidusht. or whoever it was that first
so opened the matter? Gorgeous semi-sensual
Grandeurs and Splendours; on infinite dark-
ness brightest-glowing light and fire; — of
which, all defaced by Time, and turned mostly
into lies, a quite late reflex, in those Arabian
Tales and the like, still leads captive every
heart. Look thirdly at the earnest West, and
that Consecration of the Flesh, which stept
forth life-lusly, radiant, smiling-earnest, in
immortal grace, from under the chisel and the
stylus of old Greece. Here too was the Infinite
intelligibly proclaimed as infinite: and the
antique man walked between a Tartarus and
an El3'sium, his brilliant Paphos-islet of exist-
ence embraced by boundless oceans of sadness
and fatal gloom. — Of which three antique man-
ners of reading, our modern manner, you will
remark, has been little more than the imita-
tion ; for always, indeed, the West has been
rifer of doers than of speakers. The Hebrew
manner has had its echo in our Pulpits and
choral aisles; the Ethnic Greek and Arabian
in numberless mountains of Fiction, rhymed,
rhymeless, published by subscription, by puf-
fery, in periodicals, or by money of your own,
(ihuch eignes Geld.) Till now at last (by dint
of iteration and reiteration through some ten
centuries) all these manners have grown ob-
solete, wearisome, meaningless; listened to
only as the monotonous moaning wind, while
tnere is nothing else to listen to ; — and so now,
well nigh in total oblivion of the Infinitude of
Life, (except what small unconscious recognition
the 'straddling biped' above argued of may
have,) we wait, in hope and patience, for some
fointli manner of anew convincingly announc-
ing it."

These singular sentences from the JEslIie-
tische Spring-iciirzvl we have thought right to
translate and quote, by way of proem and
apology. We are here about to give some
critical account of what Herr Sauerteig would
call a " flesh-and-blood Poem of the purest
Pasquil sort;" in plain words, to examine the
biography of the most perfect scoundrel that
in these latter ages has marked the world's
histo"y. Pasquils too, says Sauerteig, "are at
limes worth reading." Or quitting that mys-
tic dialect of his, may we not assert in our
own way, that the history of an Original Man
is always worth knowing] So magnificent a
thing is Will, (incarnated in a creature of like

fashion with ourselves,) we run lo witness all
manifestations thereof: what man soever has
marked out a peculiar path of life for himself,
(let it lead this way or that way,) and success*
fully travelled the same, of him we specially
inquire, How he travelled; What befell him
on the journey 1 Though the man were a
knave of the first water, this hinders not the
question, How he managed his knavery 1 Nay,
it rather encourages such question ; for no-
thing properly is wholly despicable, at once
detestable and forgettable, but your half-knave,
he who is neither true nor false ; who never in
his existence once spoke or did any true thing,
(for indeed his mind lives in twilight with cat-
vision, incapable of (Uscerning truth ;) and yet
had not the manful ness to speak or act any
decided lie; but spent his whole life in plas-
tering together the True and the False, and
therefrom manufacturing the Plausible. Such
a one our Transcendentals have defined as a
moral Hybrid and chimera; therefore, under
the moral point of view, as an Impossibility, and
mere deceptive Nonentity, — put together for
coinmercial purposes. Of which sort, neverthe-
less, how many m.illions, through all manner of
gradations, from the wielder of king's sceptres
to the vender of brimstone matches, at tea-
tables, council-tables, behind shop-counters, in
priests' pulpits, incessantly and everywhere, do
now, in this world of ours, in this isle of ours,
ofl^er themselves to view ! From such, at
least from this intolerable over-proportion of
such, might the merciful Heavens one day
deliver us. Glorious, heroic, fruitful for his
own Time, and for all Time, (and all Eternity)
is the constant Speaker and Doer of Truth !
If no such again, in the present generation, is
to be vouchsafed us, let us have at least the
melancholy pleasure of beholding a decided
Liar. Wretched mortal, that with a single
eye to be " respectable," for ever sittest cob-
bling together Inconsistencies, which stick not
for an hour, but require ever new gluten and
labour, — will it, by no length of experience, no
bounty of Time or Chance, be revealed to thee
that Truth is of Heaven and Falsehood is of
Hell; that if thou cast not from thee the one
or the other, thy existence is wholly an illu-
sion and optical and tactual Phantasm; that
properly thou existest not at all 1 Respectable!
What in the Devil's name, is the use of Respect-
ability, (with never so many gigs and silver
spoons,) if thou inwardly art the pitifullest of
all men ? I would thou wert either cold or hot.
One such desirable second-best, perhaps the
chief of all such, we have here found in the
Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Pupil of the
Sage Althotas, Foster-child of the Scherif of
Mecca, probable Son of the last King of Trebi-
sond; named also Acharat, and unfortunate
child of Nature; by profession healer of dis-
eases, abolisher of wrinkles, friend of the poor
and impotent, grandmaster of the Egyptian
Mason-lodge of High Science, Spirit-sum
moner, Gold-cook, Grand Cophta, Prophet,
Priest, and thaumaturgic morallist and Swin
dler; really a Liar of the first magnitude,
thoroughpaced in all provinces of lying, what
one may call the King of Liars. Mende*
I Pinto, Baron Miinchiiusen, and others, an

428

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

celebrated ^n this art, and not without some
colour of justice ; yet must it in candour re-
main doubtful whether any of these compara-
tively were much more than liars from the
teeth onwards: a perfect character of the
species in question, who lied not in word only,
nor in act and word only, but continually, in
thought, word, and act; and, so to speak, lived
wholly in an element of lying, and from birth
to death did nothing but lie, — was still a de-
sideratum. Of which desideratum Count
Alessandro offers, we say, if not the fulfilment,
perhaps as near an approach to such as the
limited human faculties permit. Not in the
modern ages, probably not in the ancient,
(though these had their Autolycus, their Apol-
lonius, and enough else,) did any completer
figure of this sort issue out of Chaos and Old
Night: a sublime kind of figure, presenting
himself with " the air of calm strength," of sure
perfection in his art; whom the heart opens
itself to with wonder and a sort of welcome.
" The only vice, I know," says one, " is Incon-
sistency." At lowest, answered we, he that
does his work shall have his work judged of.
Indeed, if Satan himself has in these days be-
come a poetic hero, why should not Cagliostro,
for some short hour, be a prose onel "One
first question," says a great Philosopher, " I
ask of every man : Has he an aim, which with
undivided soul he follows, and advances to-
wards ? Whether his aim is a right one or a
wrong one, forms but my second question."
Here then is a small "human Pasquil," not
without poetic interest.

However, be this as it may, we apprehend
the eye of science at least cannot view him
with indifference. Doubtful, false as much is
in Cagliostro's manner of being, of this there
is no doubt, that starting from the lowest point
of Fortune's wheel, he rose to a height univer-
sally notable ; that, without external further-
ance, money, beauty, bravery, almost without
common sense, or any discernible worth what-
ever, he sumptuously supported, for a long
course of years, the wants and digestion of
one of the greediest bodies, and one of the
greediest minds; outwardly in his five senses,
inwardly in his "sixth sense, that of vanity,"
nothing straitened. Clear enough it is, how-
ever much may be supposititious, that this ja-
panned Chariot, rushing through the world,
with dust-clouds and loud noise, at the speed
of four swift horses, and topheavy with lug-
gage, has an existence. The six Beef-eaters
too, that ride prosperously heralding his ad-
vent, honourably escorting, menially waiting
on him, are they not realities? Ever must
the purse open, paying turnpikes, tavern-bills,
drink-moneys, and the thousandfold tear and
wear of such a team; yet ever, like a horn-of-
plenty, does it pour; and after brief rest, the
chariot ceases not to roll. Whereupon rather
pressingly rises the scientific question : How?
Within that wonderful machinery, of horses,
wheels, top-luggage, beef-eaters, sits only a
gross, thickset individual, evincing dulness
enough ; and by his side a Seraphina, with a
look of doubtful reputation : how comes it
that means still meet ends, that the whole En-
gine (like a steam-coach wanting fuel) does

not stagnate, go silent, and fall to pieces in
the ditch ? Such question did the scientific
curiosity of the present writer often put: and
for many a day in vain.

Neither, indeed, as Book-readers know, was
he peculiar herein. The great Schiller, for
example, struck both with the poetic and the
scientific phases of the matter, admitted the
influences of the Ibrmer to shape themselves
anew within him ; and strove with his usual
impetuosity to burst (since unlocking was
impossible) the secrets of the latter: and so
his unfinished Novel, the Geisterschcr, saw the
light. Still more renowned is Goethe's Drama
of the Gross-Koplila : which, as himself in-
forms us, delivered him from a state of mind
that had become alarming to certain friends ; so
deep was the hold this business, at one of its
epochs, had taken of him. A dramatic Fic-
tion, that of his, based on the strictest possible
historical study and inquiry; wherein perhaps
the faithfullest image of the historical Fact, as
yet extant in any shape, lies in artistic minia-
ture curiously unfolded. Nay mere Newspa-
per-readers, of a certain age, can bethink
them of our London Egyptian Lodges of High
Science; of the Countess Seraphina's daz-
zling jewelleries, nocturnal brilliancies, sibyi-
lic ministrations and revelations; of Miss Fry
and Milord Scott, and Messrs. Priddle and
Shark Bailiff; and Lord Mansfield's judgment-
seat ; the Comte d'Adhemar, the Diamond
Necklace, and Lord George Gordon. For
Cagliostro, hovering through unknown space,
twice (perhaps thrice) lighted on our London,
and did business in the great chaos there.

Unparalleled Cagliostro ! Looking at thy
so attractively decorated private theatre, where-
in thou actedst and livedst, what hand but
itches to draw aside thy curtain ; overhaul
thy paste-boards, paintpots, paper-mantles,
stage-lamps, and turning the whole inside out,
find thee in the middle thereof! For there of
a truth wert thou : though the rest was all
foam and sham, there sattest tlwv, as large as
life, and as esurient ; warring against the
world, and indeed conquering the world, for it
remained thy tributary, and yielded daily ra-
tions. Innumerable Sheriff's-officers, Exempts,
Sbirri, Alguazils, of every European climate,
were prowling on thy traces, their intents hos-
tile enough ; thyself wast single against them
all ; in the whole earth thou hadst no friend.
What, say we in the whole earth 1 In the
whole universe thou hadst no friend ! Heaven
knew nothing of thee (rotild in charity know
nothing of thee ;) and as for Beelzebub, hit
friendship, as is ascertained, cannot count for
much.

But to proceed with business. The present
inquirer, in obstinate investigation of a phe-
nomenon so noteworthy, has searched through
the whole not inconsiderable circle which his
tether (of circumstances, geographical posi-
tion, trade, health, extent of money capital)
enables him to describe : and, sad to say,
with the most imperfect results. He has read
Books in various languages and jargons ;
feared not to soil his fingers, hunting through
ancient dusty Magazines, to sicken his heart
in any labvrinth of iniquity and imbecility ;

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

429

nay he had not grudged to dive even into the
infectious Meinnirs (k CusunovD, for a hint or
two, — could he have found that work, which,
however, most British Librarians make a
point of denying that they possess. A pain-
ful search, as through some spiritual pest-
house ; and then with such issue! The quan-
tity of discoverable Printing about Cagliostro
(so much being burnt) is now not great;
nevertheless in frightful proportion to the
quantity of information given. Except vague
Newspaper rumours and surmises, the things
found written of (his Quack are little more than
temporary Manifestoes, by himself, by gulled
or gulling disciples of his : not true there-
fore ; at best only certain fractions of what he
wished or expected the blinder Public to reckon
true; misty, embroiled, for most part highly
stupid; perplexing, even provoking; which
can only be believed — to be (under such and
such conditions) Lies. Of this sort emphati-
cally is the Englisli "Life of the Count Caglios-
tro, price three shillings and sixpence :" a
Book indeed which one might hold (so fatu-
ous, inane is it) to be some mere dream-vision
and unreal eidolon, did it not now stand pal-
pably there, as "Sold by T. Hookham, Bond
Street, 1787;" and bear to be handled, spurned
at, and torn into pipe-matches. Some human
creature doubtless was at the writing of it;
but of what kind, country, trade, character, or
gender, you will in vain strive to fancy. Of
hke fabulous stamp are the Mc'nioires jionr le
Comic (le Cagliostro, emitted with lierjKCte a join-
dre, from the Bastille (during that sorrowful
business of the Diamond Necklace) in 178G ;
no less the Lcttre du Comte de Cngliostro au Peii-
ple Jiiglais, which followed shortly after, at
London ; from \vhich two indeed, that fatuous
inexplicable English Life has perhaps been
mainly manufactured. Next come the Me-
moiies aullienliipics pour scivir d CHistoire du
Conitc de Cas,lto.-:t}-n, (twice printed in the same
year 1786, at Strasburg and at Paris;) a swag-
gering, lascivious Novellette, without talent,
without truth or worth, happily of small' size.
So fares it with us: alas, all this is but the
outside decorations of the private theatre, or
the sounding of catcalls and applauses from
the stupid audience ; nowise the interior bare
walls and dress-rot)m which we wanted to see!
Almost our sole even hall-genuine documents
are a small barren Patnphlet, Caglwslro dc-
nnsijued Varsovic, en 1780; and a small barren
Volume purporting to be his Life, written at
Rome, of which latter we have a French ver-
Kion, dated 1791. It is on this J'ie de Joseph
B-dsaiiio, roniui. sous le JS'oin de Condc Cagliostro,
that our main dependence must be placed ; of
which WorK', meanwhile, whether it is wholly
or only half-genuine, the reader may judge by
one fact : that it cnmes to us through the me-
dium of the Roman Inquisition, and the proofs
to substantiate it he in the Holy Olfice there.
Alas, this reporting Familiar of the Inquisition
was too probably something of a Liar; and
he reporis lying Confessions of one who was
rot so much a Liar as a Lie ! In such enig-
matic duskiness, and thrice-folded involution,
after all inquiries, docs the matter yet hang.
Nevertheless, by dint of meditation and

comparison, light-points that stand fixed, and
abide scrutiny, do here and there disclose
themselves ; diffusing a fainter light over what
otherwise were dark, so that it is no longer
invisible, but only dim. Nay, after all, is therci
not in this same uncertainty a kind of fitness,
of poetic congruity] Much that would ofl'end
the eye stands discreetly lapped in shade.
Here too Destiny has cared for her favourite :
that a powder-nimbus of astonishment, mysti-
fication, and uncertainty, should still encircle
the Quack of Quacks, is right and suitable ;
such was by Nature and Art his chosen uni-
form and environment. Thus, as formerly in
Life, so now in History, it is in huge fluctuat-
ing smoke-whirlwinds, partially illumed (into
a most brazen glory,) yet united, coalescing
with the region of everlasting Darkness, in
miraculous clear-obscure, that he works and
rides.

"Stern Accuracy in inquiring, bold Imagi-
nation in expounding and filling up ; these,"
says friend Sauerteig, " are the two pinions on
which History soars," — or flutters and wabbles.
To which two pinions let us and the readers
of this Magazine now daringly commit our-
selves. Or chiefly indeed to the latter pinion
(of Imagination ;) which, if it be the larger,
will make an unequal flight. Meanwhile, the
style at least shall if possible be equal to the
subject.

Know, then, that in the year 1743, in the
city of Palermo, in Sicily, the family of Signor
Pietro Balsamo, a shopkeeper, were exhile-
rated by the birth of a Boy. Such occurrences
have now become so frequent that, miraculous
as they are, they occasion little astonishment:
old Balsamo for a space, indeed, laid down his
ell-wands and unjust balances; but for the '"
rest, met the event with equanimity. Of the
possettings, junkettings, gossippings, and other
ceremonial rejoicings, transacted according to
the custom of the country, for welcome to a
New-comer, not the faintest tradition has sur-
vived ; enough, that the small New-comer,
hitherto a mere ethnic or heathen, is in a few
days made a Christian of, or as we vulgarly
say, christened ; by the name of Giuseppe. A
fat, red, globular kind of fellow, not under nin^
pounds avoirdupois, the bold Imagination can
figure him to be: if not proofs, there are indi-
cations that sufficiently betoken as much.

Of his teething and swaddling adventures,
of his scaldings, squallings, pukings, purgings,
the strictest search into History can discover
nothing; not so much as the epoch when he
passed out of long-clothes stands noted in the
fasti of Sicily. That same "larger pinion,"
(of Imagination,) nevertheless, conducts him
from his native blind-alley, into the adjacent
street rasaro ; descries him, with certain con-
temporaries now unknown, essaying himself
in small games of skill; watching what phe-
nomena, of carriage-transits, dog-baltles, streti-
music. orsuch like, tne neighbourhood might
ofler (intent above all on any windfall of
chance provender :) now, with incipient scienti-
fic spirit, paddling in the gutters; now, as
small poet, or maker, baking mud-pies. Thus
does he tentativelv coast along the outskirts of

430

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Existence, till once he shall be strong enough
to land and make a fooling there. Neither
does it seem doubtful that with the earliest ex-
ercise of speech, the gifts of simulation and
dissimuladon began to manifest themselves :
Giuseppe (or Beppo, as he was now called)
could indeed speak the truth, — but only when
he saw his advantage in it. Hungry also, as
above hinted, he too probably often was: a
keen faculty of digestion, a meager larder
within doors ; these two circumstances, so
frequently conjoined in this world, reduced
hira to liis inventions. As to the thing called
Morals, and knowledge of Right and Wrong,
it seems pretty certain that such knowledge
(the sad fruit of Man's Fall) had in great part
been spared him ; if he ever heard the com-
mandment, Tkoii. shiilt not steal, he most proba-
bly could not believe in it, therefore could not
obey it. For the rest, though of quick temper,
and a ready striker, (where clear prospect of
victory showed itself,) we fancy him vocife-
rous rather than bellicose, not prone to vio-
lence where stratagem will serve; almost pa-
cific, indeed, had not his many wants necessi-
tated him to many conquests. Above all
things, a ",>razen impudence developes itself;
the cror ziing gift of one born to scoundrelism.
In a word, the fat, thickset Beppo, as he skulks
about there, plundering, playing dog's-tricks,
with his finger in every mischief, already
gains character; shrill housewives of the
neighbourhood, whose sausages he has filched,
whose weaker sons maltreated, , name him
Beppo Maldetto, and indignantly prophesy that
he will he hanged. A prediction which, as
will be seen, the issue has signally falsified.

We hinted that the household larder was in
a leanish state : in fact, the ouilook of the
Balsamo family was getting troubled; old
Balsamo had, during these things, been called
away on his long journey. Poor man ! The
future eminence and pre-eminence of his Bep-
po he foresaw not, or what a wurld's-wonder
he had thoughtlessly generated ; as indeed,
which of us, by much calculating, can sum up
the net-total (Utility, or Inutility) of any his
most indifferent act, — a seed cast into the seed-
field of Time, to grow there, producing fruits
or poisons, for ever! Meanwhile Beppo him-
self gazed heavily into the mailer: hung his
thick lips, while he saw his mother weeping ;
and, for the rest, eating what fat or sweet thing
he could come at, let Destiny take its course.

The poor widow, (ill-named Felicitn,) spin-
ning out a painful livelihood by such means
as only the poor and forsaken know, could not
but many times cast an impatient eye on her
brass-faced, voracious Beppo; and ask him,
If he never meant to turn himself to any
thing! A maternal uncle, of the moneyed
sort, (for he has uncles not without influence,)
has already placed him in the Seminary of
Saint Roch, to gain some tincture of school-
mg there: but Beppo feels himself misplaced
in that sphere; "more than once runs away;"
is flogged, snubbed, tyrannically checked on
all sides; and finally, with such slender stock
of schooling a ' had pleased to oft'er itself, re-
turns to the street. The widow, as we said,
urges him, the uncles urge : Beppo, wilt thou

never turn thyself to any thing T Beppo, with
such speculative faculty, from such low watch-
tower, as he commands, is in truth, (being
forced to it,) from time to time, looking abroad
into the world; surveying the conditions of
mankind, therewith contrasting his own wishes
and capabilities. Alas, his wishes are mani-
fold; a most hot Hunger, (in all kinds,) as
above hinted ; but on the other hand, his lead-
ing capability seemed only the Power to Eat.
What profession, or condition, then 1 Choose;
for it is time. Of all the terrestrial professions,
that of Gentleman, it seemed to Beppo, had,
under these circumstances, been most suited
to his feelings: but then the outfit] the appren-
tice-fee? Failing which, he, with perhaps as
much sagacity as one could expect, decides for
the Ecclesiastical.

Behold him then, once more by the uncle's
management, journeying (a chubby, brass-
faced boy of thirteen) beside the Reverend
Father General of the Benfratelli, to their
neighbouring Convent of Cartegirone, with
intent to enter himself novice there. He has
donned the novice-habit; is " intrusted to the
keeping of the Convent Apothecary," on whose
gallipots and crucibles he looks rou id with
wonder. Were it by accident that he found
himself Apothecary's Famulus, were it by
choice of- his own — nay was it not, in either
case, by design, of Destiny intent on perfecting
her work! — enough, in this Cartegirone La-
boratory there awaited him, (though as yet he
knew it not,) life-guidance and determination;
the great want of every genius, even of the
scoundrel-geniiK. He himself confesses that
he here learned some (or, as he calls it, ihe)
"principles of chemistry and medicine."
Natural enough : new books of the Chemists
lay here, old books of the Alchymists; distil-
lations, sublimations visibly went on ; discus-
sions there were, oral and wi-itten, of gold-
making, salve-making, treasure-digging, divin-
ing-rods, projection, and the alcahest: besides,
had he not, among his fingers, calxes, acids,
Leyden-jars? Some first elements of medico-
chemical conjurorship, so far as phosphores-
cent mixtures, aqua-toffana, ipecacuanha, can-
tharides tincture, and such like would go,
were now attainable; sufficient (when the
hour came) to set up any average Quack,
much more the Quack of Quacks. It is here,
in this unpromising environment, that the
seeds, therapeutic, thaumaturjjic, of the Grand
Cophta's stupendous workings and renown
were sown.

Meanwhile, as observed, the environment
looked unpromising enough. Beppo with his
two endowments, of Hunger and of Power to
Eat, had made the best choice he could; yet,
as it soon proved, a rash and disappointing
one. To his astonishment, he finds that even
here he " is in a conditional world ;" and, if he
will employ his capability of eating, (or enjoy-
ing,) must first, in some measure, work and
sutler. Contention enough hereupon: but
now dimly arises, or reproduces itself, the
question. Whether there were not a shorter
road, that of stealing! Stealing — under which,
generically taken, you may include the whole
art of scoundrelism; for what is Lying it&elf

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

431

but a theft of my belief? — stealing, we say, is
properly the North-West Passage to Enjoy-
ment: while common Navigators sail pain-
fully along torrid shores, laboriously doubling
this or the other Cape of Hope, your adroit
Thief-Parry, drawn on smooth dog-sledges, is
already there and back again. The misfortune
is that stealing requires a talent; and failure
in that North-West voyage is more fatal than
in any other. We hear that Beppo was " often
punished:" painful experiences of the fate of
genius; for all genius, by its nature, comes to
disturb somebody in his ease, and your thief-
genius more so than most!

Readers can now fanc}' the sensitive skin
of Beppo mortified with prickly cilices, wealed
by knotted thongs; his soul afflicted by vigils
and forced fasts; no eye turned kindly on
him ; everywhere the bent of his genius rudely
contravened. However, it is the first property
of genius to grow in spite of contradiction, and
even by means thereof; — as the vital germ
pushes itself through the dull soil, and lives
by what strove to bury it! Beppo, waxing
into strength of bone and character, sets his
face stiffly against persecution, and is not a
whit disheartened. On swh chastisements and
chastisers he can look with a certain genial
disdain. Beyond convent walls, with their
sour stupid shavelings, lies Palermo, lies the
world ; here too is he, still alive, — though
worse off than he wished; and feels that the
world is his oyster, which he (by chemical or
other means) will one day open. Nay, we
find there is a touch of grim Humour unfolds
itself in the youth; the surest sign (as is often
said) of a character naturally great. Witness,
for example, how he acts on this to his ardent
temperament so trying occasion. While the
monks sit at meat, the impetuous voracious
Beppo (that stupid Inquisition Biographer
records it as a thing of course) is set not to
eat with them, not to pick up the crumbs that
fall from them, but to stand " reading the Pvlar-
tyrology" for their pastime! The brave ad-
justs himself to the inevitable. Beppo reads
that dullest Martyrology of theirs ; but reads
out of it not what is printed there, but what
his own vivid brain on the spur of the moment
devises: instead of the names of Saints, all
heartily indifferent to him, he reads out the
names of the most notable Palermo "unfortu-
nate-females," now beginning to interest him
a little. What a "deep world-irony" (as the
Germans dall it) lies here! The Monks, of
course, felled him to the earth, and flayed him
with scourges; but what did it avail 1 This
only became apparent, to himself and them,
that he had now outgrown their monk disci-
pline; as the psyche does its chrysalis-shell,
and bursts it. Giuseppe Balsamo bids farewell
to Cartegirone for ever and a day.

So now, by consent or not of the ghostly
Benfratelli (Friars of Mary, as they were
named !) our Beppo has again returned to the
maternal uncle at Palermo. The uncle natu-
rally asked him, What he next meant to do"!
Beppo, after stammering and hesitating for
some length of weeks, makes answer: Try
Fainting. Well and good! .So Beppo gets
hin^ colours, brushes, fit. tackle, and addicts

himself for some space of time to the study of
what is innocently called Design. Alas, if we
consider Beppo's great Hunger, now that new
senses were unfolding in him, how inadequate
are the exiguous resources of Design ; how
necessary to attempt quite another deeper spe-
cies of Design, of Designs ! It is true, he
lives with his uncle, has culinary meat ; but
where is the pocket-money for other costlier
sorts of meats to come from? As the Kaiser
Joseph was wont to say : From my head alone
{De ma tetc seule!)

The Roman Biographer (though a most
wooden man) has incidentally thrown some
light on Beppo's position at this juncture:
both on his wants and his resources. As to
the first, it appears (using the wooden man's
phraseology) that he kept the "Avorst com-
pany," led the "loosest life;" was hand in
glove with all the swindlers, gamblers, idle
apprentices, unfortunate-females, of Palermo:
in the study and practice of Scoundrelism
diligent beyond most. The genius which has
burst asunder convent-walls, and other rub-
bish of impediments, now flames upward
towards its mature splendour. Wheresoever
a stroke of mischief is to be done, a slush of
so-called vicious enjoyment to be swallowed,
there with hand and throat is Beppo Balsamo
seen. He will be a Master, one day, in his
profession. Not indeed that he has yet quitted
Painting, or even purposes so much : for the
present, it is useful, indispensable, as a stalk-
ing-horse to the maternal uncle and neigh-
bours; nay to himself, for with all the ebul-
lient impulses of scoundrel-genius restlessly
seething in him, irrepressibly bursting through,
he has the noble unconsciousness of genius;
guesses not, dares not guess, that he is a born
scoundrel, much less a born world-scoundrel.

But as for the other question, of his re-
sources, these we perceive were several-fold,
and continually extending. Not to mention
any pictorial exiguities, (existing mostly it
Expectance,) there had almost accidentally
arisen for him, in the first place, the resource
of Pandering. He has a fair cousin living in
the house with him, and she again has a lover;
Beppo stations himself as go-between ; de-
livers letters; fails not to drop hints that a
lady, to be won or kept, must be generously
treated; that such and such a pair of ear-rings,
watch, necklace, or even sum of money, would
work wonders; which valuables (adds the
wooden Roman Biographer) " he then appro-
priated furtively." Like enough ! Next, how-
ever, as another more lasting resource, he
forges : at first in a small way, and trying his
apprentice-hand: tickets for the theatre, and
such trifles. Ere long, however, we see him
fly at higher quarry; by practice he has ac-
quired perfection in the great art of counter-
feiting hands ; and will exercise it on the large
or on the narrow scale, for a consideration.
Among his relatives is a Notary, with whom
he can insinuate himself; for purpose of study,
or even of practice. In the presses of tliio
Notary lies a Will, which Beppo contrives to
come at, and falsify " for the benefit of a cer
tain Religious House." Much good may it di
them ! Many years afterwards, the fraud wa«

432

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS,

detected ; but Beppo's benefit in it was spent
and safe long before. Thus again the stolid
Biographer expresses horror or wonder thai
he should have forged leave-of-absence for a
monk, "counterfeiting the signature of the
Superior." Why not"! A forger must forge
what is wanted of him ; the Lion truly preys
not on mice; yet shall he refuse such if they
jump into his mouth 1 Enough, the indefati-
gable Beppo has here opened a quite boundless
mine; wherein through his whole life he will,
as occasion calls, dig, at his convenience.
Finally, he can predict fortunes and show
visions; by phosphorus and legerdemain. This
however, only as a dilettantism ; to take up
the earnest profession of Magician does not
yet enter into his views. Thus perfecting him-
self in all branches of his art, does our Bal-
samo live and grow. Stupid, pudding-faced
as he looks and is, there is a vulpine astucity
in him; and then a wholeness, a heartiness, a
kind of blubbery impetuosity, an oiliness so
plausible-looking: give him only length of
life, he will rise to the top of his profes-
sion.

Consistent enough with such blubbery im-
petuosity in Beppo is another fact we find re-
corded of him, that at this time he was found
" 111 most brawls," whether in street or tavern.
The way of his business led him into liability
to such ; neither as yet had he learned pru-
dence by age. Of choleric temper, with all his
obesity; a square-built, burly, vociferous fel-
low; ever ready with his stroke, (if victory
seemed sure;) nay, at bottom, not without a
certain pig-like defensive-ferocity, perhaps
even something more. Thus, when you find
him making a point to attack, if possible, "all
ofTicers of justice," and deforce them ; deliver-
ing the wretched from their talons: was not
this, we say, a kind of dog-faithfulness, and
public spirit, either of the mastiff or of the cur
species'! Perhaps, too, there was a touch of
that old Humour and "world-irony" in it. One
still more unquestionable feat he is recorded
(we fear, on imperfect evidence) to have done:
"assassinated a canon."

Remonstrances from growling matei;-nal
uncles could not fail ; threats, disdains from
ill-affected neighbours ; tears from an expostu-
lating widowed mother; these he shakes from
him like dewdrops from the lion's mane. Still
less could the Police neglect him ; him the
visibly rising Professor of Swindlery; the
swashbuckler, to boot, and deforcer of bailifls :
he has often been captured, haled to their bar;
yet hitherto, by defect of evidence, by good
luck, intercession of friends, been dismissed
With admonition. Two things, nevertheless,
might now be growing clear: first, that the die
■was cast with Beppo, and he a scoundrel for life,
second, that such a mixed, composite, crypto-
scoundrel life could not endure, but must un-
fold itself into a pure, declared one. The Tree
that is planted stands not still; must pass
through all its stages and phases, from the
state of acorn to that of green leafy oak, of
withered leafless oak; to the state of felled
limber, finally to that of firewood and ashes.

Not less (though less visibly to dull eyes) the
Act that is done, the Condition that has realized
itself; above all things, the Man (with his
Fortunes) that has been born. Beppo, every
way in vigorous vitality, cannot continue half
painting half swindling in Palermo ; must
develop himself into whole swindler; and, un-
less hanged there, seek his bread elsewhere.
What the proximate cause, or signal, of such
crisis and development might be, no man
could say ; yet most men would have con-
fidently guessed. The Police. Nevertheless it
proved otherwise ; not by the flaming sword
of Justice, but by the rusty dirk of a foolish
private individual, is Beppo driven forth.

Walking one day in the fields (as the bold
historic Imagination will figure) with a cer-
tain ninny of a "Goldsmith named Marano,"
as they pass one of those rock-chasms frequent
in the fair Island of Sicily, Beppo begins, in
his oily, voluble way, to hint that Treasures
often lay hid; that a Treasure lay hid Ihere (as
he knew by some pricking of his thumbs,
divining rod, or other talismanic monition ;)
which Treasure might, by aid of science,
courage, secrecy, and a small judicious ad-
vance of money, be fortunately lifted. The
gudgeon takes: advances (by degrees) to the
length of "sixty gold Ounces;" sees magic
circles drawn in the wane or in the full of the
moon, blue (phosphorus) flames arise, split
twigs auspiciously quiver; and at length —
demands peremptorily that the Treasure be
dug. A night is fixed on : the ninny Gold-
smith, trembling with rapture and terror, breaks
ground; digs, with thick breath and cold sweat,
fiercely down, down, Beppo relieving him :
the work advances ; when, ah ! at a certain
stage of it {brforc fruition) hideous yells arise,
a jingle like the emptying of Birmingham ;
six Devils pounce upon the poor sheep Gold-
smith, and beat him almost to vmtton : merci-
fully sparing Balsamo, — who indeed has him-
self summoned them thither, and as it were
created them (with goatskins and burnt cork.)
Marano, though a ninny, now knew how it lay ;
and furthermore that he had a stiletto. One
of the grand drawbacks of swindler-genius!
You accomplish the Problem ; and then — the
Elementary Quantities (Algebraic Symbols)
you worked en will fly in your face !

Hearing of stilettos, our Algebraist begins
to look around him, and view his empire of
Palermo in the concrete. An empire now
much exhausted; much infested, loo, with sor-
rows of all kinds, and everyday the more;
nigh ruinous, in short; not worth being stab-
bed for. There is a world elsewhere. In any
case, the young Raven has now shed his pens,
and got fledged for flying. Shall he not spurn
the whole from him. and soar ofl"? Resolved,
performed! Our Beppo quits Palermo; and,
as it proved, on a long voyage : or as the In-
quisition Biographer has it, "he fled from
Palermo, and overran Jhe whole Earth."

Here then ends the First Act of Count Ales-
sandro Cagliostro's Life-drama. Let the cur-
tain drop ; and hang unrent, before an audi-
ence of mixed feeling, till the First of August.

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

43J

COUNT CAGLIOSTEO.

IN TWO FLIGHTS.

[Eraser's Magazine, 1833.]

Flight Last.

Befohe entering on the second Section of
Count Beppo's History, the Editor will indulge
in a philosophical reflection.

This Beppic Hegira (Flight from Palermo)
we have now arrived at brings us down, in
European History, to somewhere about the
epocli of the Peace of Paris. Old Feudal Eu-
rope (while he flies forth into the whole Earth)
has just finished the last of her" lavern brawls,"
(or wars ;) and lain down to doze, and yawn,
and disconsolately wear off the headaches,
bruises, nervous prostration, and flaccidiiy
consequent thereon : for the brawl had been a
long one, (Seven Years long;) and there had
been many such, begotten, as is usual, of In-
toxication, (froQi Pride,or other Devil's-drink,)
and foul humours in the constitution. Alas, it
was not so much a disconsolate doze, after
ebriety and quarrel, that poor old Feudal Eu-
rope had now to undergo, and then on awaken-
ing to drink anew (wine of Abomination,)
and quarrel anew : old Feudal Europe has
fallen a-dozing to die! Her next awakening
will be with no tavern-brawl (at the King's
Head or Prime Minister:) but with the stern
Avatar of Democracy, hymning its world-
thrilling birth and battle song in the distant
West; — therefrom to go out conquering and to
conquer, till it have made the circuit of all the
Earth, and old dead Feudal Europe is born
again (after infinite pangs!) into anew Indus-
trial one. At Beppo's Hegira, as we said, Eu-
rope was in the last languor and stertorous
fever-sleep of Dissolution: alas, with us and
with our sons, (for a generation or two,) it is
almost still worse, — were it not that in Birth-
throes there is ever Hope, in Death-throes the
final departure of Hope.

Now the philosophic reflection we were to
indulge in, was no other than this, most ger-
mane to our subject : the portentous extent
of Quacker)^ the multitudinous variety of
Quacks that along with our Beppo, and under
him each in his degree, overran all Europe
during that same period, the latter half of last
century. It was the very age of impostois,
cut-purses, swindlers, double-gangers, enthu-
siasts, ambiguous persons; quacks simple,
quacks compound; crack-brained, or with de-
ceit prepense; quacks and quackeries of all
colours and kinds. How many Mesmerists,
Magicians, Cabalists, Swedenborgians, Illumi-
nati. Crucified Nuns, and Devils of Loudun!
To which the Inquisition Biographer adds Vam-
pires, Sylphs, Rosicrucians, Free-masons, and
an Et celtra. Consider yourSchropfers.Caglios-
tros, Casanovas.Saint-Germains, Dr. Grahams;
the Chevalier d'Eon, Psalmanazar, Abbe Paris,
and the Ghost of Cock-lane! As if Bedlam
had broken loose; as if rather (in that "spiri-
65

tual Twelfth-hour of the Night") the everlast-
ing Pit had opened itself, and from its still
blacker bosom had issued Madness and all
manner of shapeless Misbirths, to masquerade
and chatter there.

But, indeed, if we consider, how could it be
otherwise 1 In that stertorous last fever-sleep
of our European world, must not Phantasms
enough (born of the Pit, as all such an) flit
past, in ghastly masquerading and chattering 1
A low scarce-audible moan (in Parliamentary
Petitions, Meal-mobs, Popish Riots, Treatises
on Atheism) struggles from the moribund
sleeper; frees him not from his hellish guests
and saturnalia: Phantasms these "of a dying
brain." So too, when the old Roman woild,
the measure of its iniquities being full, was to
expire, and (in still bitter agonies) be born
again, had they not Veneficse, Mathematici,
Apolloniuses with the Golden Thigh, Apollo-
nius' Asses, and False Christs enough, — be-
fore a Redeemer arose !

For, in truth, and altogether apart from such
half-figurative language, Putrescence is not
more naturally the scene of unclean creatures
in the world physical, than Social Decay is of
quacks in the world moral. Nay, look at it
with the eye of the mere Logician, of the Po-
litical Economist. In such periods of Soc'al
Decay, what is called an overflowing Popula-
tion, that is a Population which, under the old
Captains of Industry, (named Higher Classes,
l\icos Hombres, Aristocracies, and the like,) can
no longer find work and wages, increases the
number of Unprofessionals, Lack-alls, Social
Nondescripts ; with appetite of utmost keen-
ness, which there is no known method of satis-
fying. Nay more, and perversely enough, ever
as Population augments, your Captains of In-
dustry can and do dwindle more and more tnto
Captains of Idleness; whereby the more and
more overflowing Population is worse and
worse governed (shown ivhat to do, for that is
the only government:) thus is the candle light-
ed at both ends; and the number of social
Nondescripts increases in double-quick ratio.
Whoso is alive, it is said, "must live;" at all
events, will live; a task which daily gets
harder, reduces to stranger shifts. And now
furthermore, with general economic distress, in
such a Period, there is usually conjoined the
utmost decay of moral principle: indeed, so
universal is this conjunction, many men have
seen it to be a concatenation and causation ;
justly enough, except that such have (ever
since a certain religious-repentant feeling went
out of date) committed one sore mistake : what
is vulgarly called putting the cart before the
horse. Political-Economical Benefactor of the
Species ! deceive not thyself with barren so
phisms: National suffering is (if thou wilt
understand the words) verily a "judgment ol
2 O

434

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

God;" has ever been preceded by national
crime. " Be it here once more maintained be-
fore the world," cries Sauerteig, in one of his
Springwiirzcl, " that temporal Distress, that
Misery of any kind, is not the cause of Immor-
tality, but the effect thereof! Among individu-
als, it is true, so wide is the empire of Ciiance,
poverty and wealth go all at hap-hazard ; a
Saint Paul is making tents at Corinth, while a
Kaiser Nero fiddles, in ivory palaces over a
burning Rome. Nevertheless here too, if no-
wise wealth and poverty, yet well-being and
ill-being, even in the temporal economic sense,
go commonly in respective partnership with
Wisdom and with Folly : no man can, for a
length of time, be wholly wretched, if there
is not a disharmony (a folly and wickedness)
within himself; neither can the richest Croesus,
and never so eupeptic, (for he too has indiges-
tions and dies at last from surfeit,) be other
than discontented, perplexed, unhappy, if he
be a Fool." — This we apprehend is true, O
Sauerteig, yet not the whole truth : for there is
more than days' work and days' wages in this
world of ours; which, as thou knowest, is it-
self quite other than a •' Workshop and Fancy-
Bazaar," is also a " mystic Temple and Hall of
Doom." Thus we have heard of such things
as good men struggling with adversity, and of-
fering a spectacle for the very gods. — "But
with a nation," continues he, " where the mul-
titude of the chances covers, in great mea-
sure, the uncertainty of Chance, it may be
said to hold always that general Suffering is
the fruit of general Misbehaviour, general
Dishonesty. Consider it well ; had all men
stood faithfully to their posts, the Evil, when
it first rose, bad been manfully fronted, and
abolished, not lazily blinked, and left lo grow,
with the foul sluggard's comfort:' It will last my
time.' Thou foul sluggard, and even thief
(^Fauhiizei;ja Dieb!) For art thou not a ihief,
to pocket thy day's wages (be they counted in
groschen or in gold thousands) for this, if it be
for any thing, for watching on thy special
watch-tower that God's City (which this His
World is, where His children dwell) suffer no
damage ; and, all the while, to watch only that
thy own ease be not invaded, — let otherwise
hard come to hard as it will and can 1 Un-
happy ! It will last thy time : thy worthless
sham of an existence, wherein nothing but the
Digestion was real, will have evaporated in the
interim ; it will last thy time : but will it last
thy Eicnnty? Or what if it should nut last thy
time, (mark that also, for that also will be the
fate oi some such lying sluggard;) but take
fire, and explode, and consume thee like the
moth !"

The sum of the matter, in any case, is, that
national Poverty and national Dishonesty go
together; that continually increasing social
Nondescripts get ever the hungrier, ever the
falser. Nnw say, have we not here the very
making of Quackery; raw-material, plastic-
energy, both in full action 1 Dishonesty the
raw-material. Hunger the plastic-energy: what
will not the two realize 1 Nay observe farther
how Dishonesty is the raw-material not of
Quacks only, but also, in great part, of Dupes.
In Goodness, were it never so simple, there is

the surest instinct for the Good; the nneasiesl
unconquerable repulsion for the False ar.:.
Bad. The very Devil Mephistopheles cannot
deceive poor guileless Margaret: "it stands
written on his front that he never loved a liv-
ing soul." The like too has many a human
inferior Quack painfully experienced; the like
lies in store for our hero Beppo. But now
with such abundant raw-material not only to
make Quacks of, but to feed and occupy thena
on, if the plastic-energy (of Hunger) fail not,
what a world shall we have! The wonder is
not that the eighteenth century had very nu-
merous Quacks, but rather that they were not
innumerable.

In that same French Revolution alone, which
burnt up so much, what unmeasured masses
of Quackism were set fire to ; nay, as foul me-
phitic fire-damp in that case, were made to
flame in a fierce, sublime splemhur : coruscat-
ing, even illuminating!. The Count Saint
Germain, some twenty years later, had found
a quite new element, of Fraternization, Sacred
right of Insurrection, Oratorship of the Human
Species, wherefrom to body himself forth quite
otherwise: Schropfer needed not now, as
Blackguard undeterred, have solemnly shot
himself in the Rn>:ealhid ; might have solemnly
sacrificed himself, as Jacobin half-heroic, in
the Place (le la Iieoolu.tioii. For your quack-
genius is indeed born, but also made; circum-
stances shape him or stunt him. Beppo Bal-
samo, born British in these new days, could
have cimjured fewer Spirits; yet had found a
living and glory, as Castlereagh Spy, Irish
Associationist, Blacking-Manufacturer, Book-
Publisher, Able Editor. Withal too the reader
will observe that Quacks, in every time, ait!
of two sorts: the Declared Quack; and the
Undeclared, who, if you question him, will
deny stormfully, both to others and tohimself ;
of which two quack-species the proportions
vary with the varying capacity of the age. If
Beppo's was the age of the Declared, therein,
after all French Revolutions, we will g: ant, lay
one of its main distinctions from ours , which
is it not yet (and for a generation or tivo) the
age of the Undeclared] Alas, almost a still
more detestable age ; — yet now (by God's
grace) with Prophecy, with irreversible Enact-
ment (registered in Heaven's chancery, —
where lliou too, if thou wilt look, mays', read
and know) that its death-doom shall not linger.
Be it speedy, be it sure! — And so herewith
were our philosophical reflection, on the na-
ture, causes, prevalence, decline, and expected
(temporary) destruction of Quackery, con-
cluded; and now the Beppic poetic Narrative
can once more take ii ; course.

Beppo then, like a Noah's Raven, is out
upon that watery waste (of dissolute, beduped,
distracted European Life,) to see if there is
any carrion there. One unguided little Raven,
in the wide-weltering " Mother of dead Dogs:"
will he not come to haim ; will he not be snapt
up, drowned, starved, and washed to the Devil
there 1 No fear of him, — for a time. His eye,
(or scientific judgment.) it is true, as yet takes
in only a small section of it; but then his
scent (instinct of genius) ,s prodigious: seve-
ral endowments (forgery and others) he has

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

435

onfolded into talents; the two sources of all
quack-talent, Cunning and Impudence, are his
in richest measure.

As to his immediate course of action and
adventure, the foolish Inquisition Biographer,
it must be owned, shows himself a fool, and
can give us next to no insight. Like enough,
Beppo "fled to Messina;" simply as to the
nearest city, and tp get across to the mainland:
but as to this "certain Althotas" whom he met
there, and voyaged with to Alexandria in Egypt,
and how they made hemp into silk, and realized
much money, and came to Malta, and studied
in the Laboratory there, and then the certain
Althotas died, — of all this what shall be said?
The foolish Inquisition Biographer is uncer-
tain whether the certain Althotas was a Greek
or a Spaniard : but unhappily the prior ques-
tion is not settled, whether he tons at all. Su-
perfluous it seems to put down Beppo's own
account of his p-ocedure; he gave multifarious
accounts, as tne exigencies of the case de-
manded: this of the "certain Althotas," and
hemp made into false silk, is as verisimilar as
that other of the " sage Althotas," theheirship-
apparent of Trebisotid, and the Scherif of
Mecca's " Adieu, unfortunate Child of Nature."
Na}' the guesses of ihe ignorant world; how
Count Cagliostro had been travelling tutor to a
Prince, (name not given,) whom he murdered
and took the money from; with others of the
like, — were perhaps still more absurd. Beppo,
we can see, was out and away, — the Devil
knew whither. Far, variegated, painful, might
his roamings be. A plausible-looking shadow
of him shows itself hovering over Naples and
Calabria; thiiher, as to a famed high-school
of Laziness and Scoundrelism, he may likely
enough have gone to graduate. Of the Malta
Laboratory, and Alexandrian hemp-silk, the
less we say the better. This only is clear:
That Beppo dived deep down into the lugu-
brious-obscure regions of Rascaldom; like a
Knight to the palace of his Fairy; remained
unseen there, and returned thence armed at all
points.

If we fancy, meanwhile, that Beppo already
meditated becoming grand Cophta, and riding
at Strasburg in the Cardinal's carriage, we
mistake much. Gift of Prophecy has been
wisely denied to man. Did a man foresee his
life, and not merely hope it, and grope it, and
so, by Necessity and Free-will, make and
fabricate it into a reality, he were no /nan, but
some other kind of creature, superhuman or
sublerhuman. No man sees far: the most
see no farther than their noses. From the
quite dim uncertain mass of the future, ("lying
there," says a Scotch Humourist, "uncombed,
uncarded, like a mass of tarry ivnnl proverbially
ill to fpiti,") they spin out, belter or worse,
their riimply, infirm thread of Existence, (and
wind it up, up — till the spool is full;) seeing
but smne little half-yard of it at once ; exclaim-
ing, as they look into the betarred, entangled
mass of Futurity, We shall see !

The first authentic fact with regard to
Beppo is, that his swart squat figure becomes
/isible in the Cnrso and Campo Vaccino of
Rome; tnat lie "lodges at the Sign of the Sun
^'n the Rf.'anda," ami sells pen-drawings there.

Properly they are not pen-drawings ; but printed
engravings or etchings, to which Beppo, with
a pen and a little Indian ink, has added the
degree of scratching to give them the air of
such. Thereby mainly does he realize a thin
livelihood. From which we infer that his
transactions in Naples and Calabria, with
Althotas and hemp-silk, or whatever else, had
not turned to much.

Forged pen-drawings are no mine of wealth:
neither was Beppo Balsamo any thing of an
Adonis; on the contrary, a most dusky, bull-
necked, mastiff-faced, sinister-looking indi-
vidual: nevertheless, on applying for the
favour or the hand of Lorenza Feliciani, a
beautiful Roman donzella, "dwelling near the
Trinity of the Pilgrims," the unfortunate child
of Nature prospers beyond our hopes. Authori-
ties differ as to the rank and status of fair
Lorenza: one account says, she was the,
daughter of a Girdle-maker; but adds errone-
ously that it was in Calabria. The matter
must remain suspended. Certain enough, she
was a handsome buxom creature, " both pretty
and lady-like," (it is presumable;) but having
no offer, in a country too prone to celibacy,
took up with the bull-necked forger of pen-
drawings, whose suit too was doubtless pressed
with the most flowing rhetoric. She gave her-
self in marriage to him; and the parents ad-
mitted him to quarter in their house, till it
should appear what was next to be done.

Two kitchen-fires, says the Proverb, burn
not on one hearth : here, moreover, might be
quite special causes of discord. Pen-drawing,
at best a hungry concern, has now exhausted
itself, and must be given up : but Beppo's house-
hold prospects brighten, on the other side ; in
the charms of his Lorenza he sees before him
what the French call " a Future confused and
immense." The hint was given; and with re-
luctance, or without reluctance, (for the evi-
dence leans both ways,) was taken and reduced
to practice: Signor and Signora Balsamo are
forth from the old Girdler's house, into the
wide world, seeking and finding adventures.

The foolish Inquisition Biographer, with
painful scientific accuracy, furnishes a de-
scriptive catalogue of all the successive Cul-
lies (Italian Counts, French Envoys, Spanish
Marquises, Dukes, and Drakes) in various
quarters of the known world, whom this ac-
complished pair took in ; with the sums eaclt
yielded, and the methods employed to bewitch
him. Into which descriptive catalogue, why
should we here so much as cast a glance?
Cullies, (the easy cushions on which knaves
and knavesses repose and fatten,) have at al!
times existed in considerable profusion ; neither
can the fact of a " clothed animal," (Marquis
or other,) having acted in that capacity to
never such lengths, entitle him to mention in
History. We "pass over these. Beppo (or, as
we must now learn to call him, the Coum) ap-
pears at Venice, at Marseilles, al Madrid, Cadiz,
Lisbon, Brussels ; makes scientific pilgrimage
to Saint-Germain, (in Westphalia,) religious
commercial to Siiint James in Compostella, ti.
Our Lady in Loretta : south, north, east, west,
he shows himself; finds everywhere Lubricitj
and Stupidity, (better or worse provided willi

436

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

cash,) the two elements on which he thauma-
turgically can work and live. Practice makes
perfection ; Beppo loo was an apt scholar.
By all methods he can awaken the stagnant
imagination : cast maddening powder in the
eyes. Already in Rome he has cultivated
whiskers, and put on the uniform of a Prus-
sian Colonel : dame Lorenza is fair to look
upon ; but how much fairer, if by the air of
distance and dignity you lend enchantment to
her! In other places, the Count appears as
real Count; as Marquis Peiligrini, (lately from
foreign parts;) as Count this and Count that,
Count Proteus-Incognito; finally as Count
Alessandro Cagliostro.* Figure him shooting
through the world with utmost rapidity; duck-
ing under here, when the sword-fishes (of
justice) make a dart at him; ducking up
yonder, in new shape, at the distance of a
thousand miles ; not unprovided with forged
vouchers of Respectability ; above all, with that
best voucher of Respectability, a four-horse car-
riage, beef-eaters, and open purse, for Count
Cagliostro has ready money and pays his way.
At some Hotel of the Sun, Hotel of the Angel,
Golil Lion, or Green Goose, or whatever Hotel
it is, in whatever world famous City, his
chariot-wheels have rested; sleep and food
have refreshed his live-stock, chiefly the pearl
and soul thereof, his indi>pensable Lorenza,
DOW no longer Dame Lorenza, but Countess
Seraphina, looking seraphic enough! Moneyed
Donothings, whereof in this vexed Earth there
are many, ever lounging about such places,
scan and comment on the fi)reign coal-of-arms ;
ogle the fair foreign woman ; who timidly
recoils from their gaze, timidly responds to
their reverences, as in halls and passages,
they obsequiously throw themselves in her
way : ere long one n)oneyed Donolhing (from
amid his tags, tassels, sword-belts, fop-tackle,
frizzled hair without brains beneath it) is
heard speaking to another: "Seen the Count-
ess '! — Divine creature that !" and so the game
is begun.

liet not the too sanguine reader, meanwhile,
fancy that it is all holyday and heyday with his
lordship. ThecourseofScoundrelism, any more
than that of true love, never did run smooth.
Seasons there may be when Count Proteus-In-
cognito has his epaulettes torn from his shoul-
ders; his garment-skirts dipt close by the but-
tocks; and is bid sternly tarry at Jericho till his
beard be grown. Harpies of Law delile his so-
lemn feasts ; his light burns languid ; for a space
seems utterly snuffed out, and dead in mal-
odorous vapour. Dead only to blaze up the
brighter! There is scoundrel-life in Beppo
Cagliostro ; cast him among the mud, tread
him out of sight there, the miasmata do but
stimulate and refresh him, he rises sneezing,
IS strong and young again.

Behold him, for example, again in Palermo,
(after having seen many men and many
ands ;) and how he again escapes thence.
Why did he return to Palermo? Perhaps to
astonish old friends by new grandeur; or for
temporary shelter, if "the Continent were get-

* Not altogether an invevtion this last ; for his grand-
iincle (a bell-foiinder at Messina f) was actually sur-
Danied Cagliostro, as well as named Giuseppe, — O. Y. I

ting hot for him ; or perhaps in the mere way at
general trade. He is seized there, and clapt in
prison, for those foolish old businesses of the
treasure-digging Goldsmith, of the forged Will.
"The manner of his escape," says one,
whose few words on this obscure matter are
so many light-points for us, "deserves to be
described. The son of one of the first Sicilian
Princes, and great landed Proprietors, (who
moreover had filled important stations at the
Neapolitan Court,) was a person that united
with a strong body and ungovernable temper
all the tyrannical caprice, which the rich and
great, without cultivation, think themselves
entitled to exhibit.

" Donna Lorenza had contrived to gain thi;j
man; and on him the fictitious Marchese
Pellegrini founded his security. The Prince
testified openly that he was the protector of
this stranger pair: but what was his fury when
Joseph Balsamo, at the instance of those whom
he had cheated, was cast into prison ! He
tried various means to deliver him ; and as
these would not prosper, he publicly, in the
President's antechamber, threatened the plain-
tiff^s' Advocate with the frightful lest misusage
if the suit were not dropt, and Balsamo forth-
with set at liberty. As the Advocate declined
such proposal, he clutched him, beat him,
threw him on the floor, trampled him with his
feet, and could hardly be restrained from still
farther outrages, when the President himself
came running out, at the tumult, and com-
manded peace.

"This latter, a weak, dependent man, made
no attempt to punish the injurer; tht plaintiff's
and their Advocate grew fainthea-ted ; and
Balsamo was let go; not so much as a regis-
tration in the Court-Books specifying his dis-
missal, who occasioned it, or how it took
place."*

Thus sometimes, "a friend in the court is
better than a penny in the purse!" Marchese
Pellegrini "quickly thereafter left Palermo,
and performed various travels, thereof my
author could impart no clear information."
Whither, or how far, the Game-chicken Prince
went with him is not hinted.

So it might, at times, be quite otherwise than
in coach-and-fourthat ourCagliostro journeyed.
Occasionally we find him as outrider journey-
ing on horseback ; only Seraphina and her sop
(whom she is to suck and eat) lolling on car-
nage-cushions; the hardy Count glad that
hereby he can have the shot paid. Nay some-
limes he looks utterly poverty-struck, and
must journey one knows not how. Thus one
briefe>t but authentic-looking glimpse of hin>
presents itself in England, in the year 1772:
no Count is he here, but mere Signor Balsamo
again; engaged in house-painting, for which
he has a most peculiar talent. Was it true
that he painted the country house of" a Doctor
Beiiemore ;" and having not painted, but only
smeared it, was refused payment, and got a
lawsuit with expenses instead? If Dr. Bene-
more have left any representatives in this
Earth, they are desired to speak out. We add
only, that if young Beppo had one of the pret-

* Goethe's JVerke, b. xxviii 152.

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

437

tiest wives, old Benemore had one of the ugliest
daughters ; and so, putting one thing to another,
matters might not be so bad.

For it is to be observed, that the Count, on
his own side, even in his days of highest
splendour, is not idle. Faded dames of quality
have many wants: the Count has not studied
in the convent Laboratory, or pilgrimed to the
Count Saint-Germain, in Westphalia, to no
purpose- With loftiest condescension he stoops
to impart somewhat of his supernatural secrets,
< — for a consideration. Rowland's Kalydor is
valuable; but what to the Beautifying-water
of Count Alessandro ! He that will undertake
to smooth wrinkles, and make withered green
parchment into a fair carnation skin, is he not
one whom faded dames of quality will delight
to honour! Or again, let the Beautifying-
water succeed or not, have not such dames
(if calumny may be in aught believed) another
want? This want too the indefatigable Cag-
liostro will supply, — for a consideration. For
faded gentlemen of quality the Count likewise
has help. Not a charming Countess alone ;
but a " Wine of Egypt," (cantharides not being
unknown to him.) sold in drops, more precious
than nectar; which what faded gentleman of
quality would not purchase with any thing
short of life ! Consider now what may be
done with potions, washes, charms, love-phil-
tres, among a class of mortals, idle from the
mother's womb ; rejoicing to be taught the
Ionic dances, and meditating of love from their
tender nails !

Thus waxing, waning, broad-shining, or ex-
tinct, an inconstant but unwearied Moon, rides
on its course the Cagliostric star. Thus are
Count and Countess busy in their vocation;
thus do they sp-end the golden season of their
youth, — "for the Greatest Happiness of the
greatest number?" Happy enough, had there
been no sumptuary or adultery, or swindlery
Law-acts; no Heaven above, no Hell beneath ;
no flight of Time, and gloomy land of Eld and
Destitution and Desperation, towards which,
by law of Fate, they see themselves at all
moments, with frightful regularity, unaidably
drifting-

The prudent man provides against the ine-
vitable. Already Count Cagliostro, with his
love-philtres, his cantharidic Wine of Egypt;
nay far earlier, by his blue-flames and divining-
rods, (as with the poor sheep Goldsmith of
Palermo;) and ever sinc«, by many a signifi-
cant hint thrown out where the scene suited, —
has dabbled in the Supernatural. As his
seraphic Countess gives signs of withering,
and one luxuriant branch of industry will die
and drop ofi', others must be pushed into bud-
ding. Whether it was in England during what
he called his " fii-st visit," in the year 1776,
(for the before-first, house-smearing visit was,
reason or none, to go for nothing,) that he first
thought of Prophec}^ as a trade, is unknown :
certain enough he had begun to practise it
.hen ; and this indeed not without a glimpse
jf insight into the national character. Various,
truly, are the pursuits of mankind; whereon
they would fain, unfolding the future, take
Destiny by surprise ; with us however, as a
nation of shopkeepers, they may be all said to

centre in this one. Put money in thy purse! O
for a Fortunatus'-Pocket, with its ever-new
coined gold ; — if, indeed, the true prayer were
not rather: O for a Crassus'-Drink, (of liquid
gold,) that so the accursed throat of Avarice
might for once have enough and to spare!
Meanwhile whoso should engage, keeping
clear of the gallows, to teach men the secret
of making money, were not he a Professor sure
of audience ? Strong were the general Skep-
ticism ; still stronger the general Need and
Greed. Count Cagliostro, from his residence in
Whitcombe street, it is clear, had looked into
the mysteries of the Little-go; by occult science
knew the lucky number. Bish as yet was not ;
but Lotteries were ; gulls also were. The
Count has his Language-master, his Portuguese
Jew, his nondescript Ex-Jesuits, whom he
puts forth, as antennae, into cofl>e-houses, to
stir up the minds of men. "Lord" Scott,
(a swindler swindled.) and Miss Fry, and
many others were they here could tell what it
cost them : nay the very Lawbooks, and Lord
Mansfield and Mr. Howarih speak of hundreds,
and jewel-boxes, and quite handsome booties.
Thus can the bustard pluck geese, and (if Law
get the carcass) live upon their giblets; — now
and then, however, finds a vulture, too tough
to pluck.

The attentive reader is no doubt curious to
understand all the What and the How of (^ag-
liostro's procedure while England was the
scene. As we too are, and have been ; but
unhappily all in vain. To that English Life,
(of uncertain gender,) none, as was said, need
in their utmost extremity repair. Scarcely
the very lodging of Cagliostro can be ascer-
tained; except incidentally that it was once in
Whitcombe street; for a few days, in War-
wick Court, Holborn: finally, for some space,
in the King's Bench Juil. Vain were it mean-
while, for any reverencer of genius to pilgrim
thither, seeking memorials of a great man.
Cagliostro is clean gone: on the strictest
search, no token never so faint discloses ilselfl
He went, and left nothing behind him ; — ex-
cept perhaps a few cast-clothes, and other
inevitable exuvis, long since, not indeed an-
nihilated, (this nothing can be,) yet beaten
into mud, and spread as new soil over the
general surface of Middlesex and Surrey;
floated by the Thames into old Ocean ; or flit-
ling (the gaseous parts of them) in the univer-
sal Atmosphere, borne thereby to remotest
corners of the Earth, or beyond the limits of
the Solar System! So fleeting is the track and
habitation of man ; so wondrous the stufl" he
builds of; his house, his very house of houses,
(what we call his Body,) were he the first of
geniuses, will evaporate in the strangest man-
ner, and vanish even whither we have said.

To us on our side, however, it is cheering
to discover, fcfr one thing, that Cagliostro
found antagonists worthy of him: the bustard
plucking geese, and living on their giblets,
found not our whole Island peopled with geese,
but here and there (as above hinted) with vul-
tures, with hawks of still sharper quality than
his. Priddle,.Aylett, Saunders, O'Reilly: let
these stand forth as the vindicators of English
national character. By whom Count Ale?
3o2

438

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

sandro Caglicstro, as in dim fluctuating out-
line indubitably appears, was bewritted, ar-
rested, fleeced, hatchelled, bewildered, and be-
devilled, till the very Jail of king's Bench
seemed a refuge from them. A wholly obscure
contest, as was natural ; wherein, however, to
all candid eyes the vulturous and falconish
character of our Isle fully asserts itself; and
the foreign Quack of Quacks, with all his
thaumaturgic Hemp-silks, Lottery-numbers,
Beauty-waters. Seductions, Phosphorus boxes,
and Wines of Egypt, is seen matched, and nigh
throttled, by the natural unassisted cunning of
English Attorneys. Whereupon the bustard,
Jeeling himself so pecked and plucked, lakes
wing, and flies to foreign parts.

One good thing he has carried with him,
notwithstanding: initiation into some primary
arcana of Free-masonry. The Quack of
Quacks, with his primitive bias towards the
supernalural-mystificalory, must long have had
his eye on Masonry ; which, with its blazonry
and mummery, sashes, drawn sabres, brothers
Terrible, brothers Venerable, (the whole so im-
posing by candle-light,) offered the choicest
element for him. All men profit by Union
with men ; the quack as much as another; nay
in these two words Stvurn Secrecy alone has he
not found a very talisman! Cagliostro then
determines on Masonship. It was afterwards
urged that the lodge he and his Seraphina got
admission to (for she also was made a Mason,
or Masoness : and had a riband-garter solemnly
hound on, with order to sleep in it for a night)
■was of low rank in the social scale; number-
ing not a few of the pastrycook and hairdresser
species. To which it could only be replied,
that these alone spoke French; that a man
and mason, though he cooked pastry, was still
a tnan and mason. Be this as it might, the
apt Recipiendary is rapidly promoted through
the three grades of Apprentice, Companion,
Master; at the cost of five guineas. That of
his being first raised into the air, by means of
a rope and pulley fixed in the ceiling, "during
which the heavy mass of his body must as-
suredly have caused him a dolorous sensa-
tion ;" and then being forced blindfold to shoot
himself (though with privily rffsJoaded pistol)
in sign of courage and obedience: all this we
can esteem an apocrypha, — palmed on the
Roman Inquisition, otherwise prone to delu-
sion. Five guineas, and some foolish froth-
speeches (delivered over liquor, and otherwise)
was the cost. If you ask now. In tvhat hondon
Lodge was itl Alas, we know not, and shall
never know.> Certain only that Count Ales-
sandro is a master-mason; that having once
crossed the threshold, his plastic genius will not
stop there. Behold, accordingly, he has bought
from a " Bookseller" certain manuscripts be-
longing to "one George Cofton, a man abso-
lutely unknown to him" (and to us,) which
treat of the "Egyptian Masonry!" In other
wcrds, Count Alessandro will blow with his
iiew five-guinea bellows; having always occa-
sion to raise the wind.

With regard specially to that huge soap-
bubble of an Egyptian Masonry which he
blew, and as conjuror caught many flies with.
It is our painful duty to say a little ; not much.

The Inquisition Biographer, with deadly feai
of heretical and aemocratical and black-magi«
cal Freemasons before his eyes, has gone into
the matter to boundless depths: commenting,
elucidating, even confuting : a certain expo-
sitory masonic Order-Book of Cagliostro's,
which he has laid hand on, opens the whole
mystery to him. The ideas he declares to be
Cagliostro's ; the composition all a Disciple's,
for the Count had no gift that way. What
then^does the Disciple set forth 1 or, at lowest,
the inquisition Biographer say that he sets
forth 1 Much, much that is not to the point.

Understand, however, tJiat once inspired, by
the absokUely unknown George Cofton, with
the notion of Egyptian Masonry, wherein as
yet lay much " magic and superstition," Count
Alessandro resolves to free it of these impious
ingredients, and make it a kind of Last Evan-
gile, or Renovator of the Universe, — which so
needed renovation. " As he did not believe
any thing in matter of Faith," says our wooden
Familiar, "nothing could arrest him." True
enough: how did he move along then? to
what length did he go?

"In his system he promises his followers
to conduct them to perfection, by means of a
physical and nmral res^ouratisn ; to enable thera
by the former (or physical) to find the prime
mafte-)-, or Philosopher's Stone, and the acacia
which consolidates in man the forces of the
most vigorous youth and renders bim immor-
tal ; and by the latter (or moral) to procure
them a Pentagon, which shall restore man to
his primitive state of innocence, lostby original
sin. The Founder supposes that this Egyp-
tian Masonry was instituted by Enoch and
Elias, who propagated it in different parts of
the world: however, in time, it lost much of
its purity and splendour. And so, by degrees,
the Masonry of men had been reduced to pure
buffoonery; and that of women been almost
entirely destroyed, having now for most part
no place in common Masonry. Till at last, the
zeal of the Grand Cophtn (so are the High-
priests of Egypt named) had signalized itself
by restoring the Masonry of both sexes to its
pristine lustre."

With regard to the great question of con-
structing this invaluable Pentagon, which is
to abolish Original Sin : how you have to
choose a solitary mountain, and call it Sinai;
and build a Pavilion on it to be named Sion,
with twelve sides, in every side a window, and
three stories, one of which is named Ararat;
and with Twelve Masters, each at a window,
yourself in the middle of them, go through un-
speakable formalities, vigils, removals, fasts,
toils, distresses, and hardly get your Pentagon
after all, — we shall say nothing. As little
concerning the still grander and painfuller
process of Physical Regeneration, or growing
young again ; a thing not to be accomplished
without a forty-days' course of medicine, pur-
gations, sweating-baths, fainting-fits, root-diet,
phlebotomy, starvation, and desperation, more
perhaps than it is all worth. Leaving these
interior solemnities, and many high moral pre-
cepts of union, virtue, wisdom, and doctrines
of Immortality and what not, will the reader
care to cast an indifferent glance on certain

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

439

esoteric ceremonial parts of this Egyptian
Masonry, — as the Inquisition Biographer, if
we miscellaneously cull from him, may en-
able usi

"In all these ceremonial parts," huskily
avers the wooden Biographer, " you find as
much sacrilege, profanation, superstition, and
idolatry, as in common Masonry: invocations
of the holy Name, prosternalions, adorations
lavished on the Venerable, or head of the Lodge ;
aspirations, insufflations, incense-burnings, fu-
migations, exorcisms of the Candidates and the
garments they are to take ; emblems of the
sacro-sanct Triad, of the Moon, of the Sun, of
the Compass, Square, and a thousand thousand
other iniquities and ineptitudes, which are now
well known in the world."

" We above made mention of the Grand
Cophta. By this title has been designated the
founder or restorer of Egyptian Masonry.
Cagliostro made no difficulty in admitting" (to
me the Inquisitor) " that under such name he
was himself meant : now in this system the
Grand Cophta is compared to the Highest : the
most solemn acts of worship are paid him ;
he has authoriiV over the Angels ; he :s in-
voked on all occasions; every thing is done
in virtue of his power: which you are assured
he derives immediately from God. Nay more:
among the various rites observed in this exer-
cise of Masonry, you are ordered to recite the
Veni Creator sjdri us, the Te Dcum, and some
Psalms of David: to such an excess is impu-
dence and audacity carried, that in the Psalm,
Memento, Dominc, David et oimiis mansuetudinis
ejus, every time the name David occurs, that of
the Grand Cophta is to be substituted.

"No Religion is excluded from the Egyptian
Society: the Jew, the Calvini^t, the Lutheran,
can be admiued equally well with the ('atholic,
if so be thov' admit the exi--tence of God and the
immortality of the soul." "The men elevated
to the rank of master lake the names of the an-
cient Prophets ; the women thosf of the Sibyls."
* * "Then the Grand Mistress blows on the
face of the female R(-cipiendary, all along from
brow to chin, and says: "I give you this breath,
to cau^^e to germinate and become alive in your
heart the Truth which we possess; to fortify
in you the," &c., &c. — "Guardian of the new
Knowledge which we prepare to make you
partake of, by the sacred names oC Helios, Mene,
'Tetnis;r(t7)imalon."

" In the Essui sur Ics Illmmiies, printed at Paris
in 1789, I read that these latter words were sug-
gested to Cagliostro as Arabic or Sacred ones by
a Sleight-of-hand Man, who said that he was as-
sisted by a spirit, and added that this spirit was
the Soul of a Cabalist Jew, who by art-magic
had killed his pig before the Christian Advent."

* * "They take a young lad, or a girl who
is in the state of innocence : such they call the
Piifiil or the Coluinb ; the Venerable communi-
cates to him the power he would have had be-
fore the Fall of Man; which power consists
mainly in commanding the pure Spirits ; these
Spirits are to the number of Seven : it is said
they surround the Throne; and that they go-
vern the seven Planets : their names are Anael,
Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Zobiachel,
Aoachiel."

Or would the reader wish to see this Columh
in action"? She can act in two ways ; either
behind a curtain, behind a hieroglyphically-
painted Screen with " table and three candles ;"
or as here "before the Caraffe," and showing
face. If the miracle fail, it can only be be-
cause she is not " in the state of innocence," —
an accidant much to be guarded against. This
Scene is at Mittau; — we find, indeed, that it is
a Pupil atfair, not a Cohtmb one; but for the
rest that is perfectly indifferent:

"Cagliostro accordingly (it is his own story
still) brought a little Boy into the Lodge; son
of a nobleman there. He placed him on his
knees before a table, whereon stood a Bottle of
pure water, and behind this some lighted can-
dles : he made an exorcism round the Boy, put
his hand on his head ; and both, in this altitude,
addressed their prayers to God for the happy
accomplishment of the work. Having then
bid the child look into the Bottle, directly the
child cried that he saw a garden. Knowing
hereby that Heaven assisted him, Cagliostro
took Courage, and bade the child ask of God
the grace to see the Angel Michael. At first the
child said : ' I see something white ; I know not
what it is.' Then he began jumping, stamp-
ing like a possessed creature, and cried:
'There now! I see a child, like myself, that
seems to have something angelical.' All the
assembly, and Cagliostro himself, remained
speechless with emotion. * * ♦ The child being
anew exorcised, with the hands of the Venera-
ble on his head, and the customary prayers
addressed to Heaven, he looked into the Bottle,
and said, he saw his sister at that moment
coming down stairs, and embracing one of her
brothers. That appeared impossible, the bro-
ther in question being then hundreds of miles
off": however, Cagliostro felt not disconcerted;
said they might send to the country-house
(where the sister was) and see."*

Wonderful enough. Here, however, a fact
rather sudden transpires, which (as the Inqui-
sition Biographer well urges) must serve to
undeceive all believers in Cagliostro; at least,
call a blush into their cheeks. It seems : "The
Grand cophta, the restorer, the propagator
of Egyptian Masonry, Count Cagliostro him-
self, testifies, in most part of his System, the
profoundest respect for the Patriarch Moses:
and yet this same Cagliostro affirmed before his
judges that he had always fell the insurmount-
ablest antipathy to Moses; and attributes this
hatred to his constant opinion, that Moses was
a thief for having carried off" the Egyptian
vessels; which opinion, in spite of all the lu-
minous arguments that were opposed to him
to show how erroneous it was, he has conti-
nued to hold with an invincible obstinacy!"
How reconcile these two inconsistencies '' Aye,
how ?

But to finish off" this Egyptian Mascni; busi-
ness, and bring it all to a focus, we shall now,
for the first and for the last time, peep one
moment through the spyglass of Monsieur de
Luchet, in that Essui sur les Illumines of h is. The
whole matter being so much of a chimera, how

• fie de Joseph Balsamo ; traduite d'aprit I'oriffimii
Italien. (Paris, 1791.) Ch. ii iii.

440

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

can it be painted otherwise than chimericallyl
Of the following: passage one thin^ is true, that
a creature of the seed of Adam believed it to
be true. List, list, then ; O list !

"The Recipiendary is led by a darksome
path, into an immense hall, the ceiling, the
walls, the floor of which are covered by a black
cloth, sprinkled over with red flames and me-
nacing serpents : three sepulchral lamps emit,
from time to time, a dying glimmer; and the
eye half distinguishes, in this lugubrious den,
certain wrecks of mortality suspended by
funereal crapes : a heap of skeletons forms in
the centre a sort of altar; on both sides of it
are piled books ; some contain menaces against
the perjured; others the deadly narrative of
the vengeances which the Invisible Spirit has
exacted ; of the infernal evocations for a long
time pronounced in vain.

" Eight hours elapse. Then Phantoms, trail-
ing mortuary veils, slowly cross the hall, and
sink in caverns, without audible noise of trap-
doors or of falling. You notice only that they
are gone, by a fetid odour exhaled from them.
"The Novice remains four-and-twenty hours
in this gloomy abode, in the midst of a freezing
silence. A rigorous fast has already weakened
his thinking faculties. Liquors, prepared for
the purpose, first weary, and at length wear
out his senses. At his feet are placed three
cups, filled with a drink of greenish colour.
Necessity lifts them towards his lips ; invo-
luntarily fear repels them.

" At last appears two men ; looked upon as
the ministers of death. These gird the pale brow
of the Recipiendary with an auroral-coloured ri-
band, dipt in blood, and full of silvered charac-
ters mixed with the figure of OurLady of Loretto.
He receives a copper crucifix, of two inches
length; to his neck are hung a sort of amulets,
wrapped in violet cloth. He is stript of his
clothes; which two ministering brethren de-
posit on a funeral pile, erected at the other tnd
of the hail. With blood, on his naked body, are
traced crosses. In this state of suffering and
humiliation, he sees approaching with large
strides five Phantoms, armed with swords, and
clad in garments dropping blood. Their faces
are veiled : they spread a velvet carpet on the
floor; kneel there; pray; and remain with out-
stretched hands crossed on their breasts, and
face fixed on the ground, in deep silence. An
hour passes in this painful attitude. After
which fatiguing trial, plaintive cries are heard ;
the funeral pile takes fire, yet casts only a pale
light; the garments are thrown on it and burnt.
A colossal and almost transparent Figure rises
from the very bosom of the pile. At sight of
it, the five prostrated men fall into convulsions
insupportable to look on : the too faithful image
of those foaming struggles wherein a mortal at
handgrips with a sudden pain ends by sinking
tinder it.

" Then a trembling voice pierces the vault,
and articulates the formula of those execrable
oaths that are to be sworn; my pen falters ; I
think myself almost guilty to retrace them."

O Luchet, what a taking! Is there no hope
left, thinkest thou? Thy brain is all gone to
addled albumen; help seems none, if not in
tha' last mother' s-bosom of all the ruined:

Brandy-and-water ! — An unfeeling world mar
laugh ; but ought to recollect that, forty years
ago, these things were sad realities, — in the
heads of many men.

As to the execrable oaths, this seems the
main one : " Honour and respect Jlqua Tof-
fana, as a sure, prompt, and necessary means
of purging the Globe, by the death or the
hebetation of such as endeavour lo debase
the Truth, or snatch it from our hands." And
so the catastrophe ends by bathing our poor
half-dead Recipiendary first in blood, then,
after some genuflections, in water; and "serv-
ing him a repast composed of roots, — we
grieve to say mere potatoes-and-pomt.

Figure now all this boundless cunningly
devised Agglomerate of royal-arches, death's-
heads, hieri/glyphically painted screens, di-
linnbs "in the state of innocence;" with spa
cious masonic halls, dark, or in the favour-
ablest theatrical light-and-dark ; Kircher's
magic-lantern, Belshazzar hand-writings, (of
phosphorus;) "plaintive tones," gong-beatings;
hoary beard of a superiiatural Grand Cophta
emerging from the gloom; — and how it acts
not only indirectly through the foolish senses
of men, but directly on their Imagination ;
connecting itself with Enoch and Elias, with
Philanthropy, Immortality, Eleutheromania,
and Adam Weisshaupt's Illuminati, and so
downwards to the infinite Deep : figure all
this; and in the centre of it, silting eager and
alert, the skilfullest Panourgos, working the
mighty chaos, into a creation — of ready mo-
ney. In such a wide plastic ocean of sham
and foam had the Archquack now happily be-
gun to envelope himself.

Accordingly he goes forth prospering and
to prosper. Arrived in any City, he has but
by masonic grip to accredit himself with the
Venerable of the place ; and, not by degrees
as formerly, but in a single night, is introduced
in Grand Lodge to all that is fattest and fool-
ishest far or near; and in the fittest arena, a
gilt-pasteboard Masonic hall. There between
the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz, can the
great Sheepstealer see his whole flock (of
Dupeables) assembled in one penfold ; affec-
tionately blatant, licking the hand they are to
bleed by. Victorious Acharat-Beppo! The
genius of Amazement, moreover, has now
shed her glory round him ; he is radiant-head-
ed, a supernatural by his very gait. Behold
him everywhere welcomed with vivats, or in
awe-struck silence: gilt-pasteboard Freem.i-
sons receive him under the Steel-Arch (of
crossed sabres ;) he mounts to the Seat of the
Venerable; holds high discourse hours long
on Masonry, Morality, Universal Science, Di-
vinity, and Things in general, with ".t sub-
limity, an emphasis, and unction," proceeding,
it appears, " from the special inspiration of
the Holy Ghost." Then there aie Egyptian
Ijodges to be founded, corresponded with (a
thing involving expense;) elementary frae.-
tions of many a priceless arcanum (nay, if
the place will stand it, of the Pentagon itself)
can be given to the purified in life ; how
gladly would he give them, but they have to be
brought from the uttermost ends of the world

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

441

and cost money. Now, too, with what ten-
fold impetuosity do all the old trades of Egyp-
tian Drops, Beauty-waters, Secret-favours, ex-
pand themselves, and rise in price ! Life-
weary, moneyed Donothing, this seraphic
Countess is Grand Priestess of the Egyptian
Female Lodges ; has a touch of the supra-
mundane Undine in her: among all thy in-
trigues, hadst thou ever yet Endyraion-like an
intrigue with the lunar Diana, — called also
Hecate T And thou, O antique, much-loving
faded Dowager, this Squire-of-dames can (it
appears probable) command the Seven Angels,
Uriel, Anachiel and Company ; at lowest, has
the eyes of all Europe fixed on him! — The
dog pockets money enough, and can seem to
despise money.

To us, much meditating on the matter, it
seemed perhaps strangest of all, how Count
Cagliostro, received under the Steel Arch,
could hold Discourses, of from one to three
hours long, on Universal Science, of such
unction, v/e do not say as to seem inspired by
the Holy Spirit, but as not to get him lugged
out of doors, (after his first head of method,)
and drowned in whole oceans of salt-and-
water. The man could not speak ; only bab-
ble in long-winded diffusions, chaotic circum-
volutions tending nowhither. He had no
thought for speaking with ; he had not even a
language. His Sicilian-Italian, and Laquais-
de-Place French, garnished with shreds from
all European dialects, was wholly intelligible
to no mortal ; a Tower-of-Babel jargon, which
made many think him a kind of Jew. But
indeed, with the language of Greeks, or of
Angels, what better were itl The man once
for all has no articulate utterance; that tongue
of his emits noises enough, but no speech.
Let him begin the plainest story, his stream
stagnates at the first stage; chafes ("ahem!
ahem!"); loses itself in the earth ; or, burst-
ing over, flies abroad without bank or chan-
nel,— into separate plashes. Not a stream,
but a lake, a wide-spread indefinite marsh.
His whole thought is confused, inextricable ;
what thought, what resemblance of thought
he has, cannot deliver itself, except in gasps,
blustering gushes, spasmodic refluences, which
made bad worse. Bubble, bubble, toil and
trouble : how thou bubblest, foolish "Bubbly-
jock !" Hear him once, (and on a dead-lift
occasion,) as the Inquisition Gurney reports it :

"'I mean, and I wish to mean, that even as
those who honour their father and mother, and
respect the sovereign Pontiff, are blessed of
God; even so all that I did, I did it by the or-
der of God, with the power which he vouch-
safed me, and to the advantage of God and of
Holy Church ; and I mean to give the proofs
of all that I have done and said, not only phy-
sically but morally, by showing that as I have
served God for God and by the power of God,
he has given me at last the counterpoison to
confound and combat Hell ; for I know no
other enemies than those that are in Hell, and
if I am wrong the Holy Father will punish
me ; if I am right he will reward me, and if
the Holy Father could get into his hands to-
night these answers of mine, I predict to all
brethren, believers and unbelievers, that I
56

should be at liberty to-morrow morning.' Be-
ing desired to give these proofs then, he an-
swered : ' To prove that I have been chosen
of God as an apostle to defend and propagate
religion, I say that as the Holy Church has
instituted pastors to demonstrate in face of
the world that she is the true Catholic Aiith,
even so, having operated with approbation and
by the counsel of pastors of the Holy Church,
I am, as I said, fully justified in regard to all
my operations ; and these pastors have as-
sured me that my Egyptian Order was divine,
and deserved to be formed into an Order sanc-
tioned by the Holy Father, as I said in an-
other interrogatory.'"

How then, in the name of wonder, said we,
could such a babbling, bubbling Turkey-cock
speak " with unction 1"

Two things here are to be taken into account.
First, the difference between speaking and
public speaking; a difference altogether ge-
neric. Secondly, the wonderful power of a
certain audacity, (often named impudence.)
Was it never thy hard fortune, good Reader,
to attend any Meeting convened for Public
purposes ; any Bible Society, Reform, Con-
servative, Thatched-Tavern, Hogg-Dinner, or
other such Meeting? Thou hast seen some
full-fed Long-ear, by free determination, or on
sweet constraint, start to his legs and give
voice. Well aware wert thou that there was
not, had not been, could not be, in that entire
ass-cranium of his any fraction of an idea:
nevertheless mark him. If at first an omi-
nous haze flit round, and nothing, not even non-
sense, dwell in his recollection, — heed it not;
let him but plunge desperately on, the spell is
broken. Common-places enough are at hand;
" labour of love," " rights of suffering mil-
lions," "throne and altar," "divine gift of
song," or what else it may be : the Meeting, by
its very name, has environed itself in a given
element of Common-place.'' But anon, behold
how his talking-organs gets heated, and the
friction vanishes; cheers, applauses (with the
previous dinner and strong drink) raise him
to the herght of noblest temper. And now (as
for your vociferous Dullard is easiest of all)
let him keep on the soft, safe parallel course,
(parallel to the Truth, or nearly so; for Hea-
ven's sake, not in roufart with it,) no obstacle
will meet him; on the favouring " given ele-
ment of Common-place" he triumphantly ca-
reers. He is as the ass, whom you took and
cast headlong into the water: the water at
first threatens to swallow him ; but he finds,
to his astonishment, that he can swim therein,
that it is buoyant and bears him along. One
sole condition is indispensable: audacity, (vul-
garly called impudence.) Our ass must
commit himself to his watery "element;" in
free daring, strike forth his four limbs from
him: then shall he not drown and sink, but
shoot gloriously forward, and swim, to the
admiration of bystanders. The ass, safe
landed on the other bank, shakes his rough
hide, wonderstruck himself at the faculty that
lay in him, and waves joyfully his long ears:
so too the public speaker. Cagliostro, as we
know him of old, is not without a certain
blubbery oiliness, (of soul as of body,) with

442

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

vehemence lying under it; has the volublest,
noisiest tongue ; and in the audacity vulgarly
called impudence is withnut a fellow. The
Common-phices of such Steel-Arch Meetings
are soon at his finger ends: that same blub-
bery oilmess and vehemence lying under it
(once give them an element and stimulus) are
the very gii't of a fluent public speaker — to
Dupeables.

Here toe let us mention a circumstance, not
insignificant, if true, which it may readily
enough be. In younger years, BeppoBalsamo
once, it is recorded, took some pains to pro-
cure, "from a country vicar," under quite false
pretences, "a bit of cotton steeped in holy oils."
What could such bit of cotton steeped in holy
oils do for him? An Unbeliever from any
basis of conviction the unbelieving Beppo
could never be ; but solely from stupidity and
bad morals. Might there not lie in that chaotic
blubbery nature of his, at the bottom of all, a
certain musk-grain of real Superstitious Be-
lief] How wondert'uUy such a musk-grain of
Belief will flavour, and impregnate with seduc-
tive odour, a whole inward world of Quackery,
so that every fibre thereof shall smell im^sk, is
well known. No Quack can persuade like
him who has himself some persuasion. Nay,
so wondrous is the act of Believing, Deception
and Self-deception must, rigorously speaking,
coexist in all Quacks; and he perhaps were
definable as the best Quack, in whom the
smallest musk-grain of the latter would suf-
ficiently flavour the largest mass of the former.

But indeed, as we know otherwise, was
there not in Cagliostro a certain pinchbeck
counterfeit of all that is golden and good in
man, of somewhat even that is best] Cheers,
and illuminated hieroglyphs, and the ravish-
ment of thronging audiences, can make him
maudlin; his very wickedness of practice will
render him louder in eloquence of theory;
and "philanthropy," "divine science," "depth
of unknown worlds," "finer feelings of the
heart," and such like shall draw tears from
most asses of sensibility. Neither, indeed, is
it of moment how few his elementary Common-
places are, how empty his head is, so he but
agitate it well; thus a lead drop or two, put
into the emptiest dry-bladder, and jingled to
and fro, will make noise enough; and even
(if skilfully jingled) a kind of martial music.

Such is the Cagliostric palver, that bewitches
ali manner of believing souls. If the ancient
Father was named Chrysostom, or Mouth-of-
Gold, be the modern Quack named Pinch-
becko-stom, or Mouth-of-Pinchbeck; in an
Age of Bronze such metal finds elective affini-
ties. On the whole, too, it is worth consider-
ing what element your Quack specially works
in: the element of Wonder! TheGenuine, be
he artist or artisan, works in the finitude of
the Known ; the Quack in the infinitude of the
Unknown. And then how, in rapidest pro-
gression, he grows and advances, once start
him ! " Your name is up," says the adage,
"you may lie in bed." A nimbus of Renown
and preternatural Astonishment envelopes
Cagliostro; enchants the general eye. The!
few reasoning mortals, scattered here and there, '
thai see through him, deafened in the univer-

sal hubbub, shut their lips in sorroWul dis
dain ; confident in the grand remedy, Time
The Enchanter meanwhile rolls ou his way,
what boundless materials of Deceptibility
(which are two mainly: first. Ignorance, e>pe-
cially Brule-mindedness, the natural fruit of
religious Unbelief; then Greediness) exist over
Europe, in this the most deceivable of modern
ages, are stirred up, fermenting in his behoof.
He careers onward as a Comet; his nucleus
(of paying and praising Dupes) embraces, ia
long radius, what city and province he rests
over; his thinner tail (of wondering and
curious Dupes) stretches into remotest lands.
Good Lavaler, from amid his Swiss Mountain.s,
could say of him : " Cagliostro, a man; and a
man such as few are ; in whom, however, I
am not a believer. O that he were simple of
heart and humble, like a child; that he had
feeling for the sinr.plicity of the Gospel, and
the majesty of the Lord {Holieit des Hcmi!)
Who were so great as he 1 Cagliostro often
tells what is not true, and promises what he
does not perform. Yet do I nowise hold his
operations as deception, though they are not
what he calls them."* If good Lavater could
so say of hirw, what must others have been
saying !

Comet-wise, progressing with loud flourish
of kettledrums, everywhere under the Steel
Arch, evoking spirits, transmuting metals (to
such as could stand it,) the Archquack has
traversed Saxony ; at Leipsic has run athwart
the hawser of a brother quack (poor Schropfer,
here scaixely recognisable as " Sncffirt") and
wrecked him. Through Eastern Germany,
Prussian Poland, he progresses ; and so now
at length (in the spiing of 1780) has arrived
at Petersburgh. His pavilion is erected here,
his flag prosperously hoisted: Mason-lodges
have long ears; he is distributing (as has now
become his wont) Spagiric Food, medicine for
the poor; a train-oil Prince Potemkin (or
something like him, for accounts are dubious)
feels his chops water over a seraphic Sera-
phina : all goes merry, and promises the
best. But in those despotic countries the Police
is so arbitrary ! Caglioslro's thaumaturgy
must be overhauled by the Empress's Physi-
cian (Rogerson, a hard Annandale Scot ;) is
found naught, the Spagiric Food unfit for a
dog : and so, the whole particulars of his Lord-
ship's conduct being put together, the result is
that he must leave Petersburgh, in a given
brief term of hours. Happy for him that it was
so brief: scarcely is he gone, till the Prussian
Ambassador appears with a complaint, that he
has falsely assumed the Prussian uniform at
Rome; the Spanish Ambassador with a still
graver complaint, that he has t\)rged bills at
Cadiz. However, he is safe over the marches:
let them complain their fill.

In Courland and in Poland great things
await him ; yet not unalloyed by two small re-
verses. The famed Countess von der Recke,
(a born Fair Saint, what the Germans call
Sclioiie Seek,) as yet quite young in heart and
experience, but broken down with grief for de-

*Lettre du Comte Mirabeau sur Cagliostro et Lavater,
(Berlin, 1786 V. 42.)

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

443

parted friends, seeks to question the world-
famous SpirJt-summoner on the secrets of
the Invisible Kingdoms; whillier, with fond,
strained eyes, she is incessantly looking. The
galtiiialhias of Pinchbecko-stom cannot impose
on this pure-minded simple woman: she re-
cognises the Quack in him, (and in a printed
Book makes known the same:) Mephisto's
mortifying experience with Marg-aret, as above
foretold, renews itself for Cagliostro.* At
Warsaw too, though he discourses on Egyptian
Masonry, on iMedical Philosophy, and the igno-
rance of Doctors, and performs successfully
with Pupil and Columb, a certain "Count M."
cherishes more than doubt ; which ends in
certainty, in a written Cagliosiro Umiiaskeil.
The Archquack, triumphant, sumptuously
feasted in the city, has retired with a chosen
set of believers, with whom, however, was this
unbelieving " M.," into the country, to transmute
metals, to prepare perhaps the Pentagon itself.
All that night, before leaving Warsaw, "our
dear Master" had spent conversing with spirits.
Spirits? cries "M.:" Not he; but melting
ducats: he has melted a mass of them in this
crucible, which now, by sleight of hand, he
would fain substitute for that other, filled as
you all saw, with red-lead, carefully luted down,
sraelied, set to cool, smuggled from among
our hands, and now (look at it, ye asses!)
— found broken and hidden among these
bushes ! Neither does the Pentagon, or Elixir
of Life, or whatever it was, prosper better.
" Our sweet Master enters into expostulation ;"
"swears by his great God, and his honour,
that he will finish the work and make us happy.
He carries his modesty so far as to propose
that he shall work with chains on his feet;
and consents to lose his life, by the hands of
his disciples, if before the end of the fourth
passage, his word be not made good. He lays
his hand on the ground, and kisses it; holds
it up to Heaven, and again takes God to wit-
ness that he speaks true; calls on him to ex-
terminate him if he lies." A vision of the
hoary-bearded Grand Cophta himself makes
night solemn. In vain ! The sherds of that
broken red-lead crucible (which pretends to
stand here unbroken half-full of silver) lie
there, before your eyes : that "resemblance of a
sleeping child," grown visible in the magic
cooking of our Elixir, proves to bean inserted
rosemary-leaf: the Grand Cophta cannot be
gone too Soon.

Count " M." balancing towards the opposite
extreme, even thinks him inadequate as a
Quack.

"Far from being modest," says this Un-
masker, " he brags beyond expression, in any-
body's presence, especially in women's, of the
grand faculties he possesses. Every word is
an exaggeration, or a statement you feel to be
improbable. The smallest contradiction puts
him in fury: his vanity breaks through on all
sides ; he lets you give him a festival that sets
the whole city a-talking. Most impostors are
supple, and endeavour to gain friends. This
one, you might say, studies to appear arrogant,
to make all men enemies, by his rude injurious

♦ Zeitgenossen, No. XV. { Frau von der Recke.

speeches, by the squabbles and grudges he in«
troduces among friends." "He quarrels with
his coadjutors for trifles ; fanc-ies that a simple
giving of the lie will persuade the public that
they are liars." " Schropfer at Leipsic was
far cleverer." " He should get some ventrilo-
quist for assistant: should read some Books
of Chemistry; study the tricks of Philadelphia
and Comus."*

Fair advices, good " M. ;" but do not you
yourself admit that he has a "natural genius
for deception;" above all things, "a forehead
of brass. ( front d'airain,) which nothing can dis-
concert 1" To such a genius, and such a brow,
Comus and Philadelphia, and all the ventrilo-
quists in Nature, can add little. Give the
Archquack his due. These arrogancies of
his prove only that he is mounted on his high
horse, and has now the world under him.

Such reverses (occurring in the lot of every
man) are, for our Cagliosiro, but as specks in
the blaze of the meridian Sun. With undim-
med lustre he is, as heretofore, handed over
from this "Prince P." to that "Prince Q."
among which high believing potentates, what
is an incredulous " Count M.]" His pockets
are distended with ducats and diamonds: he
is off to Vienna, to Frankfort, to Strasburg, by
extra post; and there also will work miracles.
"The train he commonly took with him," says
the Inquisition Biographer, " corresponded to
the rest ; he always travelled post, with a con-
siderable suite: couriers, lackeys, body-ser-
vants, domestics of all sorts, sumptuously
dressed, gave an air of reality to the high birth
he vaunted. The very liveries he got made
at Paris cost twenty Louis each. Apartments
furnished in the height of the mode; a magni-
ficent table, open to numerous guests; rich
dresses for himself and his wife, corresponded
to this luxurious way of life. His feigned
generosity likewise made a great noise. Often
he gratuitously doctored the poor, and even
gave them alms."f

In the inside of all this splendid travelling
and lodging economy, are to be seen, as we
know, two suspicious-looking rouged or un-
rouged figures, of a Count and a Countess;
lolling on their cushions there, with a jaded,
haggard kind of aspect, they eye one another
sullenly, in silence, with a scarce-suppressed
indignation; for each thinks the other does
not work enough and eats too much. Whether
Dame Lorenza followed her peculiar side of
the business with reluctance or with free
alacrity, is a moot-point among Biographers:
not so, that, with her choleric adipose Arch-
quack, she had a sour life of it, and brawl-
ing abounded. If we look still further in-
wards, and try to penetrate the inmost self-
consciousness (what in another man would be
called the conscience) of the Archquack him-
self the view gets most uncertain; little or
nothing to be seen but a thick fallacious haze.
Which indeed ((v(s the main thing extant there.
Much in the Count Front-d'airain remains
dubious; yet hardly this: his want of clear
insight into any thing, most of all into his own

* Caa-liostro dimasque il yarsovie, en 1780. (Parw.
1786 ) P. 35 et sey.
t Vie de Joseph Balsamo, p. 41.

444

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

inn;r man. Cunning in the supreme degree
he has; intellect next to none. Nay, is not
cunning (couple it with an esurient character)
(he natural consequence of defective intellect.
It is properly the vehement exercise of a short,
poor vision; of an intellect sunk, bemired;
which can attain to no free vision, otherwise
it would lead the esurient man to be honest.

Meanwhile gleams of muddy light will occa-
sionally visit all mortals ; every living creature
(according to Milton, the very Devil) has some
more or less faint resemblance of a Con-
science; must make inwardlycertain auricular
confessions, absolutions, professions of faith,
— were it only that he does not yet quite
loathe, and so proceed to hang himself. What
such a Porcus as Cagliostro might specially
feel, and think, and be, were dilhcult in any
case to say; much more when contradiction
and mystification, designed and unavoidable,
so involve the matter. One of the most
authentic documents preserved of him is the
Picture of his Visage. An Effigies once uni-
versally diffused ; in oil-paint, aquatint, marble,
stucco, and perhaps gingerbread, decorating
millions of apartments: of which remarkable
Effigies one copy, engraved in the line-manner,
happily still lies here. Fittest of visages;
worthy to be worn by the Quack of Quacks !
A most portentous face of scoundrelism : a fat,
snub, abominable face; dew-lapped, flat-nosed,
greasy, full of greediness, sensuality, oxlike
obstinacy ; a forehead impudent, refusing to
be ashamed ; and then two eyes turned up
seraphically languishing, as in divine con-
templation and adoration; a touch of quiz
too: on the whole, perhaps the most perfect
quack-face produced by the eighteenth cen-
tury. There he sits, and seraphically lan-
guishes, with this epigraph:

De VAmi des Hitmains reconaissez les traits :

Tons ses jours snnt marquis par de nouveauz bienfaits,

II prolunge la vie, il secourt I'indigence ;

Le plaisir d'etre utile est seul sa recompense.

A probable conjecture were that this same
Theosophy, Theophilanthropy, Solacement of
the Poor, to which our Archquack now more
and more betook himself, might serve not only
as bird-lime for external game, but also half-
unconsciously as salve for assuaging his own
spir tual sores. Am not I a charitable man T
could the Archquack say: if I have erred
myself, have I not, by theosophic unctuous
discourses, removed much cause of error?
The lying, the quackery, what are these but
the method of accommodating yourself to the
temper of men ; of getting their ear, their dull
long ear, which Honesty had no chance to
catch 1 Nay, at worst, is not this an unjust
world; full of nothing but beasts of prey, four-
footed or two-footed 1 Nature has commanded,
saying: Man, help thyself. Ought not the
man of my genius, s.nce he was not born a
Prince, since in these scandalous times he has
not been elected a Prince, to make himself
one 1 If not by open violence, (for which he
wants military force ;) then surely by superior
science,— exercised in a private way. Heal
the diseases of the Poor, the far deeper dis-
ea-^es of the ignorant : in a word, found
Egyptian Lodges, and^et the means of found-

ing them. — By such soliloquies can Count
Front-of-brass Pinchbecko-stom, in rare atra-
biliar hours of self-questioning, compose him-
self. For the rest, such hours are rare: the
Count is a man of action and digestion, not of
self-quesiioning; usually the day brings its
abundant task ; there is no time for abstrac-
tions,— of the metaphysical sort.

Be this as it may, the Count has arrived at
Strasburg; is working higher wonders than
ever. At Strasburg, indeed, (in the year 1783,)
occurs his apotheosis : what we can call the
culmination and Fourth Act of his Life-drama.
He was here for a number of months ; in full
blossom and radiance, the envy and admira-
tion of the world. In large hired hospitals,
he with open drug-box, (containing " Extract
of Saturn,") and even with open purse, re-
lieves the suffering poor; unfolds himself
lamblike, angelic to a believing few, of the
rich classes ; turns a silent minatory lion-face
to unbelievers, were they of the richest. Medi-
cal miracles have in all times been common:
but what miracle is this of an Oriental or Oc-
cidental Serene-Excellence that, " regardless
of expense," employs himself not in preserving
game, but in curing sickness, in illuminating
ignorance 1 Behold how he dives, at noon-
day, into the infectious hovels of the mean ;
and on the equipages, haughtinesses, and even
dinner-invitations, turns only his negatory
front-of-brass ! The Prince Cardinal de Rohan,
Archbishop of Strasburg, first-class Peer of
France, of the Blood-royal of Brittany, inti-
mates a wish to see him ; he answers : " If
Monseigneur the Cardinal is sick, let him
come, and I will cure him : if he is well, he
has no need of me, I none of him."* Heaven,
meanwhile, has sent him a few disciples; by a
nice tact, he knows his man ; to one speaks
only of Spagiric Medicine, Downfal of tyranny,
and the Egyptian Lodge; to another, of quite
high matters, beyond this diurnal sphere ; of
visits from the Angel of Light, visits from him
of Darkness; passing a Statue of Christ, he
will pause with a wondrously accented plain-
tive " Ha !" as of recognition, as of thousand-
years remembrance ; and when questioned,
sink into mysterious silence. Is he the Wan-
dering Jew, then ? Heaven knows ! At Stras-
burg, in a word. Fortune not only smiles but
laughs upon him : as crowning favour, he
finds here the richest, inflammablest, most
open-handed Dupe ever yet vouchsafed him ;
no other than this same many-tilled Louis de
Rohan ; strong in whose favour, he can laugh
again at Fortune.

Let the curious reader look at him, for an
instant or two, through the eyes of two eye-
witnesses ; the Abbe Georgel, (Prince Louis's
diplomatic Factotum,) and Herr Meiners, the
Goliingen Professor:

" Admitted at length," says our too-prosing
Jesuit Abbe, to the sanctuary of this ^scula-
pius, Prince Louis saw, according to his own
account, in the incommunicative man's phy-
siognomy, something so dignified, so imposing,
that he ielt penetrated with a religious awe,
and reverence dictated his address. Their

• Mimoires de VAbhe Oeorgel, ii. 48.

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

445

interview, which was brief, excited more keenly
than ever his desire of farther acquaintance.
He attained it at length: and the crafty em-
piric <,'raduated so cunningly his words and
procedure, that he gained, without appearing
to court it, the Cardinal's entire confidence,
and tlie greatest ascendency over his will.
' Your soul,' said he one day to the Prince, ' is
worthy of mine ; you deserve to be made par-
ticipator of all my secrets.' Such an avowal
captivated the whole faculties, intellectual and
moral, of a man who at all times had hunted
after secrets of alchemy and botany. From
this moment their union became intimate and
public: Cagliostro went and established him-
self at Saverne, while his Eminence was re-
siding there; their solitary interviews were
long and fiequent." * * " I remember once,
having learni, by a sure way, that Baron de
Planta (his Eminence's man of aflairs) had
frequent, most expensive orgies, in the Archi-
episcopal Palace, where Tokay wine ran like
water, to regale Cagliostro and his pretended
wife, I thought it my duty to inform the Cardi-
nal ; his answer was, 'I know it; I have even
authorized him to commit abuses, if he judge
fit.'" * * "He came at last to have no
other will than Cagliostro's : and to such a
length had it gone, that this sham Egyptian,
finding it good to quit Strasburg for a time, and
retire into Switzerland, the Cardinal, apprized
thereof, despatched his Secretary as well to
attend him, as to obtain Predictions from him;
such were transmitted in cipher to the Cardi-
nal on every point he needed to consult of."* —

" Before ever I arrived in Strasburg," (hear
now the as prosing Protestant Professor,) " I
knew almost to a certainty that I should not
see Count Cagliostro: at least, not get to
speak with him. From many persons I had
heard that he, on no account, received visits
from curious Travellers, in a state of health ;
that such as, without being sick, appeared in
his audiences were sure to be treated bv him,
in the brutalest way, as spies." * * "Never-
theless, tliough I saw not this new god of
Physic near at hand and deliberately, but only
for a moment as he rolled on in a rapid car-
riage, I fancy myself to be better acquainted
with him than many who have lived in his so-
ciety for months." " My unavoidable convic-
tion is, that Count Caglid^tro, from of old, has
teen more of a cheat than an enthusiast; and
also that he continues a cheat to this day.

"As to his country, I have ascertained no-
thing. Some make him a Spaniard, others a
Jew, or an Italian, or a Kagusan ; or even an
Arab, who had persuaded some Asiatic Prince
to send his son to travel in Europe, and then
murdered the youth, and taken possession of
his treasures. As the self-styled Count speaks
badly all the languages you hearfrom him, and
has most likely spent the greater part of his
life under feigned names far from home, it is
probable enough no sure trace of his origin
may ever be discovered.

"On his first appearance in Strasburg he
connected himself with the Freemasons ; but

only till he felt strong enough to stand by him-
self: he soon gained the favour of the Praetor
and the Cardinal; and through these the favour
of the Court, to such a degree that his adver-
saries cannot so much as think of overthrow-
ing him. With the Proctor and Cardinal he is
said to demean himself as with persons who
were under boundless obligation to him, to
whom he was under none: the equipage of
the Cardinal he seems to use as freely as his
own. He pretends that he can recognise Athe-
ists or Blasphemers by the smell ; that the va-
pour from such throws him into epileptic fits ;
into which sacred disorder he, like a true jug-
gler, has the art of falling when he likes. In
public he no longer vaunts of rule over spi-
rits, or other magical arts; but I know, even
as certainly, that he still pretends to evoke
spirits, and lay their help and apparition to heal
diseases, as I know this other fact, that he un-
derstands no more of the human system, or
the nature of its diseases, or the use of the
commonest therapeutic methods, than any
other quack.

"According to the crediblest accounts of
persons who have long observed him, he is a
man to an inconceivable degree choleric, (/ic/-
tig,) heedless, inconstant; and therefore doubt-
less it was the happiest idea he ever in his
whole life came upon, this of making himself
inaccessible; of raising the most obstinate re-
serve as a bulwark round him ; without which
precaution he must long ago have been caught
at lault.

"For his own labour he takes neither pay-
ment nor present ; when presents are made
him of such sort as cannot without oflence be
refused, he forthwith returns some counter-
present, of equal or still higher value. Nay
he not only takes nothing from his patients,
but frequently admits them, months long, to
his house and his table, and will not consent
to the smallest recompense. Wiih all this dis-
interestedness, (conspicuous enough, as you
may suppose,) he lives in an expensive way,
plays deep, loses almost constantly to ladies ;
so that, according to the very lowest estimate,
he must require at least 20,000 livres a year.
The darkness which Caligostro has, on pur-
pose, spread over the sources of his income
and outlay, contributes even more than his
munificence and miraculous cures to the no-
tion that he is a divine extraordinary man,
who has watched Nature in her deepest opera-
tions, and among other secrets stolen that of
Gold-making from her." * * "With a mix-
ture of sorrow and indignation over our age,
I have to record that this man has found ac-
ceptance, not only among the great, who from
of old have been the easiest bewitched by such,
but also with many of the learned, and even
physicians anil naturalists."*

Halcyon days ; only too good to continue !
All glory runs its course; has its culmina-
tion, and then its often precipitous decline.
Eminence Kohan, with fervid temper and small
instruction, pehaps of dissolute, certainly of
dishonest manners, in whom the faculty of
Wonder had attained such prodigious develop-

George! ubi supra.

*Meine'i: Briefe iiber die Schweiz, (as quoted in JUft
rabeau.)

2 P

446

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

ment, was indeed the very stranded whale for
jackals to feed on : unhappily, however, no
one jackal could long be left in solitary pos-
session of him. A sharper-toothed she-jackal
now strikes in; bites infinitely deeper ; strand-
ed whale and he-jackal both are like to be-
come her prey. A young French Mantua-
jnaker, "Countess de La Motte-Valoise, de-
scended from Henry II. by the bastard line,"
without Extract of Saturn, Egyptian Masonry,
or any (verbal) conference with Dark Angels,
—has genius enough to get her finger in the
Archquack's rich Hermetic Projection, appro-
priate the golden proceeds, and even finally
ijreak the crucible. Prince Cardinal Louis de
Rohan is off to Paris, under her guidance, to
see the long-invisible Queen, (or Queen's Ap-
parition ;) to pick up the Rose in the Garden
of Trianon, dropt by her fair sham-royal hand ;
and then — descend rapidly to the Devil, and
drag Cagliostro along with him.

The intelligent reader observes, we have
now arrived at that stupendous business of the
Diamond Necklare : into the dark complexities
of Avhich we need not here do more than
glance: who knows but, next month, our His-
torical Chapter, written specially on this sub-
ject, may itself see the light 1 Enough, for
the present, if we fancy vividly the poor whale
Cardinal, so deep in the adventure thatGrand-
Cophtic "predictions transmitted in cipher"
will no longer illuminate him; but the Grand
Cophta must leave all masonic or other busi-
ness, happily begun in Naples, Bourdeaux,
liVons, and come personally to Paris with pre-
dictions at first hand. "The new Calchas,"
say^ poor Abbe Georgel, "must have read the
entrails of his victim ill; for, on issuing from
these communications with the Angel of Light
and of Darkness, he prophesied to the Cardi-
nal that this happy correspondence" (with the
Queen's Similitude) "would place him at the
highest point of favour; that his influence in
the Government would soon become para-
mount ; that he would use it for the propagation
of good principles, the glorv of the Supreme
Being, and the happiness of Frenchmen." The
new Calchas was iiul 'f J at fault: but how
could he be -otherwise] Let these high Queen's
favours, and all terrestrial shiftings of the
wind, turn as they will, hU reign, he can well
see, is appointed to be temporary : in the mean
while, Tokay flows like water; prophecies of
good, not of evil, are the method to keep it
flowing. Thus if, for Circe de La Motte-Valoise,
the Egyptian Masonry is but a foolish enchanted
cup to turn her fat Cardinal into a quadruped
withal, she herself converse-wise, for the
Grand Cophta, is one who must ever fodder
said quadruped (with Court Hopes,) and stall-
leed him fatter and fatter, — it is expected for
the knife of both parlies. They are mutually
useful ; live in peace, and Tokay festivity,
though mutually suspicious, mutually con-
temptuous. So stand matters, through the
spring and summer mcnihs of the year 1785.

But fancy next that, — while Tokay is flow-
jng within doors, and abroad Egyptian Lodges
are getting founded, and gold and glory, from
Paris as from other cities, supi rnaturally
coming in, — the litter end of Augu. t has ar-

rived, and with it Commissary Chesnon, to
lodge the whole unholy Brotherhood, from Car-
dinal down to Sham-queen, in separate cells of
the Bastille ! There, for nine long months,
let them howl and wail (in bass or treble ;)
and emit the falsest of false Memoires ; among
which that Memoire pour le Com!e de Cagliostro,
en presence des iiutra Co-.'lcruse^, with its Trebi-
sond Acharats, Scherifs of Mecca, and Na-
ture's unfortunate Child, all gravely printed
with French types in the year 1786, may well
bear the palm. Fancy that Necklace or Dia-
monds will nowhere unearth themselves; that
the Tuileries Palace sits struck with astonish-
ment, and speechless chagrin; that Paris, that
all Europe, is ringing with the wonder. That
Count Front-of-brass Pinchbecko-stom, con-
fronted, at the judgment bar, with a shrill, glib
Circe de La Motte, has need of all his elo-
quence; that nevertheless the Front-of-brass
prevails, and exasperated Circe "throws a
candlestick at him." Finally, that on the 31st
of May, 1786, the assembled Parliament of
Paris, "at nine in the evening, after a sitting
of eighteen hours," has solemnly pronounced
judgment: and now that Cardinal Louis is
gone " to his estates;" Countess de La Motte
is shaven on the head, branded with red-hot-
iron, "V" (To/i'ifsf) on both shoulders, and
confined for life to the Salpetriere; her Count
wandering uncertain, with diamonds for sale,
over the British Empire; the Sieur de Villelte
(for handling a queen's pen) banished for
ever; the too queenlike Demoiselle Gay d'Oli-
va (with her unfathered infant) "put out of
Court ;" — and Grand Cophta Cagliostro libera-
ted, indeed, but pillaged, and ordered forthwith
to take himself away. His disciples illuminate
their windows; but what does that avail"?
Commissary Chesnon, Bastille-Governor Lau-
nay cannot recollect the least particular of
those priceless eflT?cts, those gold-rouleaus, re-
peating watches of his: he must even retire
to Passy that very night; and two days after-
wards, sees nothing for it but Boulogne and
England. Thus does the miserable pickle-
herring tragedy of the Diamond Necklace wind
itself up, and wind Cagliostro once more to in-
hospitable shores.

Arrived here, and lodged tolerably in''Sloane
Street,Knightsbridge,"by theaid of Mr. (Broken
Wine-merchant Apothecary) Swinton, to whom
he carries introductions, he can drive a small
trade in Egyptian pills, (sold in Paris at thirty
shillings the dram ;) in unctuously discoursing
to Egyptian Lodges; in "giving public audi-
ences as at Sirasburg," — if so be any one will
bite. At all events, he can, by the aid of ama-
nuensis-disciples, compose and publish his
Le/tre mi Peirple Jnglais : setting forth his un-
heard-of generosities, unheard-of injustices suf-
fered (in a world not worthy of him) at the hands
of English Lawyers, Bastille Governors, French
Counts, and others ; his LeUre aii.v Fr(in(;ais,
singing to the same tune, predicting too (what
many inspired Editors had already boded) that
"the Bastille would be destroyed" and "a
King would |Come who should govern by
States-General." But, alas, the shafts of Criti-
cism are busy with him; so many hostile eyes
look towards him: the world, in short, is get

COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

447

ting too hot for him. Mark, nevertheless, how
the brow of brass quails not; nay a touch of
his old poetic Humour, even in this sad crisis,
unexpectedly unfolds itself. One Morande,
Editor of a Courier de V Europe published here
at that period, has for some time made it his
distinction to be the foremost of Cagliostro's
enemies. Cagliostro (enduring much in si-
lence) happens once, in some " public audi-
ence," to mention a practice he had witnessed
in Arabia the Stony: the people there, it seems,
are in the habit of fattening a few pigs annual-
ly, on provender mixed with arsenic ; where-
by the whole pig-carcase by and by becomes,
so to speak, arsenical ; the arsenical pig's are
then let loose into the woods ; eaten by lions,
leopards, and other ferocious creatures; which
latter naturally all die in consequence, and so
the woods are cleared of them. This adroit
practice the Sieur Morande thought a proper
subject for banter; and accordingly, in his
Seventeenth and two following Numbers, made
merry enough with it. Whereupon CountFront-
of-brass, whose patience has limits, writes as
Advertisement (still to be read in old files of
the Public jhhcrtiscr, under date September 3,
1786) a French Letter, not without causticity
and aristocratic disdain; challenging the witty
Sieur to breakfast with him, for the 9th of
November next, in the face of the world, on an
actual Sucking Pig, fattened by Cagliostro,
but cooked, carved, and selected from by the
Sieur Morande, — under bet of Five Thousand
Guineas sterling that next morning thereafter,
he the Sieur Morande shall be dead, and Count
Cagliostro be alive ! The poor Sieur durst not
cry. Done; and backed out of the transaction,
making wry faces. Thus does a kind of red
coppery splendour encircle our Archquack's
decline; thus with brow of brass, grim smiling,
does he meet his destiny.

But suppose we should now, from these
foreign scenes, turn homewards, for a moment,
into the native alley in Palermo! Palermo,
with its dinginess, its mud or dust; the old
black Balsamo House, the very beds and chairs,
all are still standing there: and Beppo has
altered so strangely, has wandered so far away.
Let us look; for happily we have the fairest
opportunity.

In April, 1787, Palermo contained a Travel-
ler of a thous.md ; no other than the great
Goethe from Weimar. At his Table-d'hote he
heard much of Cagliostro ; at length also of a
certain Palermo Lawyer, who had been engaged
by the French Government to draw up an au-
thentic genealogy and memoir of him. This
Lawyer, and even the rude draught of his
Memoir, he with little ditficulty gels to see;
inquires next whether it were not possible to
see the actual Balsamo Family, whereof it ap-
pears the mother and a widowed sister still
survive. For this matter, however, the Lawyer
can do nothing; only refer him to his Clerk;
who again starts dithculties: To gel at those
genealngic Documents he has been obliged
to invent some siory of a Government Pension
being in the wind for those poor Balsamos ;
and now that the whole matter is finished, and
the Paper sent off to France, has nothing so
much at heart as to keep out of their way :

" So said the Clerk. However, as I could
not abandon my purpose, we after some study
concerted that I should give myself out for an
Englishman, and bring the family news of
Cagliostro, who had lately got outoftheBas'
tille, and gone to London.

" At the appointed hour, it might be three in
the afternoon, -vve set forth. The house lay in
the corner of an Alley, not far from the main-
street named // Casaro, We ascended a mise-
rable stair, and came straight into the kitchen.
A woman of middle stature, broad and stout,
)^et not corpulent, stood busy washing ihe
kitchen dishes. She was decently dressed;
and, on our entrance, turned up the one end
of her apron, to hide the soiled side from us.
She joyfully recognised my conductor, and
said: ' Signor Giovanni, do you bring us
good news? Have you made out any thing?'

"He answered: 'In our affair, nothing yd:
but here is a Stranger that brings a salutation
from your Brother, and can tell you hf-w he is
at present.'

"The salutation I was to bring stood not in
our agreement: meanwhile, one way or other,
the introduction was accomplished. ' You
know my Brother?' inquired she. — ' All Europe
knows him,' answered I; 'and I fancied it
would gratify you to hear that he is now in
safety and well ; as, of late, no doubt you have
been anxious about him.' — ' Step in,' said she,
'I will follow you directly;' and \yith the Clerk
I entered the room.

"It was large and high; and .might, with us,
have passed for a saloon; it seemed, indeed,
to be almost the sole lodging of the family. A
single window lighted the large walls, which
had once had colour; and on which were black
pictures of saints, in gilt frames, hanging
round. Two large beds, without curtains, stood
at one wall; a brown press, in the form of a
writing-desk, at the other. Old rush-bottoined
chairs, the backs of which had once been gilt,
stood by; and the tiles of the floor were in
many places worn deep into hollows. For the
rest, all was cleanly; and we approached the
family, which sat assembled at the one win-
dow, in the other end of the apartment.

" Whilst my guide was explaining, to the
old Widow Balsamo, the purpose of our visit,
and by reason of her deafness must repeat his
words several limes aloud, I had time to ('!>•
serve the chamber and the other persons in it.
A girl of about sixteen, well formed, whose
features had become uncertain by small-pox,
stood at the window ; beside her a young man,
whose disagreeable look, defn-med by the same
disease, also struck me. In an easy-chair,
right before the window, sat or rather lay a
sick, much disshapen pers(m,who appeared to
labour under a sort of lethargy.

" My guide having made himself understood,
we were invited to take seats. Tlie old woman
put some questions to me; which, hi)wever, 1
had to get interpreted before I could answer
them, the Sicilian dialect not being quite at my
command.

" Meanwhile I looked at the aged widow
with satisfactiem. She was of middle stature,
but well-shaped; over her regular feature.s,
which age had not deformed, lav that sort cf

448

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

peace usual with people that have lost their
nearins:; the tone of her voice was soft and
agreeable.

"I answered her questions; and my an-
swers also had again to be interpreted fur
her.

" The slowness of our conversation gave me
leisure to measure my words. I told her thai
her son had been acquitted in France, and
M'as at present in England, where he met with
good reception. Her joy, which she testified
at these tidings, was mixed with expressions
of a heartfelt piety, and as she now spoke a
little louder and slower, I could the better
understand her.

" In the mean time, the daughter had en-
tered, and taken her seat beside my conductor,
who repeated to her faithfully what I had been
narrating. She had put on a clean apron ; had
set her hair in order under the net-cap. The
more I looked at her, and compared her with
her mother, the more striking became the dif-
ference of the two figures. A vivacious, healthy
Sensualism (Siunlichkcii) beamed forth from
the whole structure of the daughter : she might
be a woman of about forty. With brisk blue
eyes, she looked sharply round; yet in her
look I could trace no suspicion. When she
sat, her figure promised more height than it
showed when she rose: her posture was de-
terminate, she sat with her body leaned for-
wards, the hands resting on the knees. For
the rest, her physiognomy, more of the snubby
than the sharp son, reminded me of her Bro-
thel's Portrait, familiar to us in engravings.
She asked me several things about my journey,
my purpose to see Sicily ; and was convinced
I would come back, and celebrate the Feast of
Saint Rosalia with them

" As the grandmother, meanwhile, had again
put some questions to me, and I was busy
answering her, the daughter kept speaking to
my companion half-aloud, yet so that I could
take occasion to ask what it was. He an-
swered : Signora Capitummino was telling
him that hei lirotber owed her fourteen gold
Ounces; on his sudden departure from Palermo,
she had' redeemed several things for him that
were in pawn ; but never since that day had
either heard from him, or got money or any
other help, though it was said he had great
riches, and made a princely outlay. Now
would not I perhaps undertake, on my return,
to remind him, in a handsome way, of the
debt, and procure some assistance for her;
nay, would I not carry a Letter with me, or at
all events get it carried 1 I offered to do so.
She asked where I lodged, whither she must
send the Letter to me 1 I avoided naming my
abode, and oflered to call next day towards
Dight, and receive the letter myself.

"She thereupon described tome her unto-
ward situation : how she was a widow with
three children, of whom the one girl was get-
ting educated in a convent, the other was here
present, and her son just gone out to his les-
son. How, beside these three children, she
had her mother to maintain ; and moreover
out of Christian love had taken the unhappy
oick person there to her house, whereby the
burden was heavier: how all her industry

would scarcely sutlce to get necessaries fof
herself and hers. She knew indeed that God
did not leave good works unrewarded; yet
must sigh very sore under the load she had
long borne.

"The young people mixed in the dialogue,
and our conversation grew livelier. While
speaking with the others, I could hear the good
old widow ask her daughter: If I belonged,
then, to their holy Religion ] I remarked also
that the daughter strove, in a prudent way, to
avoid an answer; signifying to her mother, so
far as I could take it up : that the Stranger
seemed to have a kind feeling towards them;
and that it was not well-bred to question any
one straightway on that point.

"As they heard that I was soon to leave
Palermo, they became more pressing, and im-
portuned me to come back; especially vaunt-
ing the paradisaic days of the Rosalia Festival,
the like of which was not to be seen and tasted
in all the world.

" My attendant, who had long been anxious
to get off, at last put an end to the interview
by his gestures; and I promised to return on
the morrow evening, and take the letter.
My attendant expressed his joy that all had
gone off so well, and we parted mutually con-
tent.

" You may fancy the impression this poor
and pious, well-dispositioned family had made
on me. My curiosity was satisfied ; but their
natural and worthy bearing had raised an
interest in me, which i-eflection did but in-
crease.

" Forthwith, however, there arose from me
anxieties about the following day. It was
natural that this appearance of mine, which at
the first moment had taken them by surprise,
should, after my departure, awaken many re-
flections. By the Genealogy I knew that
several others of the family were in life : it
was natural that they should call their friends
together, and in the presence of all, get these
things repeated which, the day before, they
had heard from me with admiration. My ob-
ject was attained ; there remained nothing
more than, in some good fashion, to end the
adventure. I accordingly repaired next day,
directly after dinner, alone to their house.
They expressed surprise as I entered. The
Letter was not ready yet, they said; and some
of their relations wished to make my acquaint-
ance, who towards night would be there.

" I answered that having to set off to-morrow
morning, and visits still to pay, and packing
to transact, I had thought it better to come
early than not at all.

" Meanwhile the son entered, whom yester-
day I had not seen. He resembled his sister
in size and figure. He brought the Letter they
were to give me; he had, as is common in
those parts, got it written out of doors, by one
of their Notaries that sit publicly to do such
things. The young man had a still, melan-
choly, and modest aspect; inquired after his
Uncle, asked ab(uU his riches and outlays, and
added sorrowfully. Why had he so Cnrgoiien
his kindred] 'It were our greatest fortune,'
continued he, 'should he once return hither,
and take notice of us; but,' continued he. ' how

COUNT CAGLIOSTEO.

449

came he to let you know that he had relatives
in Palermo? It is said, he everywhere denies
us, and gives himself out for a man of great
binh.' I answered this question, which had
now arisen by the imprudence of my Guide at
our first entrance, in such sort as to make it
seem that the Uncle, though he might have
reasons for concealing his birth from the
public, did yet, towards his friends and ac-
quaintance, keep it no secret.

"The sister, who had come up during this
dialogue, and by the presence of her brother,
perhaps also by the absence of her yesterday's
friend, had got more courage, began also to
speak wiih much grace and liveliness. They
begged me earnestl)' to recommend them to
their Uncle, if I wrote to him; and not less
earnestly, \vhen once I should have made this
journey through the Island, to come back and
pass the Rosalia Festival with them.

"The mother spoke in accordance with her
children. 'Sir,' said she, 'though it is not
seemly, as I have a grown daughter, to see
stranger gentlemen in my house, and one has
cause to guard against both danger and evil-
speaking, yet shall you ever be welcome to us,
when you return to this city.'

"'O yes,' answered the young ones, 'we
will lead the Gentleman all round the Festival:
we will show him every thing, get a place on
the scaffolds, where the grand sights are seen
best. What will he say to the great Chariot,
and more than all, to the glorious Illumina-
tion !'

" Meanwhile the Grandmother had read the
letter and again read it. Hearing that I was
about to take leave, she arose, and gave me
the folded sheet. 'Tell my son,' began she
with a noble vivacity, nay, with a sort of in-
spiration, ' Tell my son how happy the news
have made me, which you brought from him !
Tell him that I clasp him to my heart' — here
she stretched out her arms asunder, and press-
ed them again together on her breast — ' that I
dail)' beseech God and our Holy Virgin for him
in prayer; that I give him and his wife my
blessing; and that I wish before my end to see
him again, with these eyes, which have shed
so many tears for him.'

" The peculiar grace of the Italian tongue
favoured the choice and noble arrangement of
these Words, which moreover were accom-
panied with lively gestures, wherewith that
nalKjn can add such a charm to spoken
words.

" I took my leave, not without emotion.
They all gave me their hands; the children
showed me out; and as I went down stairs,
they jumped to the balcony of the kitchen
window, which projected over the street;
called after me, threw me salutes, and repeat-
ed, that I must in no wise forget to come back.
I saw them still on the balcony, when I turned
the corner."*

Poor old Felicita, and must thy pious pray-
ers, thy motherly blessings, and so many tears
shed by those old eyes, be all in vain ! To
thyself, in any case, they were blessed. — As
for the Signora Capitummino, with her three

• Goethe's It'erkc, {lialiceiiische Reise,) xxviii.

h-7

fatherless children, we can believe at least,
that the fourteen gold Ounces were paid, by a
sure hand, and so her heavy burden, for some
space, lightened a little.

Count Cagliostro, all this while, is rapidly
proceeding with his Fifth Act; the red cop-
pery splendour darkens moi-e and more into
final gloom. Some boiling muddle-heads of a
dupeable sort there still are in England;
Popish-Riot Lord George, for instance, will
walk with him to Count Barthelemy's, or
d'Adhemar's; and, in bad French and worse
rhetoric, abuse the Queen of France : but what
does it profit ? Lord George must one day
(after noise enough) revisit Newgate for it;
and in the meanwhile, hard words pay no
scores. Apothecary Swinton begins to get
wearisome; French spies look ominously in;
Egyptian Pills are slack of sale ; the old vul-
turous Attorney-host anew scents carrion, is
bestirring itself anew: Count Cagliostro, in
the May of 1787, must once more leave Eng-
land. But whither? Ah, whither! At Bale,
at Bienne, over Switzerland, the game is up.
At Aix in Savoy, there are baths, but no gud-
geons in them : at Turin, his Majesty of Sar-
dinia meets you with an Order to begone on
the instant. A like fate from the Emperor
Joseph at Roveredo ; — before the Liber mctnori-
alls (le Cuhostro duni cssct Roboretii could extend
to many pages ! Count Front-of-brass begins
confessing himself to priests: yet "at Trent
paints a new hieroglyphic Screen," — touching
last flicker of a light that once burnt so high !
He pawns diamond buckles; wanders neces-
sitous hither and thither ; repents, unrepents;
knows not what to do. For Destiny has her
nets round him ; they are straitening, straiten-
ing; too soon he will be ginned!

Driven out from Trent, what shall he make
of the new hieroglyphic Screen, what of him-
self? The way-worn Grand-Cophtess has begun
to blab family secrets; she longs to be in Rome,
by her mother's hearth, by her mother's grave ;
in any nook, where so much as the shadow of
refuge waits her. To the desperate Count
Front-of-brass all places are nearly alike:
urged by a female babble, he will go to Rome
then; why not? On a Ma3'-day, of the year
1789, (when such glorious work had just begun
in France, to him all forbidden !) he enters the
Eternal City: it was his doom-summtms that
called him thither. On the 29th of next De-
cember, the Holy Inquisition, long watchful
enough, detects him founding some feeble
(moneyless) ghost of an Egyptian Lodge ;
"picks him oflT," (as the military say,) and
locks him hard and fast in the Castle of St.
Angelo :

Vni cW intrate lasciaf' ogni speranza !

Count Cagliostro did not lose all hope :
nevertheless a few words will now suffice for
him. In vain, with his mouth of pinchbeck and
his front of brass, does he heap chimera on chi-
mera; demand religious Books, (which are
freely given him :) demand clean Linen, and an
interview with his Wife, (which are refused
him;) assert now that the Egyptian Masonry
is a divine system, accommodated to erring and
gullible men, which the Holy Father, when he
2 p 2

460

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

knows it, will patronize; anon that there are
Bome four miilions of Freemasons, spread over
Europe, all sworn to exterminate Priest and
King, wherever met with : in vain ! they will
not acquit him, as misunderstood Theophilan-
thropist; will not emit him, in Pope's pay, as
renegade Masonic Spy: "he can't get out."
Donna Lorenza languishes, invisible to him, in
a neighbouring cell; begins at length to con-
fers! Whereupon he too, in tcrrents, will
emit confessions and forestall her: these the
Inquisition pocket and sift (whence this Life
of Lahaiuo) ; but will not let him out. In fine,
after some eighteen months of the weariest
hcunding, doubling, worrying, and standing at
bay, His Holiness gives sentence : The Manu-
script of Egyptian Masonry is to be burnt by
hand of the common Hangman, and all that in-
termeddle with such Masonry are accursed;
Giuseppe Baisamo, justly forfeited of life, (for
being a Freemason,) shall nevertheless in
mercy be forgiven; instructed in the duties
of penitence, and even kept safe thenceforth
and till death, — in ward of Holy Church. Ill-
starred Acharat, must it so end with thee!
This was in April, 1791.

He addressed (how vainly !) an appeal to
the French Constituent Assembly. As was
said, in Heaven, in Earth, or in Hell there was
no Assembly that could well take his part.
For four yeai-s more, spent one knows not
how, — most probably in the furor of edacity,
with insufhcient cookery, and the stupor of in-
digestion,— the curtain lazily falls. There
rotted and gave way the cordage of a tough
heart, One summer morning of the year 1795,
the Body of Cagliostro is still found in the
prison at St. Leo; but Cagliostro's Self has
escaped, — ichilhcr no man yet knows. The
brow of brass, behold how it has got all un-
lackered ; these pinchbeck lips can lie no
more : Cagliostro's work is ended, and now
only his anmint to present. As the Scherif of
Mecca said, "Natui-e's unfortunate child,
adieu !"

Such, according to our comprehension there-
of, is the rise, progress, grandeur, and deca-
dence of the Quack of Quacks. Does the reader
ask. What good was in it. Why occupy his
time and hours i/ith the biography of such a
miscreant 1 We answer. It was stated on the
very threshold of this matter, in the loftiest
terrns, by Herr Sauerteig, that the Lives of all
Eminent Persons (miscreant or creant) ought
to be written. Thus has not the very Devil
his Life, deservedly written not by Daniel De-
foe ou'y, but by quite other hands than Da-

niel's ■? For the rest, the Thing represented
on these pages is no sham, but a Reality; thou
hast it, 0 reader, as we have it: Nature was
pleased to produce even such a man, even so,
not otherwise; and the Editor of this Maga-
zine is here mainly to record (in an adequate
manner) what she, of her thousandfold myste-
rious richness and greatness, produces.

But the moral lesson? Where is the moral
lesson 1 Foolish reader, in every Reality, nay
in every genuine Shadow of a Reality, (what
we call Poem,) there lie a hundred such, or a
million such, according as thou hast the eye to
read them"! Of which hundred or million
lying here (in the present Reality,) couldst not
thou, for example, be advised to take this one,
to thee, worth all the rest: Behold, I too have
attained that immeasurable, mysterious glory
of being (ilii-e : to me also a Capability has
been intrusted: shall I strive to work it out
(manlike) into Faithfulness, and Doing; or
(quacklike)into Eatableness, and Similitude of
Doing] Or why not rather (gigman-like, and
following the " respectable," countless multi-
tude)— into both? The decision is of quite in-
finite moment; see thou make it aright.

But in fine, look at this matter of Cagliostro
(as at all matters) with thy heart, with thy
whole mind; no longer merely squint at it with
the poor side-glance of thy calculative faculty
Look at it not logicnlly only, but tnystically.
Thou shah in sober truth see it (as Sauerteig
asserted) to be a "Pasquillant ver^e," of most
inspired writing in its kind, in that same
"Grand Bible of Universal History;" won-
drously and even indispensably connected with
the "Heroic" portions that stand there; even
as the all-showing Light is with the Darkness
wherein nothing can be seen; as the hideous
taloned roots are with the fair boughs, and their
leaves and flowers and fruit; both of which,
and not one of which, make the Tree. Think
also whether thou hast known no Public
Quacks, on far higher scale than this, whom a
Castle of St. Angelo never could get hold of;
and how, as Emperors, Chancellors, (having
found much fitter machinery,) they could run
their Quack-career; and make whole kingdoms,
whole continents, into one huge Egyptian
Lodge, and squeeze supplies, of money or
blood, from it, at discretion 1 Also, whether
thou even now knowest not Private Quacks,
innumerable as the sea-sands, toiling /i«//-Cag-
lioslrically, of whom Cagliostro is as the
ideal type-specimen 1 Such is the world. Un-
derstand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold
on thy way through it, with thy eye on higher
loadstars !

DEATH OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING.

4 1

DEATH or THE REV. EDWARD IMim.

[Fraser's Magazine, 1835.]

Edward Irving's warfare has closed ; if not
in victory, yet in invincibility, and faithful en-
durance to the end. The Spirit of the Time,
which could not enlist him as its soldier, must
needs, in all ways, fight against him as its ene-
my: it has done its part, and he has done his.
One of the noblest natures — a man of antique
heroic nature, in questionable modern garni-
ture, which he could not wear! Around him
a distracted society, vacant, prurient; heat
and darkness, and what these two may breed :
mad extremes of flattery, followed by madder
contumely, by indifference and neglect! — these
were the conflicting elements ; this is the re-
sult they have made out among them. The
voice of our "son of thunder," with its deep
tone of wisdom, (that belonged to all articulate-
speaking ages,) never inaudible amid wildest
dissonances, (that belonged to this inarticulate
age, which slumbers and somnambulates,
which cannot spcuk, but only screech and gib-
ber,) has gone silent so soon. Closed are
those lips. The large heart, with its large
bounty, where wretchedness found solacement,
and they that were wandering in darkness the
light as of a home, has paused. The strong
man can no more: beaten on from without,
undermined from within, he must sink over-
wearied, as at nightfall, when it was yet but
the mid-season of day. Irving was forty-two
years and some months old : Scotland sent him
forth a Herculean man; our mad Babylon
wore him and wasted hiin, with all her en-
gines; and it took her twelve years. He
sleeps with his fathers, in that loved birth-
land : Babylon with its deafening inanity rages
on; but to him henceforth innocuous, unheed-
ed— for ever.

Reader, thou hast seen and heard the man
(as who has notl) with wise or unwise won-
der; thou shalt not see or hear him again.
The work, be what it might, is done : dark cur-
tains sink over it, enclose it ever deeper into
the unchangeable Past. — Think (if thou be one
of a thousand, and worthy to do it) that here
once more was a genuine man sent into this
our n?igenuine phantasmagory of a world,
which would go to ruin without such ; that
here once more, under thy own eyes, in this
last decade, was enacted the old Tragedy (and
has had its fifth-act now) of Tl:e Messeii!::er of
Tndh in the Ji;e of Shiiins, — and what relation
thou thyself niayest have to that. Wlicther
aiiyl Beyond question, thou thyself art/jcrp-
either a dreamer or awake; and one day shalt
cease to dream.

This man was appointed a Christian Priest ;
and strove with the whole force that was in
him to he it. To be it : in a time of Tithe Con-
troversy, Encyclopedism, Catholic Rent, Phi-

lanthropism, and the Revolution of Three
Days! He might have been so many things;
not a speaker only, but a doer; the leader of
hosts of men. For his head (when the Fog-
Babylon had not yet obscured it) was of
strong far-searching insight; his very enthu-
siasm was sanguine, not atrabiliar; he was so
loving, full of hope, so simple-hearted, and
made all that approached him his. A giant
force of activity was in the man ; speculation
was accident, not nature. Chivalry, adven-
turous field-life of the old Border (and a far
nobler son) ran in his blood. There was in
him a courage dauntless, not pugnacious;
hardly fierce, by no possibility ferocious : as
of the generous war-horse, gentle in its
strength, yet that laughs at the shaking of the
spear. — But, above all, be what he might, to
be a realily was indispensable for him. In his
simple Scottish circle, the highest form of
manhood attainable or known was that of
Christian ; the highest Christian was the
Teacher of such. Irving's lot was cast. For
the foray-spears were all rusted into earth
there; Annan Castle had become a Town-hall;
and Prophetic Knox had sent tidings thither:
Prophetic Knox — and, alas, also Skeptic
Hume, — and (as the natural consequence)
Diplomatic Diindas. In such mixed incon-
grous element had the young soul to grow.

Grow nevertheless he did (with that strong
vitality of his) ; grow and ripen. What the
Scottish uncelebrated Irving was, they that
have only seen the London celebrRied (and
distorted) one can never know. Bodily and
spiritually, perhaps there was not (in that No-
vember, 1822,) a man more full of genial
energetic life in all these Islands.

By a fatal chance. Fashion cast her eye on
him, as on some impersonation of Novel-
Cameronianism, some wild product of Nature
from the wild mountains; Fashion crowded
round him, with her meteor lights, and Bac-
chic dances; breathed her foul incense on
him; intoxicating, poisoning. One may say,
it was his own nobleness that forwarded such
ruin : the excess of his socinbility and sym-
pathy, of his value for the suffrages and sym-
pathies of men. Syren songs, as of a new
Moral Reformation, (sons of Mammon, and
high sons of Belial and Beelzebub, to become
sons of God. and the gumflowers of Almack's
to be made living roses in a new Eden.) sound
in the inexperienced ear and heart. Most .se-
ductive, most delusive I Fashion went her
idle wnv, to gaze on Egyptian Crocodiles, Iro
quois Hunters, or what else there might be,
ft)rgot this man, — who unhappily could not in
his turn forget. The intoxicating poison had
been swallowed; no force of natural health
could cast it out. Unconsciouslv. for mosi

A5i

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

part in deep uncon'^ciousness, there was now
the impossibility to live neglected ; to walk on
the quiet paths, where alone it is well with us.
Singularity must henceforth succeed Singu-
larity. 0 foulest Circean draught, thou poison
of Popular Applause! madness is in thee,
and death ; thy end is Bedlam and the Grave.
For the last seven years, Irving, forsaken by
the world, strove either to recall it, or to fur-
sake it; shut himself up in a lesser world of
ideas and persons, and lived isolated there.
Neither in this was there health: for this man
such isolation was not fit; such ideas, such
persons.

One light still shone on him; alas, through
a medium more and more turbid : the light from
Heaven. His Bible was there, wherein must
lie healing for all sorrows. To the Bible he
more and more exclusively addressed himself.
If it is the written Word of God, shall it not
be the acted Word too] Is it mere sound,
then; black printer's-ink on white rag-paper 1
A half-man could have passed on without an-
swering; a v/hole man must answer. Hence
Prophecies of Millenniums, Gifts of Tongues, —
whereat Orthodoxy prims herself into decent
wonder, and waves her Avaunt ! Irving clave
to his Belief, as to his soul's soul; followed it
whithersoever, through earth or air, it might
lead him ; toiling as never man toiled to spread
it, to gain the world's ear for it, — in vain.
Ever wilder waxed the confusion without and

within. The misguided nol'e-minded had
now nothing left to do but die. He died the
death of the true and brave. His last words,
they say, were : " In life and in death, I am the
Lord's." — Amen ! Amen !

One who knew him well, and may with
good cause love him, has said : " But for Irving,
I had never known what the communion of
man with man means. His was the freest,
brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever
■came in contact with : I call him, on the whole,
the best man I have ever (after trial enough)
found in this world, or now hope to find.

" The first time I saw Irving was six-and-
twenty years ago, in his native town, Annan.
He was fresh from Edinburgh, with College
prizes, high character, and promise : he had
come to see our Schoolmaster, who had also
been his. We heard of famed Professors, of
high matters classical, mathematical, a whole
Wonderland of Knowledge : nothing but joy,
health, hopefulness without end, looked out
from the blooming young man. The last time
I saw him was three months ago, in London.
Friendliness still beamed in his eyes, but now
from amid unquiet fire; his face was flaccid,
wasted, unsound; hoary as with extreme
age: he was trembling over the brink of the
grave. Adieu, thou first Friend ; adieu, while
this confused Twilight of Existence lasts!
Might we meet where Twilight has becomr
Day !"

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

[Eraser's Magazine, 1837.]

CHAPTER L

AGE OF nOMANCE.

The age of Romance has not ceased ; it
never ceases; it does not, if we will think of
it, so much as very sensibly decline. " The
passions are repressed by social forms ; great
passions no longer show themselves 1" Why,
there are passions still great enough to re-
plenish Bedlam, for it never wants tenants;
to suspend men from bed-posts, from improved-
drops at the west end of Newgate. A passion
that explosively shivers asunder the Life it
took rise in ought to be regarded as consider-
able : more, no passion, in the highest hey-day
of Romance, yet did. The passions, by grace of
the Supernal and also of the Infernal Powers,
(for both have a hand in it,) can never fail us.

And then as to " social forms," be it granted
that they are of the most buckram quality, and
bind men up into the pitifuUest, straitlaced,
common-place Existence, — you ask. Where is
the Romance? In the Scotch way one an-
swers, Where is it not'! That very spectacle
of an Immortal Nature, with faculties and
destiny extending through Eterniiy, hampered
and bandaged up, by nurses, pedagogues, pos-

ture-masters, and the tongues of innumeraole
old women, (named "force of public opi-
nion ;") by prejudice, custom, want of know-
ledge, want of money, want of strength, into,
say, the meager Pattern-Figure that, in these
days, meets you in all thoroughfares ; a " god-
created Man," all but abnegating the character
of Man ; forced to exist, automatized, mummy-
wise, (scarcely in rare moments audible or
visible from amid his wrappages and cere-
ments,) as Gentleman or Gigman ;* and so
selling his birthright of Eternity, for the three
daily meals, poor at best, which time yields:
— is not this spectacle itself highly romantic,
tragical, — if we had eyes to look at it 1 The
high-born (highest-born, for he came out of
Heaven) lies drowning in the despicablest
puddles; the priceless gift of Life, which he
can have but once, for he waited a whole Eter-
nity to be born, and now has a whole Eternity
waiting to see what he will do when born, —
/his priceless gift we see strangled slowly out
of him by innumerable packthreads; and there

* "T always considered him a respectalile man. —
What c!n von mean by respectable ' He kept a Gia."—

ThurteWa'Trial.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

4S3

remains of the glorious Possibility, which we
fondly named Man, nothing but an inanimate
mass of foul loss and disappointment, which
we wrap in shrouds and bury underground, —
surely with well-merited tears. To the Thinker
here lies Tragedy enough ; the epitome and
marrow of all Tragedy whatsoever.

But so few arc Thinkers] Aye, Reader, so
few think ; there is the rub ! Not one in the
thousand has the smallest turn for thinking;
only for passive dreaming and hearsaying,
an(l active babbling by rote. Of the eyes that
men do glare withal so few can see. Thus is
the world become such a fearful confused
Treadmill; and each man's task has got en-
tangled in his neighbour's and pulls it awry;
and the Spirit of Blindness, Falsehood, and
Distraction (justly named the Devil) continu-
allj' maintains himself among us ; and even
hopes (were it not for the Opposition, which
by God's Grace will also maintain itself) to
become supreme. Thus, too, among other
things, has the Romance of Life gone wholly
out of sight: and all History, degenerating
into empty invoice-lists of Pitched Battles and
Changes of Ministry ; or, still worse, into
" Constitutional History," or " Philosophy of
History, or "Philosophy teaching by Experi-
ence," IS become dead, as the Almanacs of
other years, — to which species of composition,
indeed, it bears, in several points of view, no
inconsiderable affinity.

"Of all blinds that shut up men's vision,"
says one, " the worst is self." How true ! How
doubly true, if self, assuming her cunningest,
yet iniserablest disguise, come on us in never-
ceasing, all-obscuring reflexes from the innu-
merable selves of others ; not as Pride, not
even as real Hunger, but only as Vanity, and
the shadow of an imaginary Hunger, (for Ap-
plause ;) under the name of what we call " Re-
spectability !" Alas now for our Historian: to
his other spiritual deadness (which, however,
so long as he ph3'sical!y breathes cannot be
complete) this sad new magic influence is
added ! Henceforth his Histories must all be
screwed up into the "dignity of History."
Instead of looking fixedly at the Thing, and
first of all, and beyond all, endeavouring to
see it, and fashion a living Picture of it, (not a
wretched politico-metaphysical Abstraction of
it,) he has now quite other matters to look to.
The thing lies shrouded, invisible, in thousand-
fold hallucinations, and foreign air-images:
what did the M^higs say of it? What did
the Tories'? The Priests'? The Freethink-
ers ? Above all, what will my own listening
circle say of me for what I say of if? And
then his Respectability in general, as a literary
gentleman ; his not despicable talent for phi-
losophy ! Thus is our poor Historian's faculty
directed mainly on two objects; the Writing
and the Writer, both of which are quite extra-
neous ; and the thing written of fares as we
see. Can it be wonderful that Histories
(wherein open lying is not permitted) are un-
romanticT Nay, our very Biographies, how
stiff-starched, foisonless, hollow! They stand
there respectable; and what more? Dumb
idols; with a skin of delusively painted wax-
work; and inwardly empty, or full of rags and

bran. In our England especially, which in
these days is become the chosen land of Re-
spectabilit}'. Life-writing has dwindled to the
sorrowfullest condition ; it requires a man to
be soine disrespectable, ridiculous Boswell
before he can write a tolerable Life. Thus,
too, strangely enough, the only Lives worth
reading are those of Players, emptiest and
poorest of the sons of Adam ; who neverthe-
less were sons of his, and brothers of ours ;
and by the nature of the case, had already
bidden Respectability good-day. Such boun-
ties, in this, as in infinitely deeper matters,
does Respectability shower down on us. Sad
are thy doings, O Gig; sadder than those of
Juggernaut's Car: that, with huge wheel, sud-
denly crushes asunder the bodies of men ;
thou, in thy light-bobbing Long-Acre springs,
gradually winnowest away their souls!

Depend upon it, for one thing, good Reader,
no age ever seemed the Age of Romance to
itself. Charlemagne, let the Poets talk as they
will, had his own provocations in the world:
what with selling of his poultry and potherbs,
what with wanton daughters carrying secreta-
ries through the snow; and, for instance, that
hanging of the Saxons over the Weser-bridge,
(thirty thousand of them, they say, at one bout,)
it seems to me that the Great Charles had his
temper ruffled at times. Roland of Ronces-
valles, too, we see well in thinking of it, found
rainy weather as well as sunny ; knew what it
was to have hose need darning ; got tough beef
to chew, or even went dinnerless ; was saddle-
sick, calumniated, constipated, (as his madness,
too clearly indicates ;) and oftenest felt, I doubt
not, that this was a very Devil's world, and he
(Roland) himself one of the sorriest caitiffs
there. Only in long subsequent days, when the
tough beef, the constipation, and the calumny,
had clean vanished, did it all begin to seem
Romantic, and your Turpins and Ariostos
found music ip it. 80, I say, is it ever! And
the more, as your true hero, your true Roland,
is ever uuconsciovs that he is a hero : this is a
condition of all true greatness.

In our own poor Nineteenth Century, the
writer of these lines has been fortunate enough
to see not a few glimpses of Romance; he
imagines this Nineteenth is hardly a whit less
romantic than that Ninth, or any other, since
centuries began. Apart from Napoleon, and
the Dantons, and Mirabeaus, whose fire-words
(of public speaking) and fire-whirlwinds, (of
cannon and musquetry,) wiich fcr a season
darkened the air, are, perhaps, at bottom but
superficial phenomena, h^ ra? witnessed, in
remotest places, much that could be called ro-
mantic, even miraculous. He has witnessed
overhead the infinite Deep, with greater and
lesser lights, bright-rolling, silent-beaming,
liurled forth by the Hand of God; around him,
and under his feet, the wonderfullest Earth,
with her winter snow-storms and her summer
spice-airs, and (unaccountablest of all) hmiself
standing there. He stood in the lapse of Time;
he saw Eternity behind hiin and before him. The
all-encircling mysterious tide of Foncii, ihou-
sandlold, (for from force of Thought to force
of Gravitation what an interval !) billowed
shoreless on ; bore him too along with it.— he

454

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

too was part of it. From its bosom rose and
vanished, in perpetual chance, the lordliest
Keal-Phantasmagory, (which was Being ;) and
ever anew rose and vanished; and ever that
lordliest many-coloured scene was full, another
yet the same. Oak-trees fell, young acorns
sprang: -Men too, new-sent from the Unknown,
he met, of tiniest size, who waxed into stature,
into strength of sinew, passionate fire and
light: in other Men the light was growing dim,
the sinews all feeble ; they sank, motionless,
into ashes, into invisibility; returned buck to
the Unknown, beckoning him their mute fare-
well. He wanders still by the parling-spoi ;
cannot hear (/ic/« ,- they are far, how far! — It
was a sight for angels, and archangels; for,
indeed, God himself had made it wholly- One
many-glancing asbestos-thread in the Web of
Universal-History, spirit-woven, it rustled
there, as with the howl of michty winds,
through that " wild roaring Loom of Time."
Generation after generation, (hundreds ofthem,
or thousands of them, from the unknown Be-
ginning,) so loud, so stormful busy, rushed
torrent-wise, thundering down, down ; and fell
all silent (only some feeble re-echo, which
grew ever feebler, struggling up,) and Obli-
vion swallowed them (iT. Thousands more, to
the unknown Ending, will follow : and thou
here (of this present one) hangest as a drop,
still sungilt, on the giddy edge; one moment,
while the Darkness has not yet engulphed
thee. O Brother ! is tlmt what thou callest
prosaic; of small interest? Of small interest, and
for //iep/ A wake, poor troubled sleeper : shake off
thy torpid nightmare-dream ; look, see, behold
it, the Flame-image ; splendours high as Hea-
ven, terrors deep as Hell : this is God's Creation ;
this is Man's Life ! — Such things has the wri-
ter of these lines witnessed, in this poor Nine-
teenth Century of ours; and what are all such
to the things he yet hopes to witness 1 Hopes,
with truest assurance. "I have painted so
much," said the good Jean Paul, in his old
days, " and I have never seen the Ocean ; the
Ocean of Eternity I shall not fail to see!"

Such being the intrinsic quality of this Time,
and of all Time whatsoever, might not the
Poet who chanced to walk through it find ob-
jects enough to paint 1 What object soever
he fixed on, were it the meanest of the mean,
let him but paint it in its actual truth, as it
swims there, in such environment; world-old,
yet new, and never ending; an indestructible
portion of the iruaculous All, — his picture of
it were a Poem. How much more if the ob-
ject fixed on were not mean, but one already
wonderful; the (mystic) "actual truth" of
which, if it lay not on the surface, yet shone
through the surface, and invited even Prosa-
ists to search for it !

The present writer, who unhappily belongs
to that class, has, nevertheless, a firmer and
firmer persuasion of two things : first, as was
seen, that Romance exists ; secondly, that now,
and formerly, and ever more it exists, strictly
speaking, in Reality alone. The thing that is,
what can be so wonderful; what, especially to
us that arc, can have such significance] Study
Reality, he is ever and anon saying to himself;
search out deeper and deeper Us quite endless

mystery : see it, know it ; then, whether thou
wouldst learn from it, and again teach ; or
weep over it, or laugh over it, or love it, or
despise it or in any way relate thyself to it,
thou hast the firmest enduring basis : thai hie-
roglyphic page is one thou canst read on for
ever, find new meaning in for ever.

Finally, and in a word, do not the critics
teach us : "In whatsoever thing thou hast thy-
self felt interest, in that or in nothing hope to
inspire others with interest !" — In partial obe-
dience to all which, and to many other princi-
ples, shall the following small Romance of the
Diamoiui Ncrkl K-e begin to come together. A
small Romance, let the reader again and again
assure himself, which is no brainweb of mine,
or of any other foolish man's; but a fraction
of that mystic " spirit-woven web," from the
" Loom of Time," spoken of above. It is an
actual Transaction that happened in this Earth
of ours. Wherewith our whole business, as
already urged, is to paint it truly.

For the rest, an earnest inspection, faithful
endeavour has not been wanting, on our part;
nor (singular as it may seem) the strictest re-
gard to chronology, geography, (or rather in
this case, topography.) documentary evidence,
and what else true historical research would
yield. Were there but on the reader's part a
kindred openness, a kindred spirit of endea-
vour! Beshone strongly, on both sides, by
such united twofold Philosophy, this poor
opaque Intrigue of the Dinmnnd Necklace be-
came quite translucent between us; transfi-
gured, lifted up into the serene of Universal
History; and might hang there like a smallest
Diamond Constellation, visible without tele-
scope,— so long as it could.

CHAPTER IL

THE NECKLACK IS MADE.

Herr, or as he is now called Monsieur,
Boehmer, to all appearance wanted not that
last infirmity of noble and ignoble minds — a
love of fame; he was destined also to be
famous more than enough. His outlooks into
the world were rather of a smiling character:
he has long since exchanged his guttural
speech, as far as possible, for a nasal one ;
his rustic Saxon fatherland for a polished city
of Paris, and thriven there. United in part-
nership with worthy Monsieur Bassange, a
sound practical man, skilled in the valuation
of all precious stones, in the management of
workmen, in the judgment of their work, he
already sees himself among the highest of
his guild: nay, rather the very highest, — for
he has secured (by purchase and hard money
paid) the title of King's Jeweller ; and can en-
ter the Court itself leaving all other Jewellers,
and even innumerable Gentlemen, Gigmen,
and small Nobility, to languish in the vesti-
bule. With the costliest ornaments in his
pocket, or borne after him b}' assiduous shop-
boys, the happy Boehmer sees high drawing-
rooms and sacred 7-urllcs fly open, as with talis-
manic Sesame ; and the brightest eyes of ths
whole world grow brighter: to him alone of

i

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

455

men the Unapproachable reveals herself in

mysterious negligee; taking and giving coun-
sel. Do not, on all gala-da3's and gala-nights,
his works praise him 1 On the gorgeous
robes of State, on Court-dresses and Lords'
stars, on the diadem of Royalty ; better still,
on the swan-neck of Beauty, and her queenly
garniture from plume-bearing aigrette to shoe-
buckle on fairy-slipper, — that blinding play of
colours is Boehmer's doing : he i". Juuaillicr-
Bijoiiticr rle la Rcinc.

Could the man but have been content with
it! He could not: Icarus-like, he must mount
too high ; have his wax-wings melted, and
descend prostrate, — amid a cloud of vain
goose-quills. One day, a fatal day (of some
year, probably, among the Scvoities of last
Century,)* it struck- Boehmcr : Why should
not I, who, as Most Christian King's Jeweller,
am properly first Jeweller of the Universe, —
make a Jewel which the Universe has not
matched ? Nothing can prevent thee, Boeh-
mer, if thou have the skill to do it. Skill or no
skill, answers he, I have the ambition : my
Jewel, if not the beautifullest, shall be the dear-
est. Thus was the Diamond Necklace deter-
mined on. /

Did worthy Bassange give a willing or a
reluctant consent? In 'any case he consents;
and co-operates. Plans are sketched, con-
sultations held, stucco models made; by mo-
ney or credit the costliest diamonds come in;
cunning craftsmen cut them, set them: proud
Bciehmer sees the work go prosperously on.
Proud man ! Behold him on a morning after
breakfast: he has stepped down to the inner-
most v^'orkshop, before sallying out; stands
there with his laced three-cornered hat, cane
under arm; drawing on his gloves: with nod,
with nasal-guttural word, he gives judicious
confirmation, judicious abnegation, censure,
and approval. A still joy is dawning over
that bland, blond face of his; he can think
(while in many a sacred boudoir he visits the
Unapproachable) that an opus niiig)iu?n, of
wnich the world wotteth not, is progressing.
At length comes a morning when care has
terminated, and joy cannot only dawn but
shine; the Necklace, that shall be famous and
world-famous, is made.

iVuilc we call it, in conformity with common
speech: but properly it was not made; only,
with more or less spirit of method, arranged
and agglomerated. What "spirit of method"
lay iii It, might be made; nothing more. But
to lell the various Histories of those various
Diamonds, from the first making of them ; or
even (omitting all the rest) from the first dig-
ging of them in the far Indian mines! How
they lay, for uncounted ages and reons (under
the uproar and splashing of such Deucalion
Deluges, and Hutton Explosions, with steam
enough, and Werner Submersions) silently
imbedded in the rook; nevertheless (when
their hour came) emerged from it, and first
beheld the glorious Sun smile on them, and

♦ Except that Madame Canipan (Mewoires, tome ii.)
iays the Neclilace " was intemled for I)u Barry," one
cannot discover, within many years, the dale of its
tnaniifacture. Dii Barry weni 'Mnto tialf-pay " on the
lOlh of May, 1774,— the (lay when her king died.

with their many-coloured glances smiled back
on him. How they served next (let us say)
as eyes of Heathen Idols, and received wor-
ship. How they had then, by fortune of war
or theft, been knocked out ; and exchanged
among camp-suttlers for a little spirituous
liquor, and bought by Jews, and worn as sig-
nets on the fingers of tawny or white Majes-
ties ; and again been lost, with the fingers
too, and perhaps life, (as by Charles the Rash,
among the mud-ditches of Nancy,) in old-for-
gotten glorious victories : and so, through in-
numerable varieties of fortune, — had come at
last to the cutting-wheel of Boehmer ; to be
united in strange fellowship, with comrades
also blown together from all ends of the Earth,
each with a History of its own ! Could these
aged stones (the youngest of them Six Thou-
sand years of age, and upwards) but have
spoken, — there were an Experience for Philo-
sophy to teach by. But now, as was said, by
little caps of gold (which gold also has a his-
tory,) and daintiest rings of the same, they
are all, being so to speak, enlisted under Boeh-
mer's flag, — made to take rank and file, in
new order; no Jewel asking his neighbour
whence he came ; and parade there for a sea-
son. For a season only; and then — to dis-
perse, and enlist anew od ivfinitinn. In such
inexplicable wise are Jewels, and Men also,
and indeed all earthly things, jumbled together
and asunder, and shovelled and wafted to and
fro, in our inexplicable chaos of a World.
This was what Boehmer called making his
Necklace.

So, in fact, do other men speak, and with
even less reason. How many men, for exam-
ple, hast thou heard talk of making money:
of making say a million and a half of money ?
Of which million and a half, how much, if
one were to look into it, had they made? The
accurate value of their Industry: not a six-
pence more. Their making, then, was but,
like Boehmer's, a clutching and heaping to-
gether ; — by-and-by to be followed also by a
dispersion. Made] Thou too vain indivi-
dual ! were these towered ashlar edifices ;
were these fair bounteous leas, with their
bosky umbrages and yellow harvests; and the
sunshine that lights them from above, and the
granite rocks and fire-reservoirs that support
them from below, made by thee? I think, by
another. The very shilling that thou hast
was dug (by man's force) in Carinthia and
Paraguay; smelted sufficiently; and stamped,
as would seem, not without the advice of our
late Defender of the Faith, his Majesty George
the Fourth. Thou hast it, and boldest it; but
whether, or in what sense, thou hast made any
farthing of it, thyself canst not say. If the
courteous reader ask. What things, then, are
made by man 1 I will answer him, Very few
indeed. A Heroism, a Wisdom (a god-given
Volition that has realized itself) is made now
and then : for example, some five or six Books
(since the Creation) have been made. Strange
that there are not more; for surely every en-
couragement is held out. Could i, or thou,
happy reader, but make one, the world would
let us keep it (unstolen) for Fourteen whole
years, — and take what we could get for it.

456

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

But in a word, Monsieur Boehmer has made
his Necklace, what he calls made it : happy
man is he. From a Drawing as large as
reality, kindly furnished by"Taunay, Print-
seller, of the Rue d'Enfer;* and again, in late
years, by the Abbe Georgel, in the Second
Volume of his Me/noircs, curious readers can
still fancy to themselves what a princely Orna-
ment it was. A row of seventeen glorious
diamonds, as large almost as filberts, encircle,
not too tightly, the neck, a first time. Looser,
giacefully fastened thrice to these, a three-
wreathed festoon, and pendants enough (simple
pear-shaped, multiple star-shaped, or cluster-
ing amorphous) encircle it, enwreath it, a
second time. Loosest of all, softly flowing
round from behind, in priceless catenary, rush
down two broad threefold rows ; seem to knot
themselves (round a very Queen of Diamonds,)
on the bosom; then rush on, again separated,
as if there were length in plenty; the very
tassels of them were a fortune for some men.
And now, lastly, two other inexpressible three-
fold rows, also with their tassels, unite them-
selves (when the Necklace is on at rest) and
into a doubly inexpressible si.rfold row; stream
down (together or asunder) over the hind-
neck, — we may fancy, like lambent Zodiacal
or Aurora-Borealis fire.

All these on a neck of snow slight-tinged
with rose-bloom, and within it royal Life:
amidst the blaze of lustres; in sylphish move-
ments, espiegleries, coquetteries, and niinuet-

♦ Frontispiece of the " J)ffaire du Collier, Paris 1785;"
where from Georgel's Edilnr liascoijied it. Tliis " ^iffaire
du Collier, Paris, 1785," is not, properly a Hook: but a
bound Collection of siicli Law Papers {Memoires j)our,
&c.) as were printed and emitted by tlie various parlies
in that famed "Necklace Trial." Tliese Law-Papers,
bound into Two Volumes quarto: with Portraits, such
as the Printshops yielded them at tlie time ; likewise
with patches of MS., containing Notes, Pasqiiinade-
Bongs, and the like, of the most unspeakable character
occasionally, — constitute this "Affaire du Collier;"
which the Paris Dealers in Old Pooks can still procure
there. It is one of the largest collections of Falsehoods
that exist in print; aiui, unfortunately, still, after all
the narrating and history there has been on the subject,
forms our chief means of getlini; at the truth of that
Transaction. The First Volume contains some Twenty-
one Memoires pour: not, of course. Historical state-
ments of truth ; but Culprits' and Lawyers' statements
of what they wished to be believed ; each party lijiinr
according to his ability to lie. To reach the trutli, or
even any honest guess at the truth, the immensities of
rubbish must be sifted, contrasted, rejected : what grain
of historical evidence may lie at the bottom is then at-
tainable. Thus, as this Transaction of the Uiamoiui
Necklace has been called the " Largest Lie of the
Eighteenth Century," so it comes to us borne, not unfitly,
on a whole illimitable dim Chaos of Lies :

Nay, the Second Volutne, entitled Suite deVJJffaire du
Collier, is still siranser. It relates to the Intrigue and
Trial of one Bette d'Etienville, who represents himself
as a poor lad that had been kidnapped, blindfolded, in-
troduced to beautiful Ladies, and engaged to get hus-
bands for them ; as setting out on this task, and gradually
getting quite bewitched and bewildered ;— most indubi-
tably, going on to bewitch and bewilder other people on
all hands of him : tile whole in r.ouseijuevce of this
"Necklace Trial," and the noise it was making: Very
curious. The Lawyers did verily busy themselves with
this affair of IJette's ; there are scarecrow Portraits
given, that stood in the Printshops, and no man can
know whether the Originals ever so much as existed.
It is like the Dream of a Dream. The human mind
stands slupeiil ; ejaculates the wish that such Oulph
of Falsehood would close itself,— before g«!neral Di!-
lirium supervene, and the Speech of Man become mere
incredible, meaningless jargon, like that of choughs and
daws. Even from Bette, however, by assiduous sifting,
one gathers a particle of truth liere and there.

mazes; with every movement a flash of star-
rainbow colours, bright almost as the move-
ments of the fair young soul it emblems ! A
glorious ornament; fit only for the Sultana of
the World. Indeed, only attainable by such,
for it is valued at 1,800,000 livres; say in
round numbers, and sterling money, between
eighty and ninety thousand pounds.

CHAPTER in.

THE XECKL.iCE CANNOT BE SOLI).

Miscalculating Boehmer! The Sultana of
the Earth shall never wear that Necklace of
thine ; no neck, either royal or vassal, shall
ever be the lovelier for it. In the present dis-
tressed state of our finances, (with the Ameri-
can War raging round us,) where thinkest
thou are eighty thousand pounds to be raised
for such a thing? In this hungry world, thou
fool, these five hundred and odd Diamonds,
good only for looking at, are intrinsically
worth less to us than a string of as inany dry
Irish potatoes, on which a fainishing Sanscu-
lotte might fill his belly. Little knowest thou,
laughing Jouaillier-Bijoutier, great in thy pride
of place, in thy pride of savoir-faire, what the
world has in store for thee. Thou laughest
there ; by-and-by thou wilt laugh on the wrong
side of thy face mainly.

While the Necklace lay in stticco effigy, and
the stones of it were still "circulating in Com-
merce," Du Barry's was the neck it was meant
for. Unhappily, as all dogs (male and female)
have but their day, her day is gone; and now
(so busy has Death been) she sits retired, on
mere half-pay, without prospects, at Saint-Cyr.
A generous France will buy no more neck-
ornaments for her : — O Heaven ! the Guillotine-
axe is already forging (North, in Swedish Dale-
cariia, by sledge-hammers and fire; South,
too, by taxes and tallies) that will sheer her
neck in twain !

But, indeed, what of Du Barry! A foul
worm ; hatched by ro3'al heal, on foul composts,
into a flaunting butterfly; now diswinged,
and again a worm ! Are there not Kings'
Daughters and Kings' Consorts: is not Decora-
tion the first wish of a female heart, — often
also (if the heart is empty) the last ] The Por-
tuguese Ambassador is here, and his rigorous
Pombal is no longer Minister: there is an In-
fanta in Portugal, purposing by Heaven's bless-
ing to wed. — Singular! the Portuguese Am-
bassador, though without fear of Pombal
praises, but will not purchase.

Or why not our own loveliest Marie-.\n-
toinette, once Dauphiness only; now every
inch a Queen: what neck in the whole Earih
would it beseem better? It is fit only for her.
— Alas, Boehmer! King Louis has an eye for
diamonds; but, he too, is without overplus of
money: his high Queen herself answers queen-
like, " VVe have more need of Seventy-fours
than of Necklaces." Lauddlur ct ali^cl .' — Not
without a qualmish feeling, we apply next to
the Queen and King of the Two Sicilies.* In

* See Memoires de Compan, ii 1—26,

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

«7

Vain, O Boehmer! In crowned heads there is
no hope for thee. Not a crowned head of them
can spare the\eighty thousand pounds. The
age of Chivalry is gone, and that of Bank-
ruptcy is come. A dull, deep, pressing move-
ment rocks all thrones: Bankruptcy is beatin
down the gate, and no Chancellor can longer
barricade her out. She will enter; and the
shoreless fire-lava of Democuact is at her
back! Well may Kings, a second time, "si
still with awful eye," and think of far other
things than Necklaces.

Thus for poor Boehmer are the mournfullest
days and nights appointed; and this high-
promising year (1780, as we laboriously guess
and gather) stands blacker than all others in
his calendar. In vain shall he, on his sleep-
less pillow, more and more desperately revolve
the problem; it is a problem of the insoluble
sort, a true " irreducible case of Cardan:" the
Diamond Necklace will not sell.

CHAPTER IV-

AFFIHITIES: THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS.

Nevertheless, a man's little Work lies not
isolated, stranded; a whole busy World (a
whole native-element of mysterious, never-
resting Force) environs it; will catch it up ;
will carry it forward, or else backward:
always, infallibly, either as living growth, or
at worst as well-rotted manure, the Thing Done
will come to use. Often, accordingly, for a
man that had finished any little work, this
were the most interesting question : In such a
boundless whirl of a world, what hook will it
be, and what hooks, that shall catch up this
little work of mine ; and whirl it also, — through
such a dance? A question, we need not say,
which, in the simplest of cases, would bring the
whole Royal Soeietj' to a nonplus. — Good Corsi-
canLeiitia! while thou nursest thy little Na-
poleon, and he answers thy mother-smile with
those deep ej'es of his, a world-famous French
Revolution, with Federations of the Champ de
Jt/ins, and September Massacres, and Bakers'
Customers en tpicnc, is getting ready: many a
Danton and Desmoulins; prim-visaged, Tar-
tufle-look'ing Kobespifrre, (as yet all schi^ol-
boys;) and Marat weeping (and cursing) bit-
ter rheum, as he pounds horse-drugs, — are
preparing the fittest arena for him!

Thus, too, while poor Boehmer is busy with
those Diamonds of his, picking them "out of
Commerce," and his craftsmen are grinding
and setting them; a certain ecclesiastical Co-
adjutor and firand Almoner, and prospective
(!!ommendator and Canlinal, is in Austria,
hunting and giving suppers ; for whom main-
ly it is that Boehmer and his craftsmen so
employ themselves. Strange enough, once
more ! The foolish .Jeweller at Paris, making
foolish trinkets; the foolish Ambassador at
Vienna, making blunders and debaucheries:
these Two, all uncommunicating, wide asun-
der as the Poles, are hourly forging for each
other the wonderfullest hook-and-eye ; that will
nook them together, one day, — into artificial
58

Siamese-Twins, for the astonishment or man
kind.

Prince Louis de Rohan is one of those seled
mortals born to honours, as the sparks fly
upwards; and, alas, also (as all men are) to
troubles no less. Of his genesis and descent
much might be said, by the curious in such
matters; yet, perhaps, if we weigh it well, in-
trinsically little. He can, by diligence and
faith, be traced back some hand-breadth or two,
(some century or two;) but after that, merges
in the mere " blood-royal of Brittany;" long,
long on this side of the Northern Immigrations,
he is not so much as to be sought for; — and
leaves the whole space onwards from that, into
the bosom of Eternity, a blank, marked only
by one point, the Fall of Man ! However, and
what alone concerns us, his kindred, in these
quite recent times, have been much about the
Most Christian Majesty; could there pick up
what was going. In particular, they have had
a turn of some continuance for Cardinalship
and Commendatorship. Safest trades these, of
the calm, do-nothing sort: in the do-something
line, in Generalship, or such like, (witness poor
Cousin Soubise, at Rossbach,*) they might
fare not so well. In any case, the actual
Prince Louis, Coadjutor at Strasburg, while
his uncle, the Cardinal-Archbishop, has not
yet deceased, and left him his dignities, but
only fallen sick, already takes his place on
one grandest occasion : he, thrice-happy Co-
adjutor, receives the fair, young, trembling
Dauphiness, Marie-Antoinette, on her first en-
trance into France; and can there, as Cere-
monial Fugleman, with fit bearing and sem-
blance, (being a tall man, of six-and-thirty,) do
the needful. Of his other performances up to
this date, a refined History had rather say
nothing.

In fact, if the tolerating mind will meditate
it with any sympathy, what could poor Ro-
han perform? Performing needs light, need.s
strength, and a firm clear fooling ; all of which
had been denied him. Nourished, from birth,
with the choicest physical spoon-meat, indeed;
yet, also, with no better spiritual Doctrine and
Evangel of Life than a French Court of Louis
the Well-beloved could yield; gifted, more-
over, (and this, too, was but a new perplexity
for him,) with shrewdness enough to see
through much, with vigour enough to despise
much; unhappily, not with vigour enough to
spurn it from him, and be for ever enfran-
chised of it, — he awakes, at man's stature,
with man's wild desires, in a World of the
merest incoherent Lies and Delirium; himself
a nameless Mass of delirious Incoherence, —
covered over, at most, (and held in a little.) by

♦ Here is the Epigram they made asainst him on oc-
casion of Rosshach, — in that " Despotism tempered by
Epigrams," which France was then said to be : —

" Soubise dit, la lanterne it la main,

.1' ai bean chercher, ou diahle est men arm6e1

Elle etait li poiirtant hier inatin :^

Me I'a-ton prise, ovi I'aurais-je esareef —

Que vois-je, 6 ciel ; que mon ime est ravie !

Prodifro heureux ! la voili, la voili ! —

Ah, ventrebleu; qti' est-ce done que cela?

Je me Ironipai^, c'est I'armue eunemie ;"

Lacretelle, ii. 20f.
2Q

468

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

conventional Politesse, and a Cloak of pros-
pective Cardinal's Plush. Are not Intrigues,
might Rohan say, the industry of this our
Universe; nay, is not the Universe itself, at
bottom, properly an Intrigue? A Most Chris-
tian Majesty, in the Purc-uux-cerfs : he, thou
seest, is the god of this lower world; our war-
banner (in the fight of Life) and celestial En-
toulo-7iika is a Strumpet's Petticoat: these are
thy gods, O France! — What, in such singular
circumstances, could poor Rohan's creed and
world-theory be, that he should "perform"
thereby? Atheism? Alas, no; not even Athe-
ism : only Machiavelism ; and the indestruct-
ible faith that "ginger is hot in the mouth."
Get ever new and heXier ginger, therefore; chew
it ever the more diligently : 't is all thou hast
to look to, and that only for a day.

Ginger enough, poor Louis de Rohan : too
much of ginger! Whatsoever of it, for the
five senses, money, or money's worth, or back-
stairs diplomacy, can buy ; nay, for the sixth
sense, too, the far spicier ginger: Antecedence
of thy fellow-creatures, — merited, at least, by
infinitely finer housing than theirs. Coadjutor
of Strasburg, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand
Almoner of France, Commander of the Order
of the Holy Ghost, Cardinal, Commendator of
St. Wast d Arras (one of the fattest benefices
here below) : all these shall be housings for
Monseigneur: to all these shall his Jesuit
Nursing-mother, (our vulpine Abbe Georgel,)
through fair court-wealher and through foul,
triumphantly bear him, — and wrap him with
them, fat, somnolent. Nurseling as he is. — By
the way, a most assiduous, ever-wakeful Abbe
is this Georgel; and wholly Monseigneur's.
He has scouts dim-flying, far out, in the great
deep of the world's business ; has spider-
threads that over-net the whole world ; himself
sits in the centre ready to run. In vain shall
King and Queen combine against Monseigneur:
"I was at M. de Maurepas' pillow before six,"
^persuasively wagging my sleek coif, and the
sleek reynard-head under it; I managed it all
for him. Here, too, on occasion of Reynard
Georgel, we could not but reflect what a sin-
gular species of creature your Jesuit must
have been. Outwardly, you would say, a
man ; the smooth semblance of a man : in-
wardly, to the centre, filled with stone! Yet
in all breathing things, even in stone Jesuits,
are inscrutable sympathies : how else does a
Reynard Abbe so loyally give himself, soul
and body, to a somnolent Monseigneur; — how
else does the poor Tit, to the neglect of its
own eggs and interests, nurse up a huge lum-
bering Cuckoo; and think its pains all paid,
if the soot-brown Stupidity will merely grow
bigger and bigger! — Enough, by Jesuitic or
other means. Prince Louis de Rohan shall be
passively kneaded and baked into Commenda-
tor of St. Wast and much else; and truly such
a Commendator as hardly, since King Thierri
(first of the Faineans) founded that Establish-
ment, has played his part there.

Such, however, have Nature and Art com-
bined together to make Prince Louis. A figure
thrice-clothed with honours; with plush, and
civic, and ecclesiastic garniture of all kinds;
but in itself little other than an amorphous

congeries of contradictions, somnolence and
violence, foul passions, and foul habits. It is
by his plush cloaks and wrappages mainly, as
above hinted, that such a figure sticks together
(what we call, "coheres,") in any measure;
were it not for these, he would flow out bound-
lessly on all sides. Conceive him further,
with a kind of radical vigour and fire, (for he
can see clearly at times, and speak fiercely ;)
yet left in this way to stagnate and ferment,
and lie overlaid with such floods of fat ma-
terial,— have we not a true image of the shame-
fullest Mud-volcano, gurgling and skittishly
simmering, amid continual steamy indistinct-
ness, (except, as was hmted, in wind-:,n<s/s ,)
with occasional terrifico-absurd Mud-explo-
sions !

This, garnish it and fringe it never so hand-
somely, is, alas, the intrinsic character of
Prince Louis. A shameful spectacle: such,
however, as the world has beheld many times;
as it were to be wished (but is not yet to be
hoped) the world might behold no more. Nay,
are not all possible delirious incoherences,
outward and inward, summed up, for poor
Rohan, in this one incrediblest incoherence,
that he, Prince Louis de Rohan, is named
Priest, Cardinal of the Church? A debauched,
merely libidinous mortal, lying there quite
helpless, f/Zs-solute, (as we well say;) whom
to see Church Cardinal (that is, symbolical
Hinge, or main Corner, of the Invisible Holy
in this World) an Inhabitant of Saturn might
split with laughing, — if he did not rather
swoon with pity and horror!

Prince Louis, as ceremonial fugleman at
Strasburg, might have hoped to make some
way with the fair young Dauphiness; but
seems not to have made any. Perhaps, in
those great days, so trying for a fifteen years*
Bride and Dauphiness, the fair Antoinette was
too preoccupied : perhaps, in the very face
and looks of Prospective-Cardinal Prince
Louis, her fair young soul read, all uncon-
sciously, an incoherent Roue-i^m, (bottomless
Mud-volcano-ism,) from which she by in-
stinct rather recoiled.

However, as above hinted, he is now gone,
in these years, on Embassy to Vienna : with
" four-and-twent}' pages," (if our remembrance
of Abbe Georgel serve) "of noble birth," all
in scarlet breeches; and such a retinue and
parade as drowns even his fat revenue in pe-
rennial debt. Above all things, his Jesuit
Familiar is with him. For so everywhere
they must manage: Eminence Rohan is the
cloak, Jesuit Georgel the man or automaton
within it. Rohan, indeed, sees Poland a-par-
titioning ; or rather Georgel, with his " masked J
Austrian" traitor, "on the ramparts," sees it 1
for him: but what can he do? He exhibits
his four-and-twenty scarlet pages, (who
"smuggle" to quite unconscionable lengths;)
rides through a Catholic procession, Prospec-
tive-Cardinal as he is, because it is too long,
and keeps him from an appointment: hunts,
gallants; gives suppers, Sardanapalus-wise,
the finest ever seen in Vienna. Abbe Geor-
gel (as we fancy it was) writes a Despatch in
his name "every fortnight;" — menUons, ia J

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

451)

one of these, that "Maria Theresa stands, in-
dee. I, with the handkerchief in one hand, weep-
ing for the woes of Poland ; but with the sword
in the other hand, ready to cut Poland in sec-
tions, and take her share."* Untimely joke;
which proved to Prince Louis the root of un-
speakable chagrins! For Minister D'Aiguil-
lon (much against his duty) communicates
the Letter to King Louis ; Louis to Du Barry,
to season her soujier, and laughs over it: the
thing becomes a court-joke ; the filially-pious
Dauphiness hears it, and remembers it. Ac-
counts go, moreover, that Rohan spake cen-
suringly of the Dauphiness to her Mother:
this, probably, is but hearsay and false; the
devout Maria Theresa disliked him, and even
despised him, and vigorously laboured for
his recall.

Thus, in rosy sleep and somnambulism, or
awake only to quati' the full wine-cup of the
Scarlet Woman, (his mother,) and again sleep
and somnambulate, does the Prospective-
Cardinal and ('ommendaior pass his days.
Unhappy man! This is not a world that was
made in sleep; that it is safe to sleep and
somnambulate in. In that " loud-roaring Loom
of Time" (where above nine hundred millions
of hungry Men, for one item, restlessly weave
and work,) so many threads fly humming from
their "eternal spindles;" and swift invisible
shuttles, far darting, to the Ends of the World,
— complex enough ! At this hour, a miser-
able Boehmer in Paris (whom thou wottest
nnt of) is spinning, of diamonds and gold, a
paltry thrum that will go nigh to strangle the
life out of ihee.

Meanwhile Louis the well-beloved has left
(for ever) his Furc-au.v-ccrfs ; and, amid the
scarce-suppressed hootings of the world, taken
up his last lodging at St. Denis. Feeling that
it was all over, (for the small-pox has the
victory, and even Du Barry is off',) he, as the
Abbe Georgel records, " made the amende
honorable to G(>d," (these are his Reverence's
own words;) had a true repentauce of three
days' standing; and so, continues the Abbe,
" fell asleep in the Lord." Asleep in the Lord, j
Monsieur I'Abbe ! If such a mass of Laziness
and Lust fell asleep in the Lord, who, fanciest
thou, is it that falls asleep — elsewhere 1
Enough that he did fall asleep; that thick-
wrapt in the Blanket of the Night, under what
keeping we ask not, lie never through endless
Time can, for his own or our sins, insult the
face of the Sun any more ; — and so now we
go onward, if not to less degrees of beastliness,
yet, at least and worst, to cheering varieties of
it.

Louis XVI. therefore reigns, (and under the
Sieur Gamain, makes locks ;) his fair Dauphi-

- J\t moires ile VAbbe Genrrrel. ii. 1—220. Abl)e Geor-
gel, vvlio has eiven, in the place referred to, a long
Boleinn Narrative of the Necklace Business, passes for
the grand authority on it: bul neither will he, strictly
tal(en np, aliide scrutiny. He is va(;ue as may be ;
writiiis; in what is called the " soaped-pifi" fashion:
yet sometimes you do catch him, and hold him. There
aie hardly above three dates in his whole Narrative.
He mistakes several times; perhaps, once or twice,
wilfully misrepresents, a little. The main incident of
the business is misdated by him, almost a twelvemonth.
It is to be remembered that the poor Abb6 wrote in
exile ; and with cause enough for prepossessions and
tiostilities.

ness has become a Queen. Eminenc! Rohan
is home from Vienna; to condole and con-
gratulate. He bears a letter from Maria
Theresa; hopes the Queen will not forget old
Ceremonial Fuglemen, and friends of the
Dauphiness. Heaven and Earth ! The Dauphi-
ness Queeti will not see him; orders the Let-
ter to be seiit her. The King himself signifies
briefly that he " will be asked for when
wanted !"

Alas ! at Court, our motion is the delicatest,
unsurest. We go spinning, as it were, on
teetotums, by the edge of bottomless deejis.
Rest is fall; so is one false whirl. A moment
ago, Eminence Rohan seemed waltzing wi:n
the best : but, behold, his teetotum has carried
him over: there is an inversion of the centre
of gravity; and so now, heels uppermost, ve-
locity increasing as the time, space as the
square of the time, — he rushes.

On a man of poor Rohan's somnolence and
violence, the sympathizing mind can estimate
what the effect was. Consternation, stupe-
faction, the total jumble of blood, brains, and
nervous spirits; in ear and heart, only univer-
sal hubbub, and louder and louder singing of
the agitated air. A fall comparable to that
of Satan ! Men have, indeed, been driven from
Court; and borne it, according to ability. A
Choiseul, in these very years, retired Parthian-
like, with a smile or scowl ; and drew half the
Court-host along with him. Our Wolsey,
though once an Ego ct Bex mens, could journey,
it is said, without strait-waistcoat, to his mo-
nasetry; and there, telling beads, look forward
to a still longer journey. The melodious, too
soft-strung, Racine, when his King turned his
back on him, emitted one meek wail, and sub-
missively— died. But the case of Coadjutor de
Rohan differed from all these. No loyalty was
in him that he should die; no self-help, that
he should live; no faith that he should tell
beads. His is a mud-volcanic character; in-
coherent, mad, from the very foundation of it.
Think, too, that his Couriiership (for how could
any nobleness enter there!) was properly a
gambling speculation: the loss of his trump
Queen of Hearts can bring nothing but flat,
unredeemed despair. No other game has he,
in this world, — or in the next. And then the
exasperating Why? Ihe How came it ? For that
Rohanic, or Georgelic, sprightliness of the
"handkerchief in one hand, and sword in the
other," (if indeed, that could have caused it all,)
has quite escaped him. In the name of Friar
Bacon's Head,ti'/irt/ was it ] Imagination, with
Desperation to drive her, maj' fly to all points
of Space; — and return with wearied wings, and
no tidings. Behold nie here: this, which is the
first grand certainty for man in general, is the
first and last and only one for poor Rohan. And
then his Here .' Alas, looking upwards, he can
eye, from his burning marie, the azure realms,
once his ; Cousin Countess de Marsan, and so
many Richelieus, Polignacs, and other happy
angels, male and female, all blissfully gyrating
there; while he — !

Nevertheless hope, in the human breast,
though not in the diabolical, springs eternal
The outcast Rohan bends all his thoughts, fa-
culties, prayers, purposes, to one object; one

4C0'

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

object he will attain, or go to Bedlam. How
many ways he tries ; what days and nights of
conjecture, consultation ; what written un-
published reams of correspondence, protesta-
tion, back-stairs diplomacy of every rubric !
How many suppers has he eaten ; how many
given, — in vain ! It is his morning song, and
his evening prayer. From innumerable falls
he rises ; only to fall again. Behold him even,
■with his red stockings, at dusk, in the Garden
of Trianon: he has bribed the Concierge; will
see her Majesty in spite of Etiquette and Fate ;
peradventure, pitying his long sad King's-evil,
she will touch him, and heal him. In vain,
(says the Female Historian, Campan.)* The
Chariot of Majesty shoots rapidly by, with
high-plumed heads in it; Eminence is known
by his red stockings, but not looked at, only
laughed at, and left standing like a Pillar of
Salt.

Thus through ten long years (of new resolve
and new despondency, of flying from Saverne
to Paris, and from Paris to Saverne) has it
lasted; hope deferred making the heartsick.
Reynard Georgel and Cousin de Marsan, by
eloquence, by influence, and being "at M. de
Maurepas' pilloM' before six," liave secured the
Archbishopric, the Grand-Almonership, (by the
medium of Poland ;) and, lastly, to tinker many
rents, and appease the Jew, that fattest Com-
mendatorship, founded by King Thierri the
Donothing — perhaps with a view to such cases.
All good ! languidly croaks Rohan ; yet all not
the one thing needful ; alas, the Queen's eyes
do not yet shine on me.

Abbe Georgel admits (in his own polite di-
plomatic way) that the mud-volcano was much
agitated by these trials; and in time quite
changed. Monseigneur deviated into cabalis-
tic courses, after elixirs, philtres, and the phi-
losopher's stone ; that is, the volcanic stream
grew thicker and heavier: at last by Caglios-
tro's magic, (for Cagliostro and the Cardinal by
elective aflinity must meet,) it sank into the
opacity of perfect London fog! So, too, if
Monseigneur grew choleric ; wrapped himself
up in reserve, spoke roughly to his domestics
and dependents, — were not the terrifico-absurd
mud explosions becoming more frequent?
Alas, what wonder? Some nine-and-forty
winters have now fled over his Eminence, (for
it is 1783,) and his beard falls white to the
shaver; but age for him brings no "benefit of
experience." He is possessed by a fixed-
idea !

Foolish Eminence ! is the Earth grown all
barren and of a snuff colour, because one pair
of eyes in it look on thee askance T Surely
thou hast thy Body there yet; and what of
Soul might from the first reside in it. Nay, a
warm, snug Body, with not only five senses,

♦ Madame Campan, in her Narrative, and, indeed, in
her Mevwirs RRnerally, does not seem to intend falsehood :
this, in the Business of the Necklace, is saying a preat
deal. She rather, perhaps, intends tlie prodiicina of an
impression ; which may have appeared to herself to be
the righi one But, at all events, she has, here or else-
where, no notion of historical rigour; she cives hardly
any date, or the like ; will tell the same thing, in differ-
ent places, different ways, &c. There is a tradition that
Louis XVIII. revised her Mhnoires before publication.
She requires to be read with skepticism everywtiere ;
but yields something in that way.

(sound still in spite of much tear and wear,)
but most eminent clothing besides; — clothed
with authority over much, with red Cardinal's
cloak, red Cardinal's hat; with Commendator-
ship, Grand-i.\lmonership (so kind have thy
Fripiers been,) and dignities and dominions
too tedious to name. The stars rise nightly,
with tidings (for thee, too, if thou wilt listen)
from the infinite Blue; Sun and Moon bring
vicissitudes of season ; dressing green, with
flower-borderings, and cloth of gold, this an-
cient ever-young Earth of ours, and filling her
breasts, with all-nourishing mother's milk.
Wilt thou work? The whole Encyclopedia
(not Diderot's only, but the Almighty's) is
there fur thee to spread thy broad faculty upon.
Or, if thou have no faculty, no Sense, hast thou
not (as already suggested) Senses,to the number
of five. M^hat victuals thou wishest, command ;
with what wine iavoureth thee, be filled. Al-
ready thou art a false lascivious Priest; with
revenues of, say, a quarter of a million ster-
ling; and no mind to mend. Eat, foolish
Eminence; eat with voracity, — leaving the
shot till afterwards! In all this the eyes of
Marie Antoinette can neither help thee nor
hinder.

And yet what is the Cardinal, dissolute, mud-
volcano though he be, tnore foolish herein,
than all Sons of Adam? Give the wisest of
us once a " fixed-idea," — which, though a tem-
porary madness, who has not had? — and see
where his wisdom is! The Chamois-hunter
serves his doomed seven years in the Quick-
silver Mines ; returns salivated to tlse marrow
of the backbone; and next morning, — goes
forth to hunt again. Behold Cardalion, King
of Urinals ; with a woful ballad to his mistress'
eyebrow ! He blows out, Werter-wise, his
foolish existence, because she will not have it
to keep;- heeds not that there are some five
hundred millions of other mistresses in this
noble Planet ; most likely much such as she.
O foolish men ! They sell their Inheritance,
(as their mother did hers,) thought it is Para-
dise, for a crotchet: will they not, in every
age, dare not only grape-shot and gallov/s-
ropes, but Hell-fire itself, for better sauce to
their victuals ? My friends, beware of fixed-
ideas.

Here, accordingly, is poor Boehmer with
one in his head too ! He has been hawking
his "irreducible case of Cardan" (that Neck-
lace of his) these three long years, through all
Palaces and Ambassadors' Hotels, over the
old "nine Kingdoms," (or more of them that „
there now are:) searching, sifting Earth, Sea, fl
and Air, for a customer. To take his Neck- ^
lace in pieces, and so, losing only his manual
labour and expected glory, dissolve his fixed-
idea, and fixed diamonds, into current ones:
this were simply casting out the Devil — tVonv
himself; a miracle, and perhaps more! For
he too has a Devil or Devils: one mad object
that he strives at; that he too will attain, or go
to Bedlam. Creditors, snarling, hound him on
from without; mocked Hopes, lost Labours,
bear-bait him from within : to these torments
his fixed-idea keeps him chained. In six-and-
thirty weary revolutions of the Moon, was it

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

461'

wonderful the man's brain had got dried a
little 1

Behold, one day, being Court-Jeweller, he
too bursts, almost as Rohan had done, into the
Queen's: retirement, or apartment; flings her-
self (as Campan again has recorded) at her
Majesty's feet; and there, with clasped, up-
lifted hands, in passionate nasal-gutturals,
with streaming tears and loud sobs, entreats
her to do one of two things: Either to buy his
Necklace ; or else graciously to vouchsafe him
her royal permission to drown himself in the
River Seine. Her majesty, pitying the dis-
tracted, bewildered state of the man, calmly
points out the plain third course: Depecez voire
Collier, (take your Necklace in pieces ;) — add-
ing, wiihal, in a tone of queenly rebuke, that
if he would drown himself, he at all times
could, without her furtherance.

Ah, hiid he drowned himself, with the Neck-
lace in his pocket; and Cardinal Commendator
at his skirts! Kings, above all, beautiful
Queens, as far-radiant Symbols on the pin-
nacles of the world, are so exposed to madmen.
Should these two fixed-ideas that beset this
beauiifullest Queen, and almost burst through
her Palace-walls, one day untie, and this iioi to
jump into the River Seine; — what maddest
result may be looked for !

CHAPTER V.

THE ARTIST.

If the reader has hitherto (in our too figura-
tive language) seen only the figurative hook
and the figurative eye, which Boehmer and
Rohan, far apart, were respectively fashioning
for each other, he shall now see the cunning
Milliner (an actual, unmetaphorical Milliner)
by whom these two individuals, with their two
implements, are brought in contact, and hook-
ed together into stupendous artificial Siamese-
Twins ; — after which the whole nodus and
solution will naturally combine and unfold
itself

Jeanne de St. Remi, by courtesy or other-
wise. Countess, styled also of I-a/ois, and even
of France, has now, (in this year of Grace,
1783,) known the world for some seven-and-
twen'.y summers; and had crooks in her lot.
She boasts herself descended, by what is called
natural generation, from the I3lood-Royal of
France: Henri Second, before that fatal tour-
ney-lance entered his right eye, and ended
him, appears to have had, successively or
simultaneously, four — unmentionable women :
and so, in vice of the third of these, came a
certain Henri de St. Remi into this world ; and,
as High and Puissant Lord, ate his victuals
and spent his days, on an allotted domain of
Fontette, near Bar-sur-Aube, in Champagne.
Of High and Puissant Lords, at this Fontette,
six other generations followed; and thus ulti-
mately, in a space of some two centuries, —
succeeded in realizing this brisk little Jeanne
de St. Remi, here in question. But, ah, what
a fallins off! The Royal Family of France
has well-nigh forgotten its left-hand collate-
rals; the las'. High and Puissant Lord, (much

dipt by his predecessors,) falling into drink;,
and left by a scandalous world to drink his
pitcher dry, had to alienate by degrees his
whole worldly Possessions, down almost to the
indispensable, or inexpressibles; and die al
last in the Paris Hotel-Dieu ; glad that it was
not on the street. So that he has indeed given
a sort of bastard Life-royal to little Jeanne,
and her little brother; but not the smallest
earthly provender to keep it in. The mother,
in her extremity, forms the wonderfullest con-
nections ; and little Jeanne, and her little
brother, go out into the highways to beg.*

A charitable Countess Boulainvilliers, struck
with the little bright-eyed tatterdemalion from
the carriage window, picks her up; has her
scoured, clothed ; and rears her, in her fluc-
tuating, miscellaneous way, to be, about the
age of twenty, a nondescript of Mantuamaker,
Soubrette, Court-beggar, Fine-lady, Abigail,
and Scion-of-Royalty. Sad combination of
trades ! The Court, after infinite soliciting,
puts one off with a hungry dole of little more
than thirty pounds a year. Nay, the audacious
Count Boulainvilliers dares (with what pur-
poses he knows best) to ofler some suspicious
presents !f Whereupon his good Countess
(especially as Mantuamaking languishes)
thinks it could not but be fit to go down to
Bar-sur-Aube; and there see whether no frac-
tions of that alienated Fontette Property, held,
perhaps, on insecure tenure, may, by terror or
cunning, be recoverable. Burning her paper
patterns; pocketting her pension, (till more
come,) Mademoiselle Jeanne sallies out thither,
in her twenty-third year.

Nourished in this singular way, alternating
between saloon and kitchen-table, with the
loftiest of pretensions, meanest of possessions,
our poor High and Puissant Mantuamaker has
realized for herself a "face not beautiful, yet
with a certain piquancy;" dark hair, blue
eyes ; and a character, which the present
writer, a determined student of human nature,
declares to be undecipherable. Let the Psycho-
logists try it ! Jeanne de Saint-Remi de Valois
de France actually lived, and worked, and was:
she has even published, at various times, three
considerable Volumes of Autobiography, with
loose Leaves (in Courts of Justice) of un-
known number ;t wherein he that runs may

* Vie de Jeanne Comiesse de Lamolte, (by Hersolf.)
Vol. I.

t He was of Hebrew descent : grandson of the re-
nowned Jew Bernard, wtioin I-oiiis XV., and even
Louis XVI., used to "walk willi in the Royal Garden,"
when tliey wanted him to lend them money. — See
Souvenirs (hi Dvc de Leris ; Memoires de Duclos. &:C.

J Four Memoires Pour by her, in this JIffiiire du
Collier; like "Lawyers' tongues turned inside out!"
Afterwards one Voinnie, Memoires Justijirntifs de la
Comiesse rff, &c., (London, 17S8;) with Ap|)endix of
" Uociiinents," so-railed. This hiis also been translated
into a kind of En!.'lish. Then two Volumes, as quoted
above: Vie de Jeanne de, &c. ; printed in London,— by
way of extorting money from Paris. This latter Lying
Autobiography of Lamotte was bought up by Frf nch
persons in authority. It was the burning of this F.dilij
Princeps in the Sevres Potteries, on the ."fOth of Ma\-,
IT'.'?, which raised such a smoke, that the Legislative
Assembly took alarm; and had an investii-alinn about
it, and considerable e.xamiiiing of Potters, &;c., till the
truth came out. Copies of the Book were speedily re-
printed af\er the Tenth of August. If is in Fnilish no 5
and, except in the Necklace pan, is not so entirely din
tracted as the former.

2 a2

468

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

read, — but not understand. Strange Volume,s !
more like the screeching of distracted night-
birds, (suddenly disturbed by the torch of Po-
lice-Fowlers,) than the articulate utterance
of a rational unfeathered biped. Cheerfully
admitting these statements to be all lies; we
ask, How any mortal could, or should, so liel

The Psychologists, however, commit one
sore mistake ; that of searching, in every cha-
racter named human, for something like a
conscience. Being mere contemplative re-
cluses, for most part, and feeling that Morality
is the Heart of Life, they judge that with all the
world it is so. Nevertheless, as practical men
are aware, Life can go on in excellent vigour,
■without crotchet of that kind. What is the
essenceof Life 1 Volition? Go deeper down,
you find a much more universal root and cha-
racteristic: Digestion. While Digestion lasts.
Life cannot, in philosophical language, be said
to be extinct: and Digestion will give rise" to
Volitions enough, at any rate, to Desires (and
attempts) which may pass for such. He who
looks neither before nor after, any further than
the Larder, and Stateroom, (which is properly
the finest compartment of the Larder,) will
need no World-theory, (Creed, as it is called,)
or Scheme of Duties : lightly leaving the world
to wag as it likes with any theory or none, his
grand object is a theory (and practice) of ways
and means. Not goodness or badness is the
type of him; only shiftiness or shiftlessness.

And now, disburdened of this obstruction,
let the Psychologists consider it under a bolder
view. Consider the brisk Jeanne de Saint-Remi
de Saint-Shifty as a Spark of vehement Life
(not developed into Will of any kind, yet fully
into Desires of all kinds) cast into such a Life-
element as we have seen. Vanity and Hunger ;
a Princess of the Blood, yet whose father had
sold his inexpressibles; uncertain whether
fosterdaughter of a fond Countess, with hopes
sky-high, or supernumerary Soubrette, with
not enough of Mantuamaking: in a word, Gig-
m'lnily (lisgigged ; one of the saddest, pitiable,
uiipitied predicaments of man ! She is of that
lij,'ht unreflecting class, of that light unreflect-
ing sex: variuin semper et nmtuhile. And then
her Fine-Ladyism, though a purselc^s one:
capricious, coquettish, and with all the finer
sensibilities of the heart; now in the rackets,
Hjw in the sullens ; vivid in contradictory
resolves ; laughing, weeping without reason, —
though these acts are said to be signs of reason.
Consider, too, how she has had to work her way,
all along, by flattery and cajolery; wheedling,
caves-dropping, and nambypambying: how
5he needs wages, and knows no other produc-
tive trades. Thought can hardly be said to
exist in her: only Perception and Device.
With an understanding lynx-eyed for the sur-
face of things, but which pierces beyond the
surface of nothing ; every individual thing (for
she has never seized the heart of it) turns up
a new face to her every new day, and seems a
thing changed, a difl"erent thing. Thus sits,
or rather vehemently bobs and hovers her
vehement mind, in the middle of a boundless
many-dancing whirlpool of gilt-shreds, paper
clippings, and windfalls, — to which the revolv-
ing chaos of my Uncle-Toby's Smoke-jack

was solidity and regularity. Reader! thou fof
thy sins must have met with such fair Itra«
tionals ; fascinating, with their lively eyes, with
their quick snappish fancies ; distinguished in
the higher circles, in Fashion, even in Litera-
ture: they hum and buzz there, on graceful
film wings; — searching, nevertheless, with the
wonderfuUest skill, for honey: "ttritamable as
flies !"

WonderfuUest skill for honey, we say ; and,
pray, mark that, as regards this Countess de
Saint-Shifty. Her instinct-of-genius is prodi-
gious ; her appetite fierce. In any foraging
speculation of the private kind, she, unthinking
as you call her, will be worth a hundred
thinkers. And so of such untamable flies the
untamablest. Mademoiselle Jeanne is now
buzzing down, in the Bar-sur-Aube Diligence ;
to inspect the honey-jars of Fontette; and see
and smell whether there be any flaws in them.

Alas, at Fontette, we can, with sensibility,
behold straw-roofs We were nursed under;
farmers courteously offer cooked milk, and
other country messes; but no soul will part
with his Landed Property, for which (though
cheap) he declares hard money was paid. The
honey-jars are all close, then 1 — However, a
certain Monsieur de Lamotte, a tall Gendarme,
home on furlough from Luneville, is now at
Bar; pays us attentions; becomes quite par-
ticular in his attentions, — for we have a face
" with a certain piquancy," the liveliest glib-
snappish tongue, the liveliest kittenish manner,
(not yet hardened into caNhood,) with thirty
pounds a-year, and prospects. M.de Lamotte,
indeed, is as yet only a private sentinel ; but
then a private sentinel in the Gendarmes : and
did not his father die fighting "at the head of
his company," at Minden 1 Why not in virtue
of our own Countess-ship dub him too Count;
by left-hand collateralism, get him advanced?
— Finished before the furlough is done ! The
untamablest of flies has again buzzed off; in
wedlock with M. de Lamotte; if not to get
honey, yet to escape spiders ; and so lies in
garrison at Luneville, amid coquetries and
hysterics, in Gigmanity disgigged — disconso-
late enough.

At the end of four long years, (too long,) M.
de Lamotte, or call him now Count de Lamotte,
sees good to lay down his fighting-gear, (un-
happily still only the musket,) and becoma
what is by certain moderns called " a Civi-
lian :" not a Civil-Law Doctor; merely a citi-
zen, one who does not live by being killed.
Alas ! cold eclipse has all along hung over the
Lamotte household. Countess Boulainvilliers,
it is true, writes in the most feeling manner:
but then the Royal Finances are so deranged !
Without personal pressing solicitation, on the
spot, no Court-Solicitor, were his pension the
meagrest, can hope to better it. At Luneville,
the sun indeed shines; and there is a kind of
Life; but only an un-Parisian, half oi quarter
Life ; the very tradesmen grow clamorous, and
no cunningly devised fable, ready money alone,
will appease them. Commandant Marquis
d'Aulichamp* agrees with Madame Boulain-

« He is the same Marquis d'Auticlianip, wlio was to
"rrlieve Lyons," and raise the Siege of Lyons, m
Autumn, 1793, but could not do it.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

463

villiers that a journey to Paris were the pro-
ject ; whither, also, he himself is just going.
Perfidious Commandant Marquis ! His plan
is seen through : he dares to presume to make
love to a Scion-of-Royalty ; or to hint that he
could dare to presume to do it. Whereupon,
indignant Count de Lamotte, as we said, throws
up his commission, and down his fire-arms ;
without further delay. The King loses a tall
private sentinel; the world has a new black-
leg: and Monsieur and Madame de Lamotte
take places in the Diligence for Strasburg.

Good Fostermolher Boulainvilliers, how-
ever, is no longer at Strasburg: she is forward
at the Archiepiscopal palace in Saverne ; on a
visit there, to his Eminence Cardinal Com-
mendator Grand-Almoner Archbishop Prince
Louis de Rohan! Thus, then, has Destiny at
iast brought it about. Thus, after long wander-
ings, on paths so far separate, has the time
come, <,ia this late year 1783,) when, of all the
nine hundred millions of the Earth's denizens,
these pre-appointed two beheld each other!

The foolish Cardinal, since no sublunary
means, not even bribing of the Trianon Con-
cierge, will serve, has taken to the superlunary:
he is here, with his fixed-idea; and volcanic
vapourosity, darkening, under Cagliostro's ma-
nagement, into thicker and thicker opaque, —
of the Black-Aft itself. To the glance of hun-
gry genius Cardinal &nd Cagliostro could not
but have meaning. A nush of astonishment,
a sigh over boundless wealth (for the moun-
tains of debt lie invisible) in the hands of
boundless Stupidity ; some vague looming of
indefinite hope : all this one can well fancy.
But, alas, what, to a hisrh plush Cardinal, is a
now insolvent Scion-of-Royalty, — though with
a face of some piquancy 1 The good Foster-
mother's visit, in any case, can last but three
days ; then, amid old nambypambyings, with
the effusions of the nobler sensibilities, and
tears of pity (at least for oneself,) Countess
de Lamotte, and husband, must off with her
to Paris, and new possibilities at Court. Only
when the sky again darkens, can this vague
looming from Saverne look out, by fits, as a
cheering weather-sign.

CHAPTER VL

■WILL THE TWO PIXED-IDEAS UNITE 1

However, the sky, according to custom, is
not long in darkening again. The King's
finances, we repeat, are in so distracted a
slate ! No D'Ormesson, no Joly de Fleury,
weary of milking the already dry, will increase
that scandalous Thirty Pounds of a Scion-of-
Royalty by a single doit. Calonne himself,
•who has a willing ear and encouraging word
for all mortals whatsoever, only with diffi-
culty, and by aid of Madame of France,*
raises it siill lo some still miserable Sixty-five,
Worst of all, the good Fostermolher Boulain-
villiers, in few months, suddenly dies : the
wretched widower, sitting there, with his
white handkerchief, to receive condolences,

• Campan.

with closed shutters, mortuary tapestries, and
sepulchral cressets burning, (which, however,
the instant the condolences are gone, he blows
out, to save oil,) has the audacity again, amid
crocodile tears, to — drop hints !* Nay, more,
he (wretched man in all senses) abridges the
Lamotte table ; will besiege virtue both in the
positive and negative way. The Lamottes,
wintery as the world looks, cannot begone too
soon.

As to Lamotte the husband, he, for shelter
against much, decisively dives down to the
" subterranean shades of Rascaldom ;" gam-
bles, swindles ; can hope to live, miscellane-
ously, if not by the Grace of God, yet by the
Oversight of the Devil, — for a lime. I-amotte
the wife also makes her packages: and wav-
ing the unseductive Count I3oulainvilliers
Save-all a disdainful farewell, removes to the
Belle Imns:e in Versailles; there, within wind
of Court, in attic apartments, on poor water-
gruel board, resolves to await what can betide.
So much, in few months of this fateful year
1783, has come and gone.

Poor Jeanne de Saint-Remi de Lamotte
Valois, Ex-Mantuamaker, Scion-of-Royalty !
What eye, looking into those bare attic apart-
ments, and water-gruel platters of the J elle
Image, but must, in spite of itself, grow dim with
almost a kind of tear for thee ! There thou
art, with thy quick lively glances, face of a
certain piquancy, thy gossamer untamable
character, snappish sallies, glib all-managing
tongue ; thy whole incarnated, garmented, and
so sharply appetent " spark of Life ;" cast
down alive into this World, without vote of
thine, (for the Elective Franchises have not
yet got that length ;) and wouldst so fain live
there. Paying scot-and-lot; providing, or fresh-
scouring, silk court-dresses ; " always keep-
ing a gig!" Thou must hawk and shark to
and fro, from anteroom to anteroom; become
a kind of terror to all men in place, and wo-
men that influence such ; dance not light Ionic
measures, but attendance merely ; have weep-
ings, thanksgiving efl^usions, aulic, almost
forensic, eloquence: perhaps eke out thy thin
livelihood by some coquetries, in the small
way ; — and so, most poverty-stricken, cold-
blighied, yet with young keen blood struggling
against it, spin forward thy unequal feeble
thread, which the Clolho-scissors will soon
clip !

Surely, now, if ever, were that vague loom-
ing from Saverne welcome, as a weather-sign.
How doubly welcome is his plush Eminence's
personal arrival ; — for with the earliest spring
he has come in person, as he periodically
does ; vaporific, driven by his fixed-idea.

Genius, of the mechanical practical kind,
what is it but a bringing together of two
Forces that fit each other, that will give birth
to a third? Ever, from Tubalcain's time,
Iron lay ready hammered ; Water, also, was
boiling and bursting: nevertheless, for want
of a genius, there was as yet no Steam-engine.
In his Eminence Prince Louis, in that huge

I * F'ie de Jeanne de Lamotte, &c., icrite par eli*'
I mime, i.

464

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

restless, incoherent Being of his, depend on
it, brave Countess, there are Forces deep,
manifold ; nay, a fixed-idea concentrates the
whole huge Incoherence as it were into one
Force: cannot the eye of genius discover its
fellmo ?

Communing much with the Couri-valetailk,
our brave Countess has more than once heard
talk of Boehmer, of his Necklace, and threat-
ened death by water; in the conr.'-e of gossip-
ing and tattling, this topic from time to time
emerges ; is commented upon with empty
)augliter, — as if there lay no further meaning
in it. To the common eye there is indeed
none: but to the eye of genius 1 In some
moment of inspiration, the question rises on
our brave Lamotte : were not this, of all ex-
tant Forces, the cognate one that would unite
with Eminence Rohan's? Great moment,
light-beaming, fire-tiashing; like birth of Min-
erva ; like all moments of Creation ! Fancy
how pulse and breath tlutter, almost stop, in
the greatness: the great not Divine Idea, the
great Diabolic Idea is too big for her. —
Thought (how often must we repeat if?) rales
the world ; Fire and, in a less degree. Frost ;
Earth and Sea, (for what is your swiftest ship,
or steamship but a Thomyh! — imbodied in
wood ]); Reformed Parliaments, rise and ruin
of Nations, — sale of Diamonds : all things
obey Thought. Countess de Saint Remi de
Lamotte, by power of thought is now made
woman. With force of genius she represses,
cranes deep down, her Undivine Idea; bends
all her faculty to realize it. Prepare thyself.
Reader for a series of the most surprising
Dramatic Representations ever exhibited on
«ny stage.

We hear tell of Dramatists, and scenic illu-
sion hovT " natural," how illusive it was: if
the spectator, for some half-moment, can half-
deceive himself into the belief that it was
»eal, he departs doubly content. With all
which, and much more of the like, I have no
quarrel. But what must be thought of the
Female Dramatist who, for eighteen long
months, can exhibit the beautifullest Fata-
morgana to a plush Cardinal, wide awake,
with fifty years on his head; and so lap him
in her scenic illusion that he never doubts but
it is all firm earth, and the pasteboard Cou-
lisse-trees are producing Hesperides apples'?
Could Madame de Lamotte, then have written j
a Hunlei? I conjecture, not. More goes to
the writing of a Handct than completest " imi-
tation" ol all characters and things in this
Earth ; there goes, before and beyond all, the
rarest understanfling of these, insight into their
hidden essences and harmonies. Erasmus's
Ape, as is known in Literary History, sat by
while its Master was shaving, and " imitated"
every point of the process ; but its own fool-
ish beard grew never the smoother.

As in looking at a finished Drama, it were
nowise meet that the spectator first of all got
behind the scenes, and saw the burnt-corks,
l)rayed-resin, thunder-barrels, and withered
hunger-billeii men and women, of which such
leroic work was made : so here with the
reader. A peep into the side-scenes shall be

granted him,/rom time to time. But, on the
whole, repress, O reader, that too insatiable
scientific curiosity of thine; let thy cFMhetic
feeling first have play; and witness what a
Prospero's-groito poor Eminence Rohan is led
into, to be pleased he knows not why.

Survey first what we might call the stage-
lights, orchestra, general structure of the thea-
tre, mood and condition of the audience. The
theatre is the World, with its restless business
and madness; near at hand rise the royal
Domes of Versailles, mystery around them,
and as background the memory of a thousand
years. By the side of the River Seine walks,
haggard, wasted, a Jouaillier-Bijouticr de la
Reine, with necklace in his pocket. The au-
dience is a drunk Christopher Sly in the fittest
humour. A fixed-idea, driving him headlong
over steep places, like that of the Gadarenes'
Swine, has produced a deceptibiiity, as of des-
peration, that will clutch at straws.. Under-
stand one other word : Cagliostro is prophesy-
ing to him ! The Quack of Quacks has now
A)r years had him in leading. Transmitting
"predictions in cipher;" questionins, before
Hieroglyphic Screens, Columbs in a state of
Innocence, for elixirs of life, and philosopher's
stone; unveiling, in fuliginous, clear-obscure
the (sham) majesty of nature; he isolates him
more and more from all unpossessed men.
Was it not enough that poor Rohan had be-
come a dissolute, somnolent-violent, ever-
vapory Mud-volcano; but black Egyptian
magic must be laid on him !

If, perhaps, too, our Countess de Lamotte,
with her blandishments, — for though not beau-
tiful, she "has a certain piquancy," c< cetera? —
Enough, his poor Eminence sits in the fittest
place, in the fittest mood : a newly-awakened
Christopher Sly; and with his "small ale,"
too, beside him. Touch, only, the lights with
fire-tipt rod ; and let the orchestra soft-warbling
strike up their fara-lara fiddle-diddle-dee !

CHAPTER VII.

MAHIE-ANTOINETTE.

Such a soft-warbling fara-lara was it to his
Eminence, when (in early January of the year
1784) our Countess first, mysteriously, and
under seal of sworn secrecy, hinted to him
that, with her winning tongue and great talent
as Anecdotic Historian, she had worked a pas-
sage to the ear of Queen's Majesty itself.*
Gods! Dost thou bring with thee airs from
Heaven 1 Is thy face yet radiant with some
reflex of that Brightness beyond bright! — Men
with fixed idea are not as other men. To
listen to a plain varnished tale, such as your
Dramatist can fashion; to ponder the words;
to snuff them up, as Ephraim did the east-wind,
and grow flatulent and drunk with them: what
else could poor Eminence do ? His poor
somnolent, so swift-rocked soul feels a new

* Compare Rohan's Jif;' moires Pour, (tliere are foui
of them.) in the A!j<iire du. Callier, with Lamotte's
four. Thpy go on in the way of cantroversy, of arga.
nient, and response.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

46S

element infused into it; turbid resinous light,
wide-coruscating, glares over the "waste of
his imagination." Is he interested in the mys-
terious tidings 1 Hope has seized them ; there
is in the world nothing else that interests
him.

The secret friendship of Queens is not a
thing to be let sleep: ever new Palace Inter-
views occur ; — yet in deepest privacy; for how
should her Majesty awaken so many tongues
of Principalities and Nobilities, male and fe-
male, that spitefully watch herl Above all,
however, "on the 2d of February," that day
of "the Procession of blue Ribands,"* much
was spoken of; somewhat, too, of Monseigneur
de Kohati ! — Poor Monseigneur, hadst thou
three long ears, thou'dst hear her.

But will she not, perhaps, in some future
priceless Interview, speak a good word for
thee] Thyself shalt speak it, happy Emi-
nence; at least, write it : our tutelary Countess
will be the bearer! — On the 21st of March
goes off that long exculpatory imploratory
Letter: it is the first Letter that went off from
Cardinal to Queen ; to be followed, in time, by
" above two hundred others ;" which are gra-
ciously answered by verbal Messages, nay, at
length by Royal Autographs on gilt paper, —
the whole delivered by our tutelary Countess.f
The tutelar}^ Countess comes and goes, fetch-
ing and carrying; with the gravity of a Roman
Augur, inspects those extraordinary chicken-
bowels, and draws prognostics from them.
'i'hings are in fair train : the Dauphiness took
some ofl'ence at Monseigneur, but the Queen
has nigh tbrgotten it. No inexorable Queen;
ah no! So good, so free, light-hearted; only
sore beset with malicious Polignacs and
others ; — at times, also, short of money.

Marie Antoinette, as the reader well knows,
has been much blamed for want of Etiquette.
Even now, when the other accusations against
her have sunk down to oblivion and the F-ather
of Lies, this of wanting Etiquette survives
her; — in the Castle of Ham, at this hour.t M.
de Polignac and Company may be wringing
their hands, not without an oblique glance at
her for bringing them thither. She indeed
discarded Etiquette ; once, when her carriage
broke down, she even entered a hackney-
coach. She would walk, loo, at Trianon, in
mere straw-hat, and, perhaps, muslin gown !
Hence, the Knot of Etiquette being loosed, the
Frame of Society broke up; and those aston-
ishing " Horrors of the French Revolution"
.supervened. On what Damocles' hairs must
the judgment-sword hang over this distracted
Earth ! Thus, however, it was that Tenterden
Steeple brought an influx of the Atlantic on
us, and so Godwin Sands. Thus, too, might
it be that because Father Noah took the liber-
ty of, say, rinsing out his wine-vat, his Ark
was floated off, and a World drowned. — Beau-
titul Highborn that wert so foully hurled low !
For, if thy Being came to thee out of old Haps-

* Lamotte's Mimoires Justificatifs, (London, 1788.)
+ S(!e Oeorirel : see Lamotte's Memoir es ; in her Ap-
pendix of" Uociinieiits" to that volume, certain of these
Lt'Iters are given.
X A. D. Ib31.

.•)9

burgh Dynasties, came it not also (like my
own) out of Heaven! Sunt lachryma; rcrum, et
mentem mortalin tangunt. Oh, is there a man's
heart that thinks, without pity, of those long
months and years of slow- wasting ignominy;
— of thy Birth, soft-cradled in Imperial Schun-
brunn, the winds of heaven not to visit thy
face too roughly, thy foot to light on softness,
thy eye on splendour; and then of thy Death,
or hundred Deaths, to which the Guillotine
and Fouquier Tinville's judgment-bar was but
the merciful end 1 Look lliere, O man born of
woman ! The bloom of that fair face is wast-
ed, the hair is gray with care ; the brightness
of those eyes is quenched, their lids hang
drooping, the face is stony, pale, as of one
living in death. Mean weeds (which her own
hand has mended)* attire the Queen of the
World. The death-hurdle, where thou sittest,
pale, motionless, which only curses environ,
must stop: a people, drunk with vengeance,
will drink it again in full draught : far as the
eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of maniac
heads; the air deaf with their triumph-yell!
The Living-dead must shudder with yet one
other pang: her startled blood yet again suf-
fuses with the hue of agony that pale face,
which she hides with her hands. There is,
then, 110 heart to say, God pity thee] 0 think
not of these; think of Him whom thou wor-
shippest, the Crucified, — who, also, treading
the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow still deep-
er: and triumphed over it, and made it Holy;
and built of it a "Sanctuary of Sorrow," for
thee and all the wretched ! Thy path of thorns
IS nigh ended. One long last look at the Tui-
leries, where thy step was once so light, —
where thy children shall not dwell. The head
is on the block; the axe rushes — Dumb lies
the World; that wild-yelling World, and all
its madness, is behind thee.

Beautiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled
low ! Rest yet in thy innocent gracefully heed-
less seclusion, (unintruded on by me,) while
rude hands have not yet desecrated it. Be the
curtains, that shroud in (if for the last time on
this Earth) a Royal Life, still sacred to me.
Thy fault, in the French Revolution, was that
thou wert the Symbol of the Sin and Misery
of a thousand years; that with Saint-Bartholo-
mews, and Jacqueries, with Gabelles, and
Dragonades, and Parcs-aux-cerfs, the heart of
mankind was filled full, — and foamed over,
into all-involving madness. To no Napoleon,
to no Cromwell wert thou wedded: such sit
not in the highest rank, of themselves ; are
raised on high by the shaking and confound-
ing of all the ranks. As poor peasants, how
happy, worthy had ye two been ! But by evil
destiny ye were made a King and Queen of;
and so both once inore^ — are become an aston-
ishment and a by-word to all times.

CHAPTER VIIL

THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS WILI, UNITE.

"Countess de Lamotte, then, had penetrated
into the confidence of the Queen ] Those gilt-

* Wel>er : Mimoires concernant Marie-Jlntoincue, (Lon-
don, 1809,) lorn, iii., notes, 106.

466

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

paper Autographs were actually written by the
Queen 1" Reader, forget not to repress that too
insatiable, scientific curiosity of thine ! What
I know is that a certain Vilette-de-Retaux, with
military whiskers, denizen of Rascaldom, com-
rade there of Monsieur le Comte, is skilful in
imitating hands. Certain it is, also, that Ma-
dame laComtesse has penetrated to the Trianon
— Doorkeeper's. Nay, as Campan herself must
admit, she has met, "at a Man-midwife's in
Versailles," with worthy Queen's-valet Les-
claux, — or Desclos, for there is no uniformity
in it. With these, or the like of these, she in
the back-parlor of the Palace itself, (if late
enough,) may pick a merry-thought, sip the
foam from a glass of Champagne. No further
seek her honours to disclose, for the present:
or anatomically dissect, as we said, those ex-
traordinary chicken-bowels, from which she,
and she alone, can read Decrees of Fate, and
also realize them.

Skeptic, seest thou his Eminence waiting
there, in the inoonlight ; hovering to and fro on
the back terrace, till she come out — from the
ineffable Interview?* He is close muffled;
walks restlessly observant; shy also, and court-
ing the shade. She comes: up closer with thy
capote, O Eminence, down with thy broad-
brim ; for she has an escort ! 'T is but the
good Monsieur Queen's-valet Lesclaux: and
now he is sent back again, as no longer need-
ful. Mark him, Monseigneur, nevertheless ;
thou wilt see him yet another time. Monseig-
neur marks little : his heart is in the ineffable
Interview, in the gilt-paper Autograph, alone.
— Queen's-valet Lesclaux? Methinks, he has
much the stature of ViUette, denizen of Ras-
caldom ! Impossible !

How our Countess managed with Cagliostro ?
Cagliostro, gone from Strasburg, is as yet far
distant, winging his way through dim Space;
will not be here for months : only his " predic-
tions in cipher" are here. Here or there, how-
ever, Cagliostro, to our Countess, can be use-
ful. At a glance, the eye of genius has de-
scried him to be a bottomless slough of falsity,
vanity, gulosity, and thick-eyed stupidity: of
foulest material, but of fattest; — fit compost
for the Plant she is rearing. Him who has
deceived all Europe she can undertake to
deceive. His Columbs, demonic Masonries,
Egyptian Elixirs, what is all this to the light-
giggling exclusively practical Lamotte? It
runs off from her, as all speculation, good, bad,
and indifferent, has always done, "like water
from one in wax-cloth dress." With the lips
meanwhile she can honour it; Oil of Flattery
(the best patent antifriction known) subdues
all irregularities whatsoever.

On Cagliostro, again, on his side, a certain
uneasy feeling might, for moments intrude
itself: the raven loves not ravens. But what
can he do ? Nay, she is partly playing his
game : can he not spill her full cup yet, at the
right season, and pack her out of doors ?
Oftenest, in their joyous orgies, this light
fascinating Countess, — who perhaps has a

* See Oeorgcl.

design on his heart, seems to him but one
other of those light Papiliones, who have flut-
tered round him in all climates ; whom with
grim muzzle he has snapt by the thousand.

Thus, what with light fascinating Countess,
what with Quack of Quacks, poor Eminence
de Rohan lies safe; his mud-volcano placidly
simmering in thick Egyptian haze: withdrawn
from all the world. Moving figures, as of men,
he sees ; takes not the trouble to look at.
Court-cousins rally him ; are answered in si-
lence; or, if it go too far, in mud-explosions
terrifico-absurd. Court-cousins and all man-
kind are unreal shadows merely; Queen's fa-
vour the only substance.

Nevertheless, the World, on its side, too,
has an existence; lies not idle in these days.
It has got its Versailles Treaty signed, long
months ago ; and the Plenipotentiaries all home
again, for votes of thanks. Paris, London, and
other great Cities, and small, are working,
intriguing; dying, being born. There, in the
Rue Taianne, for instance, the once noisy
Denis Diderot has fallen silent enough. Here,
also, in Bolt Court, old Samuel Johnson, like
an over-wearied Giant, must lie down, and
slumber without dream; — the rattling of car-
riages and wains, and all the world's din and
business rolling by, as ever, from of old. —
Sieur Boehmer, however, has not yet drowned
himself in the Seine ; only walks haggard,
wasted, purposing to do it.

News (by the merest accident in the Avorld)
reach Sieur Boehmer, of Madame's new favour
with her Majesty ! Men will do much before
they drown. Sieur Boehmer's Necklace is on
Madame's table, his guttural nasal rhetoric in
her ear: he will abate many a pound and
penny of the first just price; he will give cheer-
fully a Thousand Louis-d'or, as cddeau, to the
generous Scit)n-of-Royalty that shall persuade
her majest}'. The man's importunities grow
quite annoying to our Countess; who, in her
glib way, satirically prattles how she has been
bored, — to Monseigneur, among others.

Dozing on down cushions, far inwards, with
soft ministering Hebes, and luxurious appli-
ances; with ranked Heyducs, and a Vuktadh
innumerable, that shut out the prose-world ani
its discord : thus lies Monseigneur, in enchant-
ed dream. Can he, even in sleep, forget his
tutelary Countess, and her service? By the
deiicatest presents he alleviates her distresses,
most undeserved. Nay, once or twice, gilt
Autographs, from a Queen, — with whom he is
evidently rising to unknown heights in favour,
— have dcme Monseigneur the honour to make
him her Majesty's Grand Almoner, when the J
case was pressing. Monseigneur, we say, has '1
had the honour to disburse charitable cash, on
her Majesty's behalf, to this or the other dis-
tressed deserving object: say only to the length
of a few thousand pounds, advanced irom his
own funds ; — her majesty being at the mo-
ment so poor, and charity a thing that will not
wait. Always Madame, good foolish, gadding
creature, takes charge of delivering the mo-
ney.— Madame can descend from her h.tlics, in

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

467

the FcIIe Imige; and feel the smiles of Nature
and Fortune, a little; so bounteous has the
Queen's Majesty been.*

To Monseigneur the power of money over
hisihest female hearts had never been incredi-
ble. Presents have, many times, worked won-
ders. But then, 0 Heavens, iihat present?
Scarcely were the Cloud-Compeller himself, all
coined into new Louis-d'or, worthy to alight
in such a lap. Loans, charitable disbursements,
however, as we see, are premissible ; these, by
defect of payment, may become presents. In
the vorlex of his Eminence's day-dreams, lum-
bering multiform slowly round, this of impor-
tunate Boehmer and his Necklace, from time
to time, turns up. Is the Queen's Majesiy
at heart desirous of it; but again, at the
moment, too poor? Our tutelary Countess
answers vaguely, mysteriously; — confesses, at
last, under oath of secrecy, her own private
suspicion that the Queen wants this same
Necklace, of all things ; but dare not, for a
stingy husband, buy it. She, the Countess de
Ijamottc, will look further into the matter ; and,
if aught serviceable to his Eminence can be
suggested, in a good way suggest it, in the
proper quarter. ..

Walk warily, Countess deLamotle; for now,
with thickening breath, thou approaches! the
moment of moments! Principalities and Pow-
ers, Purlcment, Uraud Cliuiiibie, and Tvurnelle,
with all their whips and gibbet-wheels ; the
very Crack of Doom hangs over thee, if thou
trip. Forward, with nerve of iron, on shoes
of felt; liA-e a Treasure-digger, "in silence;
looking neither to the right nor left," where
yawn abysses deep as the Pool, and all Pande-
monium hovers eager to rend thee into rags !

CHAPTER IX.

PARK OF VERSAILLES.

Or will the reader incline rather taking the
other and sunny side of the matter to enter
that Lamottic-Circean theatirical establish-
ment of Monseigneur de Rohan ; and see there
how (under the best of Dramaturgists) Melo-
drama, with sweeping pall, flits past him;
while the enchanted Diamond fruit is gradual-
ly ripening, to fall by a shake 1

Tlie '28th of July (of this same momentous
r/84) has come; and with it the most raptu-
)ous tumult into the heart of Monseigneur.
Ineffable expectancy stirs up his whole soul,
with the much that lies therein, from its low-
est foundations : borne on wild seas to Armi-
da Islands, yet (as is fit) through Horror dim-
hovering round, he tumultuously rocks. To
the Chateau, to the Park! This night the
Queen will meet thee, the Queen herself: so
far has our tutelary Countess brought it. What
can ministerial impediments, Polignac in-
Vigues, avail against the favour, nay (Heaven
and Earth !) perhaps the tendernessof a Queen?
She vanishes from amid their mesh work of
Etiquette and Cabal; descends from herceles-

* Gcorgil. Rohan's Four .Afe/Hotres Pour; Lainotte's
Four.

tial Zodiac to thee, a shepherd of Latmos.
Alas, a white-bearded, pursy shepherd, fat and
scant of breath ! Who can account for the
taste of females 1 But thou, burnish up thy
whole faculties of gallantry, thy fifty years'
experience of the sex ; this night, or never ! —
In such unutterable meditations, does Mon-
seigneur restlessly spend the day; and long
for darkness, yet dread it.

Darkness has at length come. The perpen-
dicular rows of Heyducs, in that Palais or Ho-
tel de Strasbourg, are all cast prostrate in
sleep; the very Concierge resupine, with open
mouth, audibly drinks in nepenthe ; when Mon-
seigneur, "in blue greatcoat, with slouched
hat," issues softly, with his henchman, (Planta
of the Grisons,) to the Park of Versailles.
Planta must loiter invisible in the distance ;
Slouched-hat will wait here, among the leafy
thickets ; till our tutelary Countess, " in black
domino," announce the moment, which surely
must be near.

The night is of the darkest for the season;
no Moon ; warm, slumbering July, in motion-
less clouds, drops fatness over the Earth. The
very stars from the Zenith see not Mon-
seigneur; see only his cloud-covering, fringed
with twilight in the far North. Midnight, tell-
ing itself forth from these shadowy Palace
Domes? All the steeples of Versailles, the
villages around, with metal tongue, and huge
Paris itself dull-droning, answer drowsil)^ Yes !
Sleep rules this Hemisphere of the World.
From Arctic to Antarctic, the Life of our
Earth lies all, in long swaths, or rows, (like
those rows of Heyducs and snoring Con-
cierge,) successively mown down, from verti-
cal to horizontal, by Sleep ! Rather curious
to consider.

The flowers are all asleep in Little Trianon,
the roses folded in for the night ; but the Rose
of Roses still wakes. 0 wondrous Earth ! O
doubly wondrous Park of Versailles with Lit-
tle and Great Trianon, — and a scarce-breath-
ing Monseigneur ! Ye Hydraulics of Lenotre,
that also slumber, with stop-cocks, in your
deep leaden chambers, babble not of /nw, when
ye arise. Ye odorous balm-shrubs, huge spec-
tral Cedars, thou sacred Boscage of Horn-
beam, ye dim Pavilions of the Peerless, whis-
per not ! Moon, lie silent, hidden in thy va-
cant cave; no star look down: let neither
Heaven nor Hell peep through the blanket of
the Night, to cry. Hold, Hold !— The Black
Domino ? Ha ! Yes ! — With stouter step than
might have been expected, Monseigneur is un-
der way; the Black Domino had only to whis-
per, low and eager: "In the Hornbeam Arbour !"
And now. Cardinal, O now ! — Yes, there ho-
vers the while Celestial ; " in white robe of
linnn nioitchete," fir) er than moonshine; a Juno
by her bearing: there in that bosket! Mon-
seigneur, down on thy knees ; never can red
breeches be better wasted. O he would kiss
the royal shoe-tie, or its shadow, (were there
one :) not words ; only broken gaspings, mur-
muring prostrations, eloquently speak his
meaning. But, ah, behold ! Our tutelary Black
Domino, in haste, with vehement whisper:
'^ Oil vie lit P' The white Juno drops a fairest
Ruse, with these ever-memorable words. " Voits

468

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

iavez ce que cela vcut dire (you know what that
means;") vanishes in the thicket, the Black
Domino hurrying her with eager whisper of
" Vile, vile, (away, away!") for the sound of
footste})s (doubtless from Madame, and Ma-
dame d'Artois, unwelcome sisters that they
are !) is approaching fast. Monseignenr picks
up his Rose; runs as for the King's plate; al-
most overturns poor Planta, whose laugh as-
sures him that all is safe.*

O Ix.on de Rohan, happiest mortal of this
world, since the first Ixion of deathless me-
mory,— who, nevertheless, in that cloud-em-
brace, begat strange Centaurs! Thou art
Prime Minister of France without peradven-
ture: is not this the Rose of Royalty, worthy
to become ottar of roses, and yield perfume
for everl How thou, of all people, wilt con-
trive to govern France in these very peculiar
times. — But that is little to the matter. There,
doubtless, is thy Rose, (which, methinks, it
were well to have a Box or Casket made for:)
nay, was there not in the dulcet of thy Juno's
" NoKs sdvez" a kirid of trepidation, a quaver, —
as of still deeper meanings!

Reader, there is hitherto no item of this
miracle that is not historically proved and
true. — In distracted black-magical phantasma-
gory, adumbrations of yet higher and highest
Dalliances,! hover stupendous in the back-
ground: whereof your Georgels and Campans,
and other official characters, can take no no-
tice! There, in distracted black-magical phan-
tasmagory, let these hover. The truth of them
for us is that they do so hover. The truth of
them in itself is known only to three persons:
Dame (self-styled Countess) de Lamotte; the
Devil ; and Philippe Egaliie, — who furnished
money and facts for the Lamotte 3Iciuoircs, and,
before euillolinement, begat the present King
of the French.

Enough, that Ixion de Rohan, lapsed almost
into deliquium, by such sober certainty of
waking bliss, is the happiest of all men; and
his tutelary (Countess the dearest of all women,
save one only. Ouvthe 25th of August, (so
strong still are those villainous Drawing-room
cabals,) he goes weeping, but submissive, (by
o-der of a gilt Autograph,) home to Saverne;
tilt further dignities can be matured for him.
He carries his Rose, now considerably faded, in
a Casket of fit price ; may, if he so please, per-
petuate it as po'-pmari. He names a favourite
walk in his Archiepiscopal pleasure-grounds,
Prinneiinik de hi Hose; there let him court diges-
tion, and loyally somnambulate till called fur.

I notice it as a coincidence in chronology,
that, few ilays after this date, the Demoiselle
(or even, for the last month, Baroness) Gay

* Cnni|iare Georn-el, Laiiiotte's Memoires Jiistificntifs,
and llie Memmres Pour of the various parlies, especial-
ly Oay d'Oliva's. Oeorsel places the scene in the year
1785; qiiitH wron?. Lam. tie's "royal Aiitnjiraplis"
(as siven in the Appendix to Memoires Jnstijicuiifs)
seem to he niisiialed as lo tlie day of the month. There
is endless confusion of dates.

^h^nwne's Meiiioiren Jintificattfi! ; MS. Songs in the
.^ffiiire du Collier. &c. &c. Nothing can e.xceed the
brutality of these things, (unfit for Print or Pen ;) which,
neverlheless, found believers; increase of believers, in
tlie public exasperation ; and did the Queen (say all iter
historians) incalculable damage.

d'Oliva began to find Countess de Lamotte
" not at home," in her fine Paris hotel, in hef
fine Charonne country-house; and went no
more, with Villette, and such pleasant dinner-
guests, and her, to see Beaumarchais' Marriage
de Figaro,* running its hundred nights.

CHAPTER X.

BEUIND THE SCENES.

"The Queen T" Good reader, thou surely art
not a Partridge the Schoolmaster, or a Mon-
seignenr de Rohan, to mistake the stage for a
reality! — "But who this Demoiselle d'Oliva
was r' Reader, let us remark rather how the
labours of our Dramaturgic Countess are in-
creasing.

New actors I see on the scene ; not one of
whom shall guess what the other is doing; or,
indeed, know rightly what himself i.s doing.
For exanriple, cannot Messieurs de Lamotte
and Villette, of Rascaldom, like Nisus and
Euryalus, take a midnight walk of contempla-
tion, with " footsteps of Madame and Madame
d'Artois," (since all footsteps are much the
same,) without offence to anyione "^ A Queen's
Similitude can believe that a Queen's Self
(for frolic's sake) is looking at her through
the thickets ;f a terrestrial Cardinal can kiss
wiih devotion a celestial Queen's slipper, of
Queen's Similitude's slipper, — and no one but
a Black Domino the wiser. All these shall
follow each his precalculated course; for their
inward mechanism is known and fit wires
hook themselves on this. To Two only is
a clear belief vouchsafed: to Monseigneur,
(founded on stupidity;) to the great creative
Dramaturgist, sitting at the heart of the whole
mystery, (founded on compleiest insight.)
Great creative Dramaturgist ! How, like Schil-
ler, " by union of the Possible with the Neces-
sarily-existing, she brings out the" — Eighty
thousand Pounds ! Don Aranda, with his
triple-sealed missives and hoodwinked secre-
taries, bragged justly that he cut down the
Jesuits in one day; but here, without minis-
terial salary, or King's favour, or any help be-
yond her own black domino, labours a greater
than he. How she advances, stealthily, stead-
fastly, with Argus eye and ever ready-brain;
" vvith nerve of iron, on shoes of felt!" O
worthy to have intrigued for Jesuitdom, for
Pope's Tiara ;— to have been Pope Joan thy-
self, in those old days; and as Arachne of
Arachnes, satin the centre of that stupendous
spider-web, that, reaching from Goa to Aca-
pulco, and from Heaven to Hell, overnetted
the thoughts and souls of men ! — Of which
spider-web stray tatters, in favourable dewy
mornings, even yet become visible.

The Demoiselle d'Oliva? She is a Parisian
Demoiselle of three-and-twenty, tall, blond, and
beaniiful \\ from unjust guardians, and an
evil world, she has had somewhat to suffer.

* Gay d'Oliva's First Memoire Pour, p. 37.

t See Lamotte ; see Oaii d'OIiini.

X\ vfc'ns then preseiiteil "lo two Ladies, one of whom
was remarkable for the richness of her shiipe. She had
blue eyes and chestnut hair' (Uelte d'Etienville's Se-
cond Memoire Pour ; in the SuiU de I'.ejfai'edu Collier )

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

469

"In the month of June, 1784," says the De-
moiselle herself, in her (judicial) Autobio-
graphy, " I occupied a small apartment in the
Rue du Jour, Quartier St. Euslache. I was
not far from the Garden of the Palais-Royal;
I had made it my usual promenade." For,
indeed, the real God's-trulh is, I was a Parisian
unlortunate-female, with moderate custom ;
and one must go where his market lies. "I
frequently passed three or four hours of the
afternoon there, with some women of my ac-
quaintance, and a little child of four years old,
whom I was fond of, whom his parents will-
ingly trusted with me. I even went thither alone,
except for him, when other company failed.

"One afternoon, in the month of July fol-
lowing, I was at the Palais-Royal : my whole
company, at the moment, was the child I
speak of. A tall young man, walking alone,
passes several times before me. He was a
man I had never seen. He looks at me; he
looks fixedly at me. I observe even that al-
ways, as he comes near, he slackens his pace,
as if to survey me more at leisure. A chair
stood vacant; two or three feet from mine.
He seats himself there.

"iTill this instant, the sight of the young
man, his walks, his approaches, his repeated
gazings, had made no impression on me. But
now when he was sitting so close by, I could
not avoid noticing him. His eyes ceased not
to wander over all my person. His air be-
comes earnest, grave. An unquiet curiosity
appears to agitate him. He seems to measure
my figure, to seize by turns all parts of my
physiognomy." — He finds me (but whispers
not a syllable of it) tolerably like, both in per-
son and profile; for even the Abbe Georgel
says, I was a bclk cour/isuue.

"It is time to name this young man: he
was the Sieur de Lamotte, styling himself
Comte de Lamotte." Who doubts it? He
praises "my feeble charms;" expresses a
wish to " pay his addresses to me." I, being
a lone spinster, know not what to say; think
it best in the meanwhile to retire. Vain pre-
caution I "I see him all on a sudden appear
in my apartment!"

On his "ninth visit" (for he was always
civility itself) he talks of introducing a great
Court-lady, by whose means I may even do
her Majesty some little secret-service, — the
reward of which will be unspeakable. In the
dusk of the evening:, silks mysteriously rustle;
enter the creative Dramaturgist, Dame, styled
Countess, de Lamotte; and so — the too intru-
sive, scientific reader, has now, for his punish-
ment, iiot on the wrong side of that loveliest
Transparency; finds nothing but grease-pots,
and vapour of expiring wicks!

The Demoiselle Gay d'Oliva may once more
sit, or stand, in the Palais-Royal, with such

Ttiis is she whom Bettcand Bplte's Artvnrate. intended
Ihe world to take for Gay d'Oliva. "The other is of
middle size : dark eyes, chestnut Iiair, while complexion :
the sound of her voire is apreealile ; she speaks per-
fectly well, and with no less facility than vivacity;"
this one is meant for Lamotte. Oliva's real name was
Essigny ; the Oliim (Olisva, anairram of Vai.ois) was
given her by Lamotte along with the title of Baroness,
iiS. Notes, Affaire du. Collier.)

custom as will come. In due time, she shall
again, but with breath of Terror, be blown
upon; and blown out of France to Brussels.

CHAPTER XL

THE NECKLACE IS SOLO.

Autumn, with its gray moaning winds, and
coating of red strown leaves, invites Courtiers
to enjoy the charms of Nature ; and all busi-
ness of moment stands still. Countess de
Lamotte, while everything is so stagnant, and
even Boehmer (though with sure hope) has
locked up his Necklace for the season, can
drive, with her Count and his Euryalus, Vil-
lette, down to native Bar-sur-Aube ; and there
(in virtue of a Queen's bounty) show the en-
vious a Scion-of-royalty ?-c-grafted ; and make
Ihem yellower looking on it. A well-varnish-
ed chariot, with the Arms of Valois duly
painted in bend-sinister; a house gallantly
furnished, bodies gallantly attired, — secure
them the favourablest reception from all man-
ner of men. The very Due de Penthievre
(Egalite's father-in-law) welcomes our La-
motte, with that urbanity characteristic of his
high station, and the old school. Worth, in-
deed, makes the man, or woman; but leather
(of gig-straps) and prunella (of gig-lining)
first makes it go.

The great creative Dramaturgist has thus
let down her drop-scene; and only, with a
Letter or two to Saverne, or even a visit thither,
(for it is but a day's drive from Bar,) keeps
up a due modicum of intermediate instru-
mental music. She needs some pause, in good'
sooth, to collect herself a little ; for the last act
and grand Catastrophe is at hand. Two fixed-
ideas, (Cardinal's and Jewellei-'s,) a negative
and a positive, have fell each other; stimu-
lated now by new hope, are rapidly revolving
round each other, and approximating; like
two flames, are stretching out long fire-tongues
to join and be one.

Boehmer, on his side, is ready with the
readiest; as, indeed, he has been these four
long years. The Countess, it is true, will
have neither part nor lot in that foolish Cadeau
of his, or in the whole foolish Necklace busi-
ness: this she has in plain words (and even
not without asperity, due to a bore of such
magnitude) given him to know. From her,
nevertheless, by cunning inference, and the
merest accident in the world, the sly Jouail-
lier-Bijoutier has gleaned thus much, that
Monseigneur de Rohan is the man. — Enough !
Enough ! Madame shall be no more troubled.
Rest there, in hope, thou Necklace of the
Devil ; but, O Monseigneur, be thy return
speedy !

Alas, the man lives not that would be
speedier than Monseigneur, if he durst. But
as yet no gilt Autogiaph invites him, permits
him ; the few gilt Autographs are all negatory,
procrastinating. Cabals of Court; for ever
cabals ! Nay, if it be not for some Necklace,
or other such crotchet or necessity, who knows
but he may never be recalled, (so fickle is
womankind;) but forgotten, and left to rot
2fi

470

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Mere, like his Rose, into pot-pourti? Our tu-
telary Countess, too, is shyer in this matter
than we ever saw her. Nev^ertheless, by in-
tense skilful cross-questioning, he has extorted
sonnewhat; sees partly how it stands. The
Queen's Majesty will have her Necklace, (for
■when, in such case, had not woman her
way]); and can even pay for it — by instal-
ments; but then the stingy husband! Once
for all, she will not be seen in the business.
Now, therefore, were it, or were it not, per-
missible to mortal to transact it secretly in her
stead? That is the question. If to mortal,
then to Monseigneur. Our Countess has even
ventured to hint afar oS at Monseigneur (kind
Countess ') in the proper quarter ; but his dis-
cretion is doubted, — in regard to money mat-
ters.— Discretion 1 And I on the Promenade de
la Rose? — Explode not, O Eminence! Trust
will spring of trial : thy hour is coming.

The Lamottes, meanwhile, have left their
iarewell card with all the respectable classes
of Bar-sur-Aube; our Dramaturgist stands
again behind the scenes at Paris. How is it,
0 Monseigneur, that she is still so shy with
thee, in this matter of the Necklace; that she
leaves the love-lorn Latmian shepherd to
droop, here in lone Saverne, like weeping-ash,
in naked winter, on his Promenade of the
Rose, with vague commonplace responses
that "his hour is coming 1" — By Heaven and
Earth! at last, in late January, it is come. Be-
hold it, this new gilt Autograph: "To Paris,
on a small business of delicacy, which our
Countess will explain," — which I already
know! To Paris ! Horses; Postillions; Beef-
eaters ! — And so his resuscitated Eminence,
all wrapt in furs, in the pleasantest frost,
(Abbe Georgel says, un beau froid de Janvier,')
over clear-jingling highways, rolls rapidly, —
borne on the bosom of Dreams.

O Dame de Lamotte, has the enchanted
Diamond fruit ripened, then 1 Hast thou given
it the little shake, big with unutterable fate? —
II can the Dame justly retort: Who saw me
in it? — The reader, therefore, has still Three
scenic Exhibitions to look at, by our great
Dramaturgist ; then the Fourth and last, — by
another Author.

To us, reflecting how oftenest the true
moving force in human things works hidden
underground, it seems small marvel that this
month of January, (1785,) wherein our Coun-
tess so little courts the eye of the vulgar his-
torian, should, nevertheless, have been the
busiest of all for her ; especially the latter half
thereof.

Wisely eschewing matters of business,
(which she could never in her life under-
stand,) our Countess will personally take no
charge of that bargain-making; leaves it all
to her Majesty and the gilt Autographs. Assi-
duous Boehtner, nevertheless, is in frequent
close conference with Monseigneur: the Paris
Palais-de-Slrasbourg, shut to the rest of men,
sees the Jouaillier-Bijoutier, with eager official
aspect, come and go. The grand difficulty is
' — must we say it? — her Majesty's wilful whim-
sicality, unacquaintance with Business. She

positively will not write a gilt Autograph,
autJwriziiig his Eminence to make the bargain;
but writes rather, in a pelting manner, that tho
thing is of no consequence, and can be given
up! Thus must the poor Countess dash to
and fro, like a weaver's shuttle, between Paris
and Versailles; wear her horses and nerves
to pieces; nay, sometimes in the hottest haste,
wait many hours within call of the Palace,
considering what can be done, (with none but
Villette to bear her company,) — till the Queen's
whim pass.

At length, after furious-driving and confer-
ences enough, on the 29ih of January, a mid-
dle course is hit on. Cautious Boehmer shall
write out (on finest paper) his terms ; which
are really rather fair : Sixteen hundred thou-
sand livres; to be paid in five equal instal-
ments ; the first this day six months ; the
other four from three months to three months;
this is what Court-Jewellers, Boehmer and
Bassange, on the one part, and Prince Cardinal
Commendator Louis de Rohan, on the other
part, will stand to ; witness their hands. Which
written sheet of finest paper our poor Countess
must again take charge of, again dash off with
to Versailles ; and therefrom, after trouble
unspeakable, (shared in only by the faithful
Villette, of Rascaldom,) return with it, bearing
this most precious marginal note, — " Bon —
Marie Antoinette de France" in the Autograph
hand ! Happy Cardinal ! this thou shall keep
in the innermost of all thy repositories.
Boehmer, meanwhile, secret as Death, shall
tell no man that he has sold his Necklace ; or
if much pressed for an actual sight of the
same, confess that it is sold to the Favourite
Sultana of the Grand Turk for the time
being.*

Thus, then, do the smoking Lamotte horses
at length get rubbed down, and feel the taste
of oats, after midnight; the Lamotte Countess
can also gradually sink into needful slumber,
perhaps not unbroken by dreams. On the
morrow the bargain shall be concluded; next
day the Necklace be delivered, on Monseig-
neur's receipt.

Will the reader, therefore, be pleased to
glance at the following two Life-Pictures,
Real-Phantasmagories, or whatever we may
call them : they are the two first of those Three
scenic real-poetic Exhibitions, brought about
by our Dramaturgist: short Exhibitions, but
essential ones.

CHAPTER Xn.

THE NECKIACE VANISHES.

It is the first day of February; that grand day
of Delivery. The Sieur Boehmer is in the
Court of the Palais de Strasbourg; his look
mysterious-official, but (though much emaci-
ated) radiant with enthusiasm. The Seine
has missed him : though lean, he will fatten
again, and live through new enterprises.

Singular, were we not used to it: the name^

♦ Ca-mpsM.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

471

Boehmer, as it passes upwards and inwards,
lowers all halberts of Heyducs in perpendicu-
lar rows : the historical eye beholds him,
bowing low, with plenteous smiles, in the
plush Saloon of Audience. Will it please
Monseigneur, then, to do the nc-plus-ultra of
Necklaces the honour of looking at it? A
piece of Art, which the Universe cannot par-
allel, shall be parted with (Necessity compels
Court-Jewellers) at that ruinously low sum.
They, the Court-Jewellers, shall have much
ado to weather it; but their work, at least,
will find a fit Wearer, and go down to juster
posterity. Monseigneur will merely have the
condescension to sign this Receipt of Deli-
very : all ihe rest, her Highness the Sultana
of the Sublime Porte has settled it. — Here the
Court-Jeweller, with his joyous, though now
much emaciated face, ventures on a faint
knowing smile; to which, in the lofty disso-
lute-serene of Monseigneur's, some twinkle of
permission could not but respond. — This is
the First of those Three real-poetic Exhibi-
tions, brought about by our Dramaturgist, —
with perfect success.

It was said, long afterwards, that Monseig-
neur should have known, that Boehmer should
have known, her Highness the Sultana's mar-
ginal-note (that of " Ri'^hl — Muric ./l.itoincttc of
Frunc") to be a forgery and moclcery : the of
France was fatal to it. Easy talking, easy
criticizing! But how are two enchanted men
to know; two men with a fixed-idea each, a
negative and a positive, rushing together to
neutralize each other in rapture? — Enough,
Munseigneur has \he vr-plvs-idtra of Necklaces,
conquered by man's valour and woman's wit;
and rolls off with it, in mysterious speed, to
Versailles, — triumphant as a Jason with his
Golden Fleece.

The Second grand scenic Exhibition by our
Dramaturgic Countess occurs in her own
apartment at Versailles, so early as the follow-
ing night. It is a commodious apartment,
with alcove; and the alcove has a glass door.*
Monseigneur enters, — with a follower bearing
a mysterious Casket; carefully depositing it,
and then respectfully withdrawing. It is the
Necklace itself in all its glory I Our tutelary
Countess, and Monseigneur, and we, can at
leisure admire the queenly Talisman ; con-
gratulate ourselves that the painful conquest
of it is achieved.

But, hist! A knock, mild, but decisive, as
from one knocking with authority ! Mon-
seign<:ur and we retire to our alcove ; there,
from behind our glass screen, observe what
passj.'s. Who comes 1 The door flung open :
de par la Urine! Behold him, Monseigneur :
he enters with grave, respectful, yet oflicial
air; worthy Monsieur Queen's-valet Lesclaux,
the same who escorted our tutelary Countess,
that moonlight night, from the back apartments
of Versailles. Said we not, thou wouldst see
him once more 1 — Methinks, again, spite of his
Qneen's-uniform, he has much the features of
Villette of Rascaldom! — Rascaldom or Valet-
ilom, (for to the blind all colours are the

♦ Qeorgel, &c.

same,) he has, with his grave, respectful, yel
official air, received the Casket, and its price-
less contents; with fit injunction, with fit en-
gagements; and retires bowing low.

Thus, softly, silently, like a very Dream, flits
away our solid necklace, — through the Horn
Gate of Dreams!

CHAPTER XHI.
SCENE third: bx dame de lamotte.

Now, too, in these same days (as he can
afterwards prove by affidavit of Landlords)
arrives Count Cagliostro himself, from Lyons!
No longer by predictions in cipher; but by his
living voice, (often in wrapt communion with
the unseen world, " with Carafte and four can-
dles ;") by his greasy prophetic bulldog face,
(said to be the " most perfect quack-face of the
eighteenth century,") can we assure ourselves
that all is well ; that all will turn " to the glory
of Monseigneur, to the good of Fiance, and
of mankind,"* and Egyptian masonry. " To-
kay flows like water;" ourcharming Countess,
with her piquancy of face, is sprightlier than
ever; enlivens with the brightest sallies, with
the adroitest flatteries to all, those suppers of
the gods. 0 Nights, O Suppers — too good to
last! Nay, now also occurs another and Third
scenic Exhibition, fitted by its radiance to
dispel from Monsiegneur's soul the last trace
of care.

Why the Queen does not, even yet, openly
receive me at Court ! Patience, Monseigneur!
Thou little knowest those too intricate cabals;
and how she still but works at them silently,
with royal suppressed fury, like a royal lioness
only (leLveriHg herself from the hunter's toils.
Meanwhile, is not thy work done 1 The Neck-
lace, she rejoices over it; beholds (many times
in secret) her Juno-neck mirrored back the
lovelier for it, — as our tutelar Countess can
testify. Come to-morrow to the Q^lil de Fanf ;
there see with eyes, in high noon, as already in
deep midnight thou hast seen, whether in her
royal heart there were delay.

Let us stand, then, with Monseigneur, in
that CEil de Eaiif, in the Versailles Palace Gal-
ery ; for all welj-dressed persons are admitted :
there the Loveliest, in pomp of royalt)', will
walk to mass. The world is all in pelisses
and winter furs; cheerful, clear, — with noses
tending to blue. A lively many-voiced Hum
plays fitful, hither and thither; of sledge par-
ties and Court parties : frosty state of the
weather ; stability of M. de Calonne ; Majesty's
looks yesterday; — such Hum as always, in
these sacred Court-space.'s since Louis le Grand
made and consecrated them, has, with more
or less impetuosity, agitated our common At-
mosphere.

Ah, through that long high Gallery what
figures have passed — and vanished! Louvois,
— with the Great King, flashing fire-glances
on the fugitive ; in his red right hand a pair
of tongs, which pious Maintenon hardly holdi

• Oeorgel, k-C.

472

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

back : Louvois, where art ihou ] Ye Mare-
chaux de France? Ye iinmentionable-women
of past generations'! Here also was it that
rolled and rushed the " sound, absolutely like
thunder,"* of Courtier hosts; in that dark
hour when the signal light in Louis the Fif-
teenth's chamber-window was blown out ; and
his ghastly infectious Corpse lay alone, for-
saken on its tumbled death-lair, "in the hands
of some poor women :" and the Courtier-hosts
rushed from the Deep-f\illen to hail the New-
risen ! These too rushed, and passed ; and
their " sound, absolutely like thunder," became
silence. Figures? Men 1 They are fast fleet-
ing Shadows: fast chasing each other: it is
not a Palace, but a Caravansera. — Monseig-
neur, (with thy too much Tokay overnight !)
cease puzzling: here tkou art, this blessed
February day : — the Peerless, will she turn
lightly that high head of hers, and glance
aside into the (Ed dc Basuf, in passing 1 Please
Heaven, she will. To our tutelary Countess,
at least, she promised it;-}" though, alas, so
fickle is womankind ! —

Hark ! Clang of opening doors ! She issues,
like the Moon in silver brightness, down the
Eastern steeps. La Rvinc vient ! What a figure !
I (with the aid of glasses) discern Iter. O
Fairest, Peerless! Let the hum of minor dis-
coursing hush itself wholly; and only one
successive rolling peal of Vive la Rcinc (like
the moveable radiance of a train of fire-works)
irradiate her path. — Ye Immortals ! She does,
she beckons, turns her head this way ! — " Does
she notl" says Countess de Lamotte. — Ver-
sailles, the (Elide Bceitf, and all men and things,
are drowned in a sea of Light; Monseigneur
and that high beckoning Head are alone, with
each other, in the Universe.

O Eminence, what a beatific vision ! Enjoy
it, blest as the gods ; ruminate and re-enjoy
it, with full soul: it is the last provided for
thee. '^Foo soon (in the course of these six
months) shall thy beatific vision, like Mirza's
vision, gradually melt away; and only oxen
and sheep be grazing in its place; — and thou,
as a doomed Nebuchadnezzar, be grazing with
them.

' "Does she not 1" said the Countess de La-
motte. That it is a habit of hers; that hardly
a day passes without her doing it: this the
Countess de Lamotte did not say.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE NECKLACE CANNOT BE PAID.

Here, then, the specially Dramaturgic labours
of Countess de Lamotte may be said to termi-
nate. The rest of her life is Histrionic merely,
or Histrionic and Critical ; as, indeed, what
had all the former part of it been but a Hypo-
crida, a more or less correct Playing of Parts 1
O " Mrs. Facing-both-ways, (as old Bunyan
^ald,) what a talent hadst thou ! No Proteus
ever took so many shapes, no Chameleon so
uftoa changed color. One thing thou wert to

• Campan.

t Sec Qeorgel.

Monseigneur; another thing to Cagliostro,
and Vilette of Rascaldom; a third thing to the
World, (in printed Mcmoirca :) a fourth thing to
Philippe Egalitc : all things to all men !

Let her, however, we say, but manage now to
act her own parts, with proper Histrionic illu-
sion; and, by Critical glosses, give her past
Dramaturgy the fit aspect, to Monsiegneur and
others : this henceforth, and not new Drama-
turgy, includes her whole task. Dramatic
Scenes, in plenty, will follow of themselves;
especially that Fourth and final Scene, spoken
of above as by another Author, — by Destiny
itself.

For in the Lamotte Theatre (so different
from our common Pasteboard one) the Play
goes on, even when the Machinist has left it.
Strange enough : those Air-images, wliich from
her Magic-lantern she hung out on the empty
bosom of Night, have clutched hold of this
solid-seeming World, (which some call the
Material World, as if that made it more a Real
one,) and will tumble hither and thither the
solidest mass there. Yes, reader, so goes it
here below. What thou callest a Brain-web,
or mere illusive Nothing, wit not a web of the
Brain ; of the Spirit which inhabits the Brain ;
and which, in this World, rather, as I think,
to be named the spiritual one,) very naturally
moves and tumbles hither and thither all things
it meets with, in Heaven or in Earth 1 — So, too,
the Necklace, though we saw it vanish thr;)ugh
the Horn Gale of Dreams, and in my opinion
man shall nevermore behold it, — yet its activ-
ity ceases not, nor will. For no Act of a man,
no Thing, (how much less the man himself!)
is extinguished when it disappears : through
considerable times (there are instances of
Three Thousand Years) it visibly works ; in-
visibly, unrecognised, it works through end-
less times. Such a Hyper-magical is this our
poor old Real world ; which some take upon
them to pronounce effete, prosaic ! Friend, it
is thyself that art all withered up into etfete
Prose, dead as ashes: know this, (I advise
thee ;) and seek passionately, with a passion
little short of desperation, to have it remedied.
Meanwhile, what will the feeling heart think
to learn that Monseigneur de Rohan (as we
prophesied) again experiences the fickleness
of a Court; that, notwithstanding beatific vi-
sions, at noon and midnight, the Queen's Ma-
jesty (with the light ingratitude of her sex)
flies oflTat a tangent; and, far from ousting his
detested and deiesting rival. Minister Breteuil,
and openly delighting to honour Monseig-
neur, will hardly vouchsafe him a few gilt Auto-
graphs, and those few of the most capricious,
suspicious, soul-confusing tenor"! What terrifi-
co-absurd explosions, which scarcely Cag-
liostro, with Carafl^e and four candles, can still ;
how many deep-weighed Humble Petitions, Ex-
planations, Expostulations, penned with fervid-
est eloquence, with craftiest diplomacy, — all de-
livered by our tutelar Countess: in vain! — O
Cardinal, with what a huge iron mace, like
Guy of Warwick's, thou smitest Phantasms ia
two (which close again, take shape again ;J
ajid only thrashest the air!

One comfort, however, is that the Queen's
Majesty has committed herself. The Rose of

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

473

Trianon, and what may pertain thereto, lies it
not here 1 That " Righl — Marie Jlntoinettc of
Frnnrc," too; and the 30th of July, first-instal-
meut-day, coming ? She shall be brought to
terms, good Eminence ! Order horses and beef-
eaters for Saverne ; there, ceasing all written
or oral communication, starve her into capitu-
b;ing.* It is the bright May month: his Emi-
i: :nce again somnambulates the Promenade dc
la liopc : but now with grim dry eyes; and,,
from time to time, terrifically stamping.

But who is this that I see mounted on cost-
liest horse and horse-gear ; betting at New-
market Races ; though he can speak no Eng-
lish word, and only some Chevalier O'Niel,
some Capuchin Macdermot (from Bar-sur
Aube) interprets his French into the dialect
of the Sister Island? Few days ago I ob-
served him walking in Fleet-street, thought-
fully through Temple-Bar; — in deep treaty
with Jeweller Jeffreys, with Jeweller Grey.f
for the sale of Diamonds : such a lot as one
may boast of. A tall handsome man; with
ex-military whiskers; with a look of troubled
gayety, and rascalism : you think it is the
Sieur (self-styled Count) de Lamotte ; nay,
the man himself confesses it ! The Diamonds
were a present to his Countess, — from the still
bountiful Queen.

Villette, too, has he completed his sales at
Amsterdam? Him I shall by and by behold ;
not bettmg at Newmarket, but drinking wine
and ardent spirits in the Taverns of Geneva.
Ill-gotten wealth endures not; Rascaldom has
no strongbox. Countess de Lamotte, for what a
set of cormorant scoundrels hast thou laboured;
art thou still labouring !

Still labouring, we may say : for as the fatal
30th of July approaches, what is to be looked
for but universal Earthquake ; Mud-explosion
that will blot out the face of Nature? Me-
thinks, stood I in thy pattens. Dame de La-
motte, I would cut and run. — " Run !" exclaims
she, with a toss of indignant astonishment ■
"calumniated Innocence run ?" For it is sin-
gular how in some minds (that are mere bot-
tomless "chaotic whirlpools of gilt shreds")
there is no deliberate Lying whatever; and
nothing is either believed or disbelieved, but
only (with some transient suitable Histrionic
emotion) spoken and heard.

Hod Dame de Lamotte a certain greatness
of character, then ; at least, a strength of tran-
sccndant audacity, amounting to the bastard-
heroic? Great, indubitably great, is her Drama-
turgic and Histrionic talent: but as for the
rest, one must answer, with reluctance, No.
Mrs. Facing-both-ways is a " Spark of vehe-
ment Life," but the furthest in the world from
a brave woman : she did not, in any case,
show the bravery of a woman; did, in many
cases, show the mere screaming trepidation of
one. Her grand quality is rather to be reckoned
negative: the "untamableness" as of a fly;
the " wax-cloth dress" from which so much

*See Lamotte.

fOrey lived in No. 13, New Bond Street; Jeffreys in
Piccadifly (Uolian's Memnire. Pour; see also Covvt de
Laiiiotle's Narrative, in Mimvires Justificatifs ) Rohan
gays, " JelFieys bought more than 10,000i. worth."
60

ran down like water. Small sparrows, as !
learn, have been trained to fire cannon ; but
would make poor Artillery Ofiicers in a Water-
loo. Thou dost not call that Cork a strong
swimmer? which, nevertheless, shoots, with-
out hurt, the Falls of Niagara; defies the
thunderbolt itself to sink it, for more than a
moment. Without intellect, imagination, power
of attention, or any spiritual faculty, how brave
were one, — with fit motive for it, such as
hunger ! How much might one dare, by the
simplest of methods, by not thinking of it, not
knowing it ! — Besides, is not Cagliostro, foolish
blustering Quack, still here? No scapegoat
had ever broader back. The Cardinal, too,
has he not money ? Queen's Majesty, even in
ethgy, shall not be insulted; the Soubises, De
Marsans, and high and puissant Cousins, must
huddle the matter up : Calumniated Innocence,
in the most universal of Earthquakes, will
find some crevice to whisk through, as she has
so often done.

But all this while how fares it with his Emi-
nence, left somnambulaling the Promenade de
la Rofe ; and at times truculently stamping?
Alas, ill; and ever worse. The starving method,
singular as it may seem, brings no capitula-
tion ; brings only, after a month's waiting, our
tutelary Countess, with a gilt Autograph, in-
deed, and " all wrapt in silk threads, sealed
where they cross, — but which we read with
curses.*

We must back again to Paris; there pen
new Expostulations; which our unwearied
Countess will take charge of, but, alas, can
get no answer to. However, is not the 30th
of July coming? — Behold (on the lOlh of that
month,) the shortest, most careless of Auto-
graphs with some fifteen hundred pounds c.f
real money in it, to pay the — interest of (hi
first instalment ; the principal (of some thirty
thousand) not being at the moment perfectly
convenient! Hungry Boehmer makes large
eyes at this proposal ; will accept the money,
but only as part of payment ; the man is posi-
tive: a Court of Justice, if no other means,
shall get him the remainder. What now is to
be done ?

Farmer-general Mons. Saint-James, Cag-
liostro's disciple, and wet with Tokay, will
cheerfully advance the sum needed — for her
Majesty's sake; thinks, however (with all his
Tokay,) it were good to speak with her Majesty
fust. — I observe, meanwhile, the distracted
hungry Boehmer driven hither and thither, not
by his fixed-idea ; alas, no, but by the far more
frightful e.host thereof, — since no payment is
forthcoming. He stands, one day, speaking
with a Queen's waiting-woman (Madam Cam-
pan herself.) in " a thunder-shower, whicii
neither of them notice," — so thunderstruck are
they.f What weather-symptoms fur his Emi-
nence!

The 30th of July has come, but no money;
the 30th is gone, but no money. O Eminence,
what a grim farewell of July is this of 1785!
The last July went out with airs from Heaven.

• See Larjotte.

2r2

t Cainpan.

474

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and Trianon Roses. These August days, are
they not worse than doj;;'s days ; worthy to be
blotted out from all Almanacs] Boehmer
and Bassange thou canst still see ; but only
"return from them swearing."* Nay, what
new misery is this? Our tutelary Histrionic
Countess enters, distraction in her eyes ;f she
has just been at Versailles; the Queen's Ma-
jesty, with a levity of caprice which we dare
not trust ourselves to characterize, declares
plainly that she will deny ever having got the
Necklace; ever having had, with his Emi-
nence any transaction whatsoever ! — Mud-
explosion without parallel in volcanic annals.
— The Palais de Strasbourg appears to be be-
set with spies; the Lamottes (for the Count,
too, is here) are packing up for Bur-sur-Aube.
The Sieur Boehmer, has he fallen insane 1
Or into conimunication with Breteuill —

And so distractedly and disiractively, to the
sound of all Discords in Nature, opens ihat
Fourth, final Scenic Exhibition, composed by
Destiny.

CHAPTER XV.

SCENE FOURTH : BY DESTINY.

It is Assumption-day, the 15th of August.
Don thy pontificalia, Grand-Almoner; crush
down these hideous temporalities out of sight.
In any case, smooth thy countenance into
some sort of lofty-dissolute serene: thou hast
a thing they call worshipping God to enact,
thyself the first actor.

The Grand-Almoner has done it. He is in
Versailles Q'il de h'mif Gallery ; where male
and female Peerage, and all Noble France in
gala, various and glorious as the rainbow,
waits only the signal to begin worshipping:
on the serene of his lofty-dissolute counte-
nance, there can nothing be read.t By Hea-
ven ! he is sent for to the Royal Apartment I

He returns with the old lofty-dissolute look,
inscrutably serene: has his turn for favour
actually come, then I Those fifteen long
years of soul's travail are to be rewarded by
a birth 1 — Monsieur le Baron de Breteuil
issues ; great in his pride of place, in this the
crowning moment of his life. Vt^ith one radi-
dianl glance, Bretetiil summons the Officer on
Guard: with another, fixes Monseigneur: "Dc
par Ic I\oi, Monscisiveur : you are arrested ! At
yuvr risk, OlTicer!" — Curtains as of pitch-
black whirlwind envelope Monseigneur; whirl
oflT with him, — to outer darkness. Versailles
Gallery explodes aghast; as if Guy Fawkes's
Plot had burst under it. " The Queen's Ma-
jesty was weeping," whisper some. There
will be no Assumption service ; or such a
one as was never celebrated since Assump-
tion came in fashion.

Europe, then, shall ring with it from side to
•side! — But why rides that Heyduc as if all

the Devils drove him? It is Monseigneur's
Heyduc: Monseigneur spoke three words in
German to him, at the door of his Versailles
Hotel ; even handed him a slip of writing,
which (some say, with borrowed Pencil, " in
his red square cap") he had managed to pre-
pare on the way hither.* To Paris ? To the
Palais-Cardinal ! The horse dies on reaching
the stable ; the Heyduc swoons on reaching
the cabinet: but his slip of writing fell from
his hand ; and I (says the Abbe Georgel) was
there. The red Portfolio, containing all the
gilt Autographs, is burnt utterly, with much
else, before Breteuil can arrive for apposition
of the seals ! — Whereby Europe, in ringing
from side to side, must worry itself with guess-
ing: and at this hour (on this paper) sees the
matter in such an interesting clear-obscure.

Soon Count Cagliostro and his Seraphic
Countess go to join Monseigneur, in State
Prison. In fev/ days, follows Dame de La-
motte (from Bar-sur-Aube) ; Demoiselle d'Oli-
vaby and by (from Brussels); Villette-de-Retaux
from his S\Yiss retirement, in the taverns of
Geneva. The Bastille opens its iron bosom
to them all.

CHAPTER LAST.

MISSA EST.

* Lamotte. \ Oeorg-el.

|This is Bette d'Enteville's description of liiin ; "A
handsome man, of fifty ; with high complexion ; hnir
white-gray, and the front of tlie head liald : of hiffh
Stature; carriage noi)le and easy, though burdened with
a certain degree of corpulency ; who, I never doubted,
was Monsieur de Rolian." (First Memoire Pour.)

Thus, then, the Diamond Necklace having,
on the one hand, vanished through the Horn
Gate of Dreams, and so (under the pincers
of Nisiis Lamotte and Euryalus Villette) lost
its sublunary individuality and being; and, on
the other hand, all that trafficked in it, sitting
now safe under lock and key, that justice may
take cognisance of them, — our engagement iu
regard to the matter is on the point of terminat-
ing. That extraordinary Proces du Collier (Neck-
lajce Trial,) spinning itself through Nine other
ever-memorable Months, to the astonishment
of the hundred and eighty-seven assembled
Pariienicntiers, and of all Quidduncs, Journal-
ists, Anecdotists, Satirists, in both Hemis-
pheres, is, in every sense, a "Celebrated Trial,"
and belongs to Publishers of such. How, by
innumerable confrontations and expiscatory
questions, through entanglements, doublings,
and windings that fatigue eye and soul, this
most involute of Lies is finally winded off to
the scandalous-ridiculous cinder-heart of it,
let others relate.

Meanwhile, during these Nine ever-meinora-
ble Months, till they terminate late at night
precisely with the May of 17S6,f how many
"fugitive leaves," quizzical, imaginative, or
at ieast mendacious, were flying about in
Newspapei-s ; or stitched together as Pam-
phlets ; and what heaps of others were left
creeping in Manuscript, we shall not say ; —
having, indeed, no complete Collection of
theiTi, and, what is more to the purpose, little to

* Georgel.

+ ()n the 31st of May, 1786, sentence was pro-
nounced : about ten at ni,'ht, the Cardinal got out of
the Bastille ; large niol)s hurrahing round him, — out of
spleen to the Court. (See Qeoryel.)

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

473

do with such Collection. Nevertheless, search-
ing for some fit Capital of the composite
onier, to adorn adequately the now finished
singular Pillar of our Narrative, what can suit
us better than the following, so far as we know,
yet unedited,

Occasinnnl Discourse, by Count Mcs^.andro Cagli-
osiro, Th'iumaturgist, Prophet, and Arch-Quark ;
delivered in Ike Bastille : Year of Lucifer, 5789 ;
of the Hc^ira Mohammedan, (_from Mecca,) 1201 ;
of the Hcs^ira Caglioslric, ( from Palermo,') 24 ;
of the Vulgar Era, 1785.

"Fellow Scoundrels, — An unspeakable In-
trigue, spun from the soul of that Circe-Me-
gffira, by our voluntary or involuntary help,
has assembled us all, if not under one roof-
tree, yet within one grim iron-bound ring-wall.
For an appointed number of months, in the
ever-rolling flow of Time, we, being gathered
from the four winds, did by Destiny work to-
gether in body corporate ; and, joint labourers
in a Transaction already famed over the Globe,
obtain unity of Name, (like the Argonauts of
old,) as Conquerors of the Diamond Necklace. Ere
long it is done, (for ring-walls hold not captive
the free Scoundrel for ever ;) and we disperse
again, over wide terrestrial Space ; some of
us, it may be, over the very marches of Space.
Our Act hangs indissoluble together; floats
wondrous in the older and older memory of
men : while we, little band of Scoundrels, who
saw each other, now hover so far asunder, to
see each other no more, if not once more only
on the universal Doomsday, the last of the
Days !

"In such interesting moments, while we
stand within the verge of parting, and have
not yet parted, methinks it were well here, in
these sequestered Spaces, to institute a few
general reflections. Me, as a public speaker,
the Spirit of Masonry, of Philosophy, and
Philanthropy, and even of Prophecy (blowing
mysterious from the Land of Dreams) impels
to do it. Give ear, O Fellow Scoundrels, to
what the Spirit utters ; treasure it in your
hearts, practise it in your lives.

" Sitting here, penned up in this which (with
a slight metaphor) I call the Central Cloaca
of Nature, where a tyrannical De Launay can
forbid the bodily eye free vision, you with the
mental eye see but the better, 'rhis Central
Cloaca, is it not rather a Heart, into which,
from all regions, mysterious conduits intro-
duce, and forcibly inject, whatsoever is choicest
in the Scoundrelism of the Earth; there to
be absorbed, or again (by the other auricle)
ejected into new circulation 1 Let the eye of
the mind run along this immeasurable venous-
arierial system; and astound itself with the
magnificent extent of Scoundreldom ; the deep,
I may say, unfathomable, significance of
Scoundrelism.

"Yes, brethren, wide as the Sun's range is
:iir Empire; wider than old Rome's in its
palmiest era. I have in my time been far ; in
frozen Muscovy, in hot Calabria, cast, west,
wheresoever the sky overarches civilized man :
and never hitherto saw I myself an alien ; out
of Scoundreldora I never was. Is it not even

said, from of old, by the opposite party: 'Ml
men are liars 1 ' Do they not (and this nowise
' in haste') whimperingly talk of ' one just
person,' (as they call him,) and of the remain-
ing thousand save one that take part with usl
So decided is our majority." — (Applause.)

" Of the Scarlet Woman, — yes, Monseigneur,
without ofience, — of the Scarlet Woman that
sits on Seven Hills, and her Black Jesuit Mili-
tia, out foraging from Pole to Pole, I speak
not; for the story is too trite: nay, the Militia
itself, as I see, begins to be disbanded, and in-
valided, for a second treachery ; treachery to
herself! Nor yet of Governments ; for a like
reason. Ambassadors, said an English pun-
ster, lie abroad for their masters. Their mas-
ters, we answer, lie, at home, for themselves.
Not of all this, nor of Courtship, (with its so
universal Lovers' vows.) nor Courtiership, nor
Attorneyism, nor Public Oratory, and Selling
by Auction, do I speak: I simply ask thegain-
sayer, Which is the particular trade, profes-
sion, mystery, calling, or pursuit of the Sons
of Adam that they successfully manage in the
other way 1 He cannot answer ! — No : Phi-
losophy itself, both practical and even specu-
lative, has, at length (after shamefullest grop-
ing) stumbled on the plain conclusion that
Sham is indispensable to Reality, as Lying to
Living; that without Lying the whole busi-
ness of the world, from swaying of senates to
selling of tapes, must explode into anarchic
discords, and so a speedy conclusion ensue.

"But the grand problem. Fellow Scoundrels,
as you well know, is the marrying of Truth
and Sham ; so that they become one flesh, man
and wife, and generate these three: Profit,
Pudding, and Respectability that always keeps
her Gig. Wondrously, indeed, do Truth and
Delusion play into one another: Reality rests
on Dream. Truth is but the skin of the bot-
tomless Untrue: and ever, from time to time,
the Untrue sheds it; is clear again; and the
superannuated True itself becomes a Fable.
Thus do all hostile things crumble back into
our Empire; and of its increase there is no end.

" 0 brothers, to think of the Speech with-
out meaning, (which is mostly ours,) and of
the Speech with contrary meaning, (which is
wholly ours,) manufactured by the organs of
Mankind in one solar day! Or call it a day
of Jubilee, when public Dinners are given,
and Dinner-orations are delivered: or say, a
Neighbouring Island in time of Generj.1 Elec-
tion ! O ye immortal gods ! The mind is lost;
can only admire great Nature's plent^'ousneds
with a kind of sacred wonder.

"For, tell me. What is the chief end of man 1
'To glorify God,' said the old Christian Sect,
now happily extinct. ' To eat and find eata-
bles by the readiest method,' answers sounii
Philosophy, discarding whims. If the readier
method (than this of persuasive-attraction"* is
discovered, — point it out. — Breihren, I saidtne
old Christian Sect was happily extinct: as, in-
deed, in Rome itself, there goes the wonderful-
lest traditionary Prophecy,* of that Nazareth
Christ coming back, and being crucified a
second time there ; which truly I see not inthfl

* Goethe mentions it {Italianiselit Rei»e.)

476

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

least how he could fail to he. Nevertheless,
that old Christian whim, of an actual living:
and ruling God, and some sacred covenant
binding all men in Him, with much other mys-
tic stuff, does, under new or old shape, linger
■with a few. From these few, keep yourselves
for ever far! They must even be left to their
whim, which is not like to prove infectious.

" But neither are we, my Fellow Scoundrels,
without our Religion, our Worship; which,
like the oldest, and all true Worships, is one
of Fear. The Christians have their Cross,
the Moslem their Cresent: but have not we,
too, our — Gallows 1 Yes, infinitely terrible is
the Gallows; bestrides, with its patibulary
fork, the Pit of bottomless Terror. No Mani-
cheans are we; our God is One. Great, ex-
ceeding great, I say, is the Gallows ; of old,
even from the beginning, in this world; knov%^-
ing neither variableness nor decadence; for
ever, for ever, over the wreck of ages, and all
civic and ecclesiastic convulsions, meal-mobs,
revolutions, the Gallows with front serenely
terrible towers aloft. Fellow Scoundrels, fear
the Gallows, and have no other fear ! This is
the Law and the Prophets. Fear every ema-
nation of the Gallows. And what is every
buffet, with the fist, or even with the tongue, of
one having authority, but some such emana-
tion. And what is Force of Public Opinion
but the infinitude of such emanations, — rush-
ing combined on you like a mighty storm-
wind T Fear the Gallows, I say! 0 when,
with its long black arm, it has clutched a man,
what avail him all terrestrial things'? These
pass away, with horrid nameless dinning in
his ears ; and the ill-starred Scoundrel pendu-
lates between Heaven and Earlh, a thing re-
jected of biiih." — (Profound sensation.)

"Such, so wide in compass, high, gallows-
high in dignity, is the Scoundrel Empire; and
for depth, it is deeper than *he Foundations of
the World. For what was Creation itself
wholly (according to the best Philosophers)
but a Divulsion by the Time-Spirit, (or Devil
so-called:) a forceful Interruption, or breaking
asunder, of the old Quiescence of Eternity'!
It was Lucifer that fell, and made this lordly
World arise. Deep1 It is bottomless-deep;
the very Thought, diving, bobs up from it
baffled. Is not this that they call Vice of Ly-
ing the Adam-Kadmon, or primeval Rude-Ele-
ment, old as Chaos mother's-womb of Death
and Hell ; whereon their thin film of Virtue,
Trtith, and the like, poorly wavers — for a day '?
All Virtue, what is it, even by their own show-
ing, but Vice transformed, — that is, manufac-
tured, rendered artificial? ' Man's Vices are
the roots from which his Virtues grow out and
see the light,' says one: 'Yes,' add I, 'and
thanklessly steal their nourishment!' Were
it not for the nipe hundred ninety and nine
unacknowledged (perhaps martyred and ca-
lumniated) Scoundrels, how were their single
lust Pe'-son (with a murrain on him !) so much
as possibl'3 '! — Oh, it is high, high : these things
are too great for me; Intellect, Imagination,
flags her tired wings; the soul lost, baflled'" —

— Here Dame de Lamotle tittered audibly,
and muttered, Coq-d'-Inde, (which, being inter-
^•reted into the Scottish tongue, signifies Bub-

bly-Jock!) The Arch-Quack, whose eyes wer«
turned inwards as in rapt contemplation,
started at the titter and mutter: his eyes flashed
outwards with dilated pupil; his nostrils
opened wide; his very hair seemed to stir in
its long twisted pigtails, (his fashion of curl;)
and as Indignation is said to make Poetry, it
here made Prophecy, or what sounded as such.
With terrible, working features, and gesticula-
tion not recommended in any Book of Gesture,
the Arch-Quack, in voice supernally discord-
ant (like Lions worrying Bulls of Bashan)
began :

" Sniff not, Dame de Lamotte ; tremble, thou
foul Circe-Megtera: thy day of desolation is at
hand! Behold ye the Sanhedrim of Judges,
with their fanners (of written Parchment)
loud-rustling, as they winnow all her chaff, and
down-plumage, and she stands there naked
and mean? — Villette, Oliva, do ye blab se-
crets ? Ye have no pity of her extreme need ;
she none of yours. Is thy light-giggling, un-
tamable heart at last heavy'? Hark ye!
Shrieks of one cast out; whom they brand on
both shoulders with iron stamp ; the red hot
"V,"thon Voleusc, hath it entered thy soul ■?
Weep, Circe de Lamotte; wail there in truckle
bed, and hysterically gnash thy teeth: nay, do,
smother thyself in thy door-mat coverlid ; thou
hast found thy mates; thou art in the Sal-
petriere ! — Weep, daughter of the high and
puissant Sans-inexpressibles ! Buzz of Pari-
sian Gossipry is about thee; but not to help
thee : no, to eat before thy time. What shall
a King's Court do with thee, thou unclean
thing, while thou yet li vest] Escape! Flee
to -utmost countries; hide there, if thou canst,
thy mark of Cain ! — In the Babylon of Fog-
land ! Ha ! is that my London ? See I Judas
Iscariot Egalite 1 Print, yea print abundantly
the abominations of your two hearts: breath
of rattlesnakes can bedim the steel mirror, but
only for a time. — And there! Ay, there at
last! Tumblest thou from the lofty leads,
jioverty-stricken, 0 thriftless daughter of the
high and puissant, escaping bailiffs? Des-
cendest thou precipitate, in dead night, from
window in the third story: hurled forth by
Bacchanals, to whom thy shrill tongue had
grown unbearable ?* Yea, through the smoke
of that new Babylon thou fallest headlong ;
one long screan: of screams makes night
hideous : thou liest there, shattered like addle
egg, 'nigh to the Temple of Flora !' O La-
motte, has thy Hypocrisia ended, then ? Thy
man)'- characters were all acted. Here at last
thou actest not, but art what thou seemest: a
mangled squelch of gore, confusion, and
abomination ; which men huddle underground,
with no burial stone. Thou gallows-car-
rion !" —

— Here the prophet turned up his nose, (the
broadest of the eighteenth centurj'',) and opened

* The Enilish Translntor of Lamotte's Life says, slie
fell from tlie leads of her house, niih the Temiile of
Flora, endeavouritif; to escape seizure for debt; and was
taken up so much Inirt that she died in consequence.
Another report runs that she was flunff out of window,
as in the iMicliostric text. One way or otlier she did
die, on the 23d of Ausust, 1791 {Bioirraphie Uviverselle,
XXX. 287.) Where the "Temple of Flora" was, or is,
one knows not.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

477

wide his nostrils with such a greatness qf dis-
gust, that all the audience, even Lamotte her-
self, s\'mpathetically imitated him — "ODame
de Lainotte ! DaiTie de Lamotte ! Now, when
the circle' of thy existence lies complete: and
my eye fjlances over these two score and three
years that were lent thee, to do evil as thou
cotildst; and I behold thee a bright-eyed little
'J'atterilenialion, begging and gathering slicks
in the Bois de Boulogne ; and also at length a
squelched Pulrefactii>n, here on London pave-
ments ; with the headdressings and hungerings.

the gaddings and hysterical

linffs that

caine between, — What shall I say was the
meaning of thee at all? —

" Villettc-de-Retaux ! Have the catchpoles
Irepaimed thee, by sham of battle, in thy Ta»
vern, from the sacred Republican soil.* It is
thou that wert the hired Forger of Hand-
writings? Thou wilt confess it '! Depart, un-
whipt, yet accursed. — Ha ! The dread Symbol
of our Faith 1 Swings aloft, on the Castle of
St. Angelo, a Pendulous Mass, which I think I
discern to be tlie body of Villette ! There let
him end ; the sweet morsel of our Juggernaut.

"Nay, weep not thou, disconsolate Oliva;
blear not thy bright blue eyes, daughter of the
shady Garden ! Thee shall the Sanhedrim
not harm: this Cloaca of Nature emits thee;
as notablest of unfortunate-females, thou shalt
have choice of husbands not without capital;
and accept one.f Know this, for the vision
of it is true.

"But the Anointed Majesty whom ye pro-
faned ! Blow, spirit of Egyptian Masonry,
blow aside the thick curtains of Space! Lo
you, her eyes are red with their first tears of
pure bitterness; not with their last. Tirewo-
man Campan is choosing, from the Printshops
of the Quais, the reputed-best among the
hundred likenesses of Circe de Lamotte :t a
Queen shall consider if the basest of women
ever, by any accident, darkened daylight or
candle-iight for the highest. The Portrait
answers: 'Never!' — (Sensation in the audi-
ence.)

" — Ha! What is (/(is ? Angels, Uriel, Ana-
chiel, and the other Five; Pentagon of Re-
juvenescene; Power that destroyed Original
Sin ; Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo,
which inen name Hell ! Does theEsipiuEOplM-

*!*('»> Georirel, and Villette's Memoire.

^Jtfdire flu Collier is I his MS. Nott- : "Gay d'Oliva, a
coiiiiiii)ii-!.'iil of Ilie Paliiis-Royal. wlio was chosen to
pl^iy a part in tills Business, {rot married, some years
afterwards, to one lieaiisire, an Ex-Noble, formerly
allarlied lo the d'Artois lloiiseliold. In 1790, he was
Captain of the NalioTiiil Onanl (^ompany of the Temple.
He (hen retired to Choisy, and managed to I)e named
Pro'-nrenr of that Coinmnne : he finally employed him-
self in drawina np Lists of Proscription in the I.iixem-
boiirL' Prison, when he played the part of informer,
. (iiiontiin.) See Tnlilrini drs Prisims ile Paris snus Ruhcs-
pierrr." These details are rorrert. In the Memnircs
surlm Prir.ov.i, (new Title of the Book jnst referred to.)
ii. 171. we find this: "The second Denonncer was
Ueausire, an l",x-Nolile, l<nown under the old :;overii-
menl for his ititri?nes. To give an idea of him. it is
eiioii-rh lo say tliat he married the d'Oliva," &c., as in
the MS. Note already civeii. Finally is added: "lie
was the main spy of Boyenval ; who, however, said that
*)e made use of him ; but that Fouquier-Tinville did not
ike him, and would have him guillotined in sood
lime "

t See Campan,

POSTURE waver? Burst there, in stariy sheen,
updarting. Light-rays from out its dark foun-
dations; as it rocks and heaves, not in travail,
throes, but in death-throes ? Yea, Light-rays,
piercing, clear, that salute the Heavens, — lo,
they A()/c//(? it; their starry clearness becomes asi
red Hellfire ! Intpos-ruiiE is burnt up ; one Red-
sea of Fire, wild-billowing enwraps the World ;
with its fire-tongue licks at the Stars. Thrones
are hurled into it, and Dubois Mitres, and Pre-
bcndal Stalls that drop fatness, and — ha! what
see I? — all the Gi^s of Creation: all, all! Wo
is me! Never since Pharaoh's Chariots, in
the Red-sea of water, was there wreck of
Wheel-vehicles like this in the Sea of Fire.
Desolate, as ashes, as gases, shall they wander
in the wind.

"Higher, higher, yet flames the Fire-Sea;
crackling with new dislocated timber; hissing
with leather and prunella. The metal Images
are molten ; the marble Images become mor-
tar-lirne; the stone Mountains sulkily explode.
Respectability, with all her collected Gigs
inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the
Earth, — to return under new Avatar. Impos-
ture, how it burns, through generations: how
it is burnt up — for a time. The World is black
ashes; which — when will they grow green?
The Images all run into amorphous Corinthian
brass; all Dwellings of men destroyed; the
very mountains peeled and riven, the valleys
black and dead: it is an empty World! Wo

to them that shall be born then ! A King, a

Queen, (ah me!) wei-e hurled in; did rustle
once ; flew aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll.
Oliva's Husband was hurled in ; Iscariot Ega-
lite ; thou grim De Laiinay, with thy grim Bas-
tille ; whole kindreds and peoples ; five millions
of mutually destroying Men. For it is the
End of the Dominion of Impostuhe (which is
Darkness and opaque Firedamp ; and the burn-
ing up, with unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs
that are in the' Earth !" — Here the Prophet
paused, fetching a deep sigh ; and the Cardinal
uttered a kind of faint, tremulous Hern !

"Mourn not, O Monseigneur, spite of thy
nephritic cholic, and many infirmities. For
thee mercifully it was not unto death.* O
Monseigneur, (for thou hadst a touch of good-
ness,) who would not weep over thee, if he
also laughed? Behold ! The not too judicious
Historian, that long years hence, amid remotest
wilderness, writes thy Life, and names thee
Mud-volcano : even he shall reflect that it iters
thy Life this same; l\\y only chance through
whole Eternity ; which thou (poor gambler)
hast expended so: and, even over his hard
heart, a breath of dewy pity for thee shall
blow. — 0 Monseigneur, thou wert not all igno-
ble: thy Mud-v(dcano was but strength dis-
located, fire misapplied. Thou wentest raven-
ing through the world; no Life-elixir or Stone
of the Wise could we two (for want of funds)
discover: a foulest Circe undertook to fatten
thee; and thou hadst to fill thy belly Avith the
east wind. And burst? By the Masonry of

* Rohan was elected of the Constituent Assemblj ;
and even ?ot a compliment or two in it. as Conrt-victiiti,
from here and there a man of we;ik jiidsment. He wa»
one of the first who, recalcitratins against "Civil Coii-
stitniion of the Clergy," &c., look himself across the
Rhine.

478

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Enoch. No ! Behold has not thy Jesuit
Familiar his Scouts dim-tlying over the deep
of human things? Cleared art thou of crime,
save that, of fixed-idea; weepest, a repentant
exile, in the Mountains of Auvergne. Neither
shall the Red Fire-sea itself consume thee;
only consume thy Gig, add, instead of Gig
(O rich exchange!) restore thy Self. Safe be-
yond the Rhine-stream, thou livest peaceful
days; savest many from the fire, and anointest
their smarting burns. Sleep finally, in thy
mother's bosom, in a good old age !" — The
Cardinal gave a sort of guttural murmur, or
gurgle, which ended in a long sigh.

" O Horrors, as ye shall be called," again
burst forth the Quack, "why have ye missed
the Sieur de Lamotte; why not of him, too,
made gallows-carrion 1 Will spear, or sword-
stick, thrust at him, (or supposed to be thrust,)
through window of hackney-coach, in Pic-
cadilly of the Babylon of Fog, where he jolts
disconsolate, not let out the imprisoned animal
existence] Is he poisoned, too?"* Poison
will not kill the Sieur Lamotte; nor steel, nor
massacres-! Let him drag his utterly super-
fluous life to a second and a third generation ;
and even admit the not loo judicious Historian
to see his face before he die.

" But, ha !" cried he, and stood wide-staring,
horror struck, as if some Cribb's fist had
knocked the wind out of him: "0 horror of
horrors ! Is it not Myself I see 1 Roman In-
quisition ! Long months of cruel baiting!
Life of Giuseppe Bakamo ! Cagliostro's Body
Still lying in St. Leo Castle, his Self fled —

whither? By-standers wag their heads, and
say; 'The Brow of Brass, behold how it has
got all unlackered ; these Pinchbeck lips can
lie no more!' Eheu ! Ohoo!" — and he burst
into unstanchable blubbering cf tears; and
sobbing out the moanfullest broken howl, sank
down in swoon ; to be put to bed by De Launay
and others.

Thus spoke (or thus might have spoken)
and prophesied, the Arch-quack Cagliostro;
and truly much better than he ever else did :
for not a jot or tittle of it (save only that of
our promised Interview with Nestor de La-
motte, which looks unlikelier than ever, foi
we have not heard of him, dead or living, since
182G,) but he has turned out to be literally 'rwe.
As, indeed, in all his History, one jot or title
of untruth, that we could render true, is, per-
haps, not discoverable ; much as the distrust-
ful reader may have disbelieved.

Here, then, our little labour ends. The Neck-
lace was, and is no more: the stones of it again
"circulate in commerce" (some of them per-
haps, in Rundle's at this hour;) may give rise to
what other Histories we know not. The Con-
querors of it, every one that trafficke-d in it,
have they not all had their due, which was
Death 1

This little Business, like a little cloud,
bodied itself forth in skies clear to the unob-
servant: but with such hues of deep-tinted
villany, dissoluteness, and general delirium, as
to the observant, betokened it electric; and
wise men (a Goethe, for example) boded
Earthquakes. Has not the Earthquakes come 1

MEMOIRS OF MIHABEAU;

[London and Westjiinsteh Review, 1837.

A PHOVERB says, " The house that is a-
building looks not as the house that is built,"
Environed with rubbish and mortar-heaps with
scaffold-poles, hodmen, dust-clouds, some ru-
diments only of that thing that is to be, can,
to the most observant, disclose themselves
through the mean tumult of the thing that hither-
to is. How true is this same with regard to all
works and facts whatsoever in our world ; em-
phatically true in regard to the highest fact and

* See Laniotte's Narrative, (Memoire.s Jusiificatifs.)
+ Lamotte, after his wife's death, liad returned to
Paris ; ami !)een arrested— n»£ for Ijiiildin;: cliurches.
The Sentence of the old Parleiiient ajaiiist him, in re-
gard to the NecUlace business, he cets annulled hy the
new Courts ; but is, nevertheless, "retained in tonline-
ment," {Monileur Newspaper, 7th August,, 1782.) He
was still in Prison at the time the September Massacre
broke out. Front Matnn de la Varenne we cite the fol-
iowinK ]l,'rim passage : Matnn is in I.a Force Prison.

"At one in tlie mornin!.'," (of Momlay, Si'pieMiber 3.)
writes Malon, "the gnite thai led to (i\ir quarter was
afrain opened. Four men in unifnnii, holdinuf each a
n ilied sabre and blazing' torch, moiinled to our corridor ;
a tunilipy showing the way ; and cMtercd a room close
on ours, to iiivesliiiate a bo.\, wliuli lliey broke ojien.
'I'hio done, they halted in the L'allery ; and began inter-
rogating one Ciiissa, to know where Liimotte was;
wtio. they said, under a pretext of finding a treasure,
ivhicb they should share in, had swindled one of them

work which our world witnesses, — the Life of
what we call an Original Man. Such a man
is one not made altogether by the comiTion
pattern ; one whose phases and goings forth
cannot be prophesied of, even approximately;
though, indeed, by their very newness and
strangeness they most of all provoke prophecy.
A man of this kind, while he lives on earth, is
"unfolding himself out of nothing into some-
thing," surely under very complex conditions :

out of 300 livres, bavinsr asked him to dinner for that
purpose. The wretched f'uissa, whom they had in
their power, and who lost his life that niaht, answered,
all trembling, that he rernciidiered the tact well,
but could not say what had become of the prisoner.
Ilesolule to find this Lamotte and confront him with
Ciiissa, they ascended into other rooms, and made fiir-
llier runHoagiiig there; lint apparenily without effect,
for 1 heiird them say to one another: " Come, search
among the corpses, then for, M'oiii de Dieu! we must
know what is become of him." (Mn Resurrection, par
Jilaton de la Varevve; rei)rinted in l\ie Bisfoire Parle-
iiienlfiire, xviii.- 112.) — Lamotte lay in the Bicetre
Prison ; but h:td got out, precisely in the nick of time, —
and dived btyond soundings.

♦ Meii:oireii btiiin-iijihujiics. Utteraires, et politiques, de
jViraheau; (crils par lui-meme. parson Pdre Ovcle, et son
FiU Jldopiif (Memoirs, bioL'rapliical, literary, and politi-
cal, of Mirabean : written by himself, by his Father, hia
Uncle, and his Adopted Son.) 8 vols. 8 vo, Paris, 1834 — 36.

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

479

he is drawing continually towards him, in con-
tinual succession and variation, the materials
of his structure, nay, his very plan of it, from
the whole realm of accident, you may say, and
from ihe whole realm of free-will: he is btdld-
ing his life together in this manner; a guess
and a problem as yet, not to others only but to
himself. Hence such criticism by the by-
standers; loud no-knowledge, loud misknow-
ledge ! It is like the opening of the Fisher-
man's Casket in the Arabian Tale, this begin-
ning and growing-up of a life : vague smoke
wavering hither and thither; some features of
a Genie looming through ; of , the ultimate
shape of which no fisherman or man can judge.
And yet, as we say, men do judge, and pass
provisional sentence, being forced to it; you
can predict with what accuracy! "Look at
the audience in a theatre," says one: "the life
of a man is there compressed within five4iours'
duration ; is transacted on an open stage, with
lighted lamps, and what the fittest words and
art of genius can do to make the spirit of it
clear; yet listen, when the curtain falls, what
a discerning public will say of that I And now,
if the drama extended over three-score and ten
years ; and were enacted, not with a view to
clearness, but rather indeed with a view to
concealment, often in the deepest attainable
involution of obscurity; and your discerning
public occupied otherwise, cast its eye on the
business now here for a moment, and then there
for a moment?" Wo to him, answer we, who
has no court of appeal against the world's judg-
ment! He is a doomed man: doomed by con-
viction to hard penalties; nay, purchasing ac-
quittal (too probably) by a still harder penalty,
that of being a trivially, superficialty, self-ad-
vertiser, and partial or total quack, which is the
hardest penalty of all.

But suppose farther, that the man, as we
said, was an original man ; that his life-drama
would not and could not be measured by the
three unities alone, but partly by a rule of its
own too: still farther, that the transactions he
had mingled in were great and world-dividing;
that of all his judges there were not one who
had not something to love him for unduly, to
hate him foriinduly! Alas! isit not precisely in
this case, where the whole world is promptest to
judge, that the whole world is lilieliest to be
wrong: natural opacity being so doubly and
trebly darlcened by accidental difficulty and per-
version ■* The crabbed moralist had some show
of reason who said: '-To judge of an original
contemporary man, you must, in general, re-
verse the world's judgment about him ; the
world is not only wrong on that matter, but
cannot on any such matter be right."

One comfort is, that the v/orld is ever work-
ing itself righler and righter on such matters ;
that a continual revisal and rectification of the
world's first judgment on them is inevitably
going on. For, after all, the world loves its
original men, and can in no wise forget them;
not till after a long while; sometimes not till
after thousands of years. Forgetting them,
what indeed, should it remember? The world's
wealth is its original men; by these and their
works it is a world and not a waste: the me-
mory and record of what men it bore — this is

the sum of its strength, its sacred " property
for ever," whereby it upholds itself, and steers
forward better or worse, through the yet undis-
covered deep of Time. All knowledge, all art,
all beautiful or precious possession of exist-
ence, is, in the long run, this, or connected with
this. Science itself, is it not, under one of it3
most interesting aspects, Biograph)'; is it not
the Record of the Work which an original man,
still named by us, or not now named, was
blessed by the heavens to do? That Sphere-
and-cylinder is the monument and abbreviated
history of the man Archimedes; not to be fiir-
gotten, probably, till the world itself vanish.
Of Poets, and what they have done, and how
the world loves them, let us, in these days, very
singular in respect of that Art, say nothing, or
next to nothing. The greatest modern- of the
poetic guild has already said: "Nay if thou
wilt have it, who but the poet first formed gods
for us, brought them down to us, raised us up
to them 1"

Another remark, on a lower scale, not un-
worthy of notice, is by Jean Paul: that, "as in
art, so in conduct, or what we call morals, be-
fore there can be an Aristotle, with his critical
canons, there must be a Homer, many Homers
with their heroic performances." In plainer
words, the original man is the true creator (or
call him revealer) of Morals too : it is from his
example that precepts enough are derived,
and written down in books and systems: he pro-
perly is the Thing; all that follows after is
but talk about the thing, better or M'orse inter-
pretation of it, more or less wearisome and in-
effectual discourse of logic on it. A remark,
this of Jean Paul's which, well meditated, may
seem one of the most pregnant lately written
on these matters. If any man had the ambi-
tion of building a new system of morals, (not
a promising enterprise, at this time of day,)
there is no remark known to us which might
better serve him as a chief corner-stone, where-
on to found, and to build, high enough, nothing
doubting; — high, for instance, as the Christian
Gospel itself. And to whatever other heights
man's destiny may yet carry him ! Consider
whether it was not, from the first, by example,
or say rather by human exemplars, and such]
reverent imitation or abhorrent aversion and
avoidance as these gave rise to, that man's
duties were made indubitable to him ? Also,
if it is not yet, in these last days, by very much
the same means, (example, precept, prohibition,
"force of public opinion," and other forcings
and inducings,) that the like result is brought
about; and, from the Woolsack down tc the
Treadmill, from Almack's to Chalk Farm and
the west-end of Newgate, the incongruous
whirlpool of life is t\)rced and induced to whirl
with some attempt at regularity? The two
Mosaic Tables were of simple limited stone ;
no logic appended to them : we, in our days,
are privileged with Logic — Systems of Morals,
Professors of Moral Philosophy, Theories of
Moral Sentiment, Utilities, Sympathies. Moral
Senses, not a few; useful for those that feel
comfort ii) them. But to the observant eye. is
it not still pbiin that the rule of man's life rests
not very steadily on logic (rather carries logic
unsteadily resting mi i7, a< an excuse, an cj-

480

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

position, or ornamental solacement to oneself
and others ;) that ever, as of old, the thing a
man will do is the thing he feels commanded
to do ; of which command, again, the origin
and reasonableness remains often as good as
twdemoiistrable by logic ; and, indeed, lies
mainly m this, that it has been demonstrated
otherwise and better by experiment; namely,
that an experimental (what we name original)
man has already done it, and we have s«n it to
be good and reasonable, and now know it to be
so once and for evermore ? — Enough of this.

He were a sanguine individual, surely, that
should turn to the French Revolution for new
rules of conduct and creators or exemplars of
morality, — except, indeed, exemplars of the
gibbetted, in-lerrorem sort. A greater work, it
is often said, was never done in the world's
history by men so small. Twenty-five mil-
lions (say these severe critics) are hurled
forth out of all their old habitudes, arrange-
ments, harnessings, and garnitures, into the
new, quite void arena and career of Sansndott-
ism ; there to show what originality is in them.
Fanfaronading and gesticulation, vehemence,
efiervescence, heroic desperation, they do show
in abundance ; but of what one can call origi-
nality, invention, natural stuff or character,
amazingly little. Their heroic desperation,
such as it was, we will honour and even ve-
nerate, as a new document (call it rather a
renewal of that primeval ineffaceable docu-
ment and charter) of the manhood of man.
But, for the rest, there were Federations;
there were Festivals of Fraternity, " the
Statute of Nature pouring water from her two
rnwmmelles" and the august Deputies all drink-
ing of it from the same iron saucer: Weights
and Measures were attempted to be changed ;
the Months of the Year becaine Pluviose,
Thermidor, Messidor (till Napoleon said, II
fuudra se dcbarrasscr de se Messidor, One must
get this Messidor sent about its business:)
also Mrs. Momoro and others rode prosperous,
as Goddesses of Reason ; and then, these being
mostly guillotined, Mahomet Robespierre did,
with bouquet in hand, and in new nankeen
trowsers, in front of the Tuileries, pronounce
the scraggiest of prophetic discourses on the
Etre Siiprci/ic, and set fire to much emblematic
pasteboard: — all this, and an immensity of
such, the twenty-five millions did devise and
accomplish ; but (apart frcjm their heroic des-
peration, which was no miracle either, beside
that of the old Dutch, for instance) this, and
the like of this, was almost all. Their arena
of Sansculottism was the most original arena
opened to man for above a thousand years ;
and they, at bottom, were unexpectedly com-
mon-place in it. Exaggerated common-place,
triviality run distracted, and a kind 'of uni-
versal ''Frenzyof John Dennis," is the figure
they exhibit. The brave Forster, — sinking
slowly of broken heart, in the midst of that
volcanic chaos of the Reign of Terror, and
clinging still to the cause, which, though now
bloody and terrible, he believed to be the
highest, and for which he had sacrificed all,
country, kindred, fortune, friends, and life, —
compares the Revolution, indeed, to "an ex-

plosion and new creation of the world;" but
the actors in it, that went buzzing about him,
to a " handvoU miicken, handful of flies."* And
yet, one may add, this same explosion of a
world was their work; the work of these —
flies ] The truth is, neither Forster nor any
man can see a French Revolution ; it is like
seeing the ocean: poor Charles Lamb com-
plained that he could not see the multitudin-
ous ocean at all, but only some insignificant
fraction of it from the deck of the Margate
hoy. It must be owned, however, (urge these
severe critics,) that examples of rabid trivi-
ality abound, in the French Revolution, to
a lamentable extent. Consider Maximilien
Robespierre; for the greater part of two years,
what one may call Autocrat of France. A
poor sea-green (vcrddtrc,) atrabiliar Formula
of a man ; without head, without heart, or any
grace, gift, or even vice beyond common, if it
were not vanit}% astucity, diseased rigour
(which some count strength) as of a cramp:
really a most poor sea-green individual in
spectacles; meant by Nature for a Methodist
parson of the stricter sort, to doom men who
departed from the written confession ; to chop
fruitless shrill logic ; to contend, and suspect,
and ineffectually wrestle and vvriggle ; and, on
the whole, to love, or to know, or to be
(properly speaking) Nothing; — this was he
who, the sport of wracking winds, saw him-
self whirled aloft to command la premiere nation
de I'miivers, and all men shouting long life to
him ; one of the most lamentable, tragic, sea-
green objects, ever whirled aloft in that man-
ner, in any country, to his own swift destruc-
tion, and the world's long wonder!

So argue these severe critics of the French
Revolution : with whom we argue not here ;
but remark rather, what is more to the pur-
pose, that the French Revolution did disclose
original men : among the twenty-five millions,
at least one or two units. Some reckon, in
the present stage of the business, as many as
three : Napoleon, Danton, Mirabeau. Whether
more will come to light, or of what sort, when
the computation is quite liquidated, one can-
not say: meanwhile let the world be thankful
for these three; — as, indeed, the world is;
loving original men, without limit, were they
never so questionable, well knowing how rare
they are! To us, accordingly, it is rather
interesting to observe how on these three also,
questionable as they surely are, the old pro-
cess is repeating itself; how these also are
getting known in their true likeness. A
second generation, relieved in some measure
from the spectral hallucinations, hysterical
ophthalmia, and natural panic-delirium of the
first contemporary one, is gradually coming
to discern and measure what its predecessor
could only execrate and shriek over: for, as
our Proverb said, the dust is sinking, the rub-
bish-heaps disappear; the built house, such
as it is, and was appointed to be, stands
visible, better or worse.

Of Napoleon Bonaparte, what with so many
bulletins, and such self-proclamation from
artillery and battle-thunder, loud enough to

Forsier's Briefe und Nachlass.

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

481

ring through the deafest brain, in the remotest
nook of this earth, and now, in consequence,
with so many biographies, histories, and histo-
rical arguments for and against, it may be
said that he can now sift for himself; that his
true figure is in a fair way of being ascer-
tained. Doubtless it will be found one day
what significance was in him; how (we quote
from a New England Book) "the man was a
divine missionary, though unconscious of it;
and preached, through the cannon's throat,
that great doctrine. La carricre ouvcrte aux talcm:,
(The tools to him that can handle them,) which
is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein
alone can Liberty lie. Madly enough he
preached, it is true, as enthusiasts and first
mis.sionaries are wont; with imperfect utter-
ance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articu-
lately, perhaps, as the case admitted. Or call
him, if you will, an American backwoodsman,
who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle
with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely
forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft;
whom, nevertheless, the peaceful sower will
follow, and, as he cuts the boundless harvest,
bless." — From "the incarnate Moloch," which
the word once was, onwards to this quiet
version, there is a considerable progress.

Still more interesting is it, not without a
touch almost of pathos, to see how the rugged
Terra Filnis Dariton begins likewise to emerge,
from amid the blood-tinted obscurations and
shadows of horrid cruelty, into calm light; and
seems now not an Anthropophagus, but partly
a man. On the whole, the Eanh feels it to be
something to have a "Son of Earth;" any
reality, rather than a hypocrisy and formula !
"With a man that went honestly to Avork with
himself, and said and acted, in any sense, with
the whole mind of him, there is alwa3's some-
thing to be done. Satan himself, according to
Dante, was a praiseworthy object, compared
with those justc-niilicu angels (so over-nu-
merons in times like ours) who " were iieitJier
faithful nor rebellious," but were for their little
selves only: trimmers, moderates, plausible
persons, who, in the Dantean Hell, are found
doomed to this frightful penalty, that "they
have not the hope to die, (non hnn aperanza di
ninrie;) but sunk in torpid death-life, in mud
and the plague of flies, they are to doze and
dree for ever, — "hateful to God and to the
Enemies of God :"

" .ATon ragionum di lor, ma guarda e passa .'"

If Bonaparte were the "armed Soldier of
Democracy," invincible while he continued
true to that, then let us call this Danton the
Etifaiit Perdu, and M«enlisted Revolter and
Titan of Democracy, which could not yet have
soldiers or discipline, but was by the nature
of it lawless. An Earthborn, we say, yet
honestly born of Earth ! In the Memoirs of
Giirtil, and elsewhere, one sees these fire-eyes
beam with earnest insight, fill with the water
of tears; the huge rude features speak withal
of wild human sympathies; that Antaeus' bosom
also held a heart. "It is not the alarm-can-
non that you hear," cries he to the terror-
struck, when the Prussians were^ already at
Verdun: "it is the pas de charge against our
61

enemies. Be l'auda<-e, et encore de Vaudace, et
tovjours de Vaudace: to dare, and again to dare,
and without limit to dare!" — there is nothing
left but that. Poor " Mirabeau of the Sanscu-
lottes," what a mission ! And it could not be
but done, — and it was done ! But, indeed, may
there not be, if well considered, more virtue in
this feeling itself, once bursting earnest from
the wild heart, than in whole lives of imma-
culate Pharisees and Respectabilities, with
their eye ever set on "character," and the
letter of the law: "Qmc mon nom soit fleiri, Let
my name be blighted, then; let the Cause be
glorious, and have victory !" By and by, as
we predict, the Friend of Humanity, since so
many Knife-grinders have no stor}' to tell him,
will find some sort of story in this Danton. A
rough-hewn giant of a man, (not anthropopha-
gous entirely;) whose "figures of speech" (and
also of action) " are all gigantic ;" whose
"voice reverberates from the domes," — and
dashes Brunswick acrosb the marches in a
very wrecked condition. Always his total
freedom from cant is one thing ; even in his
briberies, and sins as to money, therb is a
frankness, a kind of broad greatness. Sin-
cerity, a great rude sincerity, (of insight and
of purpose,) dwelt in the man, which quality
is the root of all: a man who could see through
many things, and would stop at very ^ew
flings ; who marched impetuously, where to
march was almost certainly to fall ; and now
bears the penalty, in a " name" blighted, yet,
as we say, visibly clearing itself. Once
cleared, why should not this name, too, have
significance for men 1 The wild history is a
tragedy, as all human histories are. Brawny
Dantons, still to the present hour, " rend the
glebe," as simple brawny Farmers, and reap
peaceable harvests, at Arcis-sur-Aube; and
tills Danton — ! It is an ?/«rhymed tragedy;
very bloody, fuliginous, (after the manner of
the elder dramatists ;) yet full of tragic ele-
ments; not undeserving natural pity and fear.
In quiet times, perhaps still at a great distance,
the happier onlooker may stretch out the hand,
across dim centuries, to him, and say: "Ill-
starred brother, how thou foughtest with wild
lion-strength, and yet not with strength enough,
and flamedst aloft, and wert trodden down of
sin and misery; — behold, thou also wert a
man !" It is said there lies a Biography of
Danton written, in Paris, at this moment ; but
the editor waits till the "force of public opi-
nion" ebb a little. Let him publish, with
utmost convenient despatch, and sa}' what he
knows, if he do know it: the lives of remark-
able men are always worth understanding
instead of misunderstanding ; and public
opinion must positively adjust itself the best
way it can.

But without doubt the far most interesting
best-gifted of this questionable trio is not the
Mirabeau of the Sansculottes, but the Mira-
beau himself: a man of much finer nature
than either of the others; of a genius equal in
strength (we will say) to Napoleon's; but a
much humaner genius, alinost a poetic one.
With wider sympathies of his own. he appeal.-j
far more persuasively to the sympathies of men.
2 S \

482

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Of him, too, it is interesting to notice the
progressive dawning, out of calumny, misre-
presentation, and confused darkness, into visi-
bility and light; and how tlie world manifests
its continued curiosity about him; and as
book after book comes forth with new evi-
dence, the matter is again taken up, the old
judgment on it revised and anew revised; —
whereby, in fine, we can hope the right, or ap-
proximately right, sentence will be found ; and
so the question be left settled. It would seem
this Mirabeau also is one whose memory the
world will not, for a long while, let die. Very
different from many a high memory, dead and
deep buried long since then ! In his lifetime,
even in the final effulgent part of it, this Mira-
beau took upon him to write, with a sort of
awe-struck feeling, to our Mr. Wilberforce;
and did not, that we can find, get the benefit
of any answer. Pitt was prime minister, and
then Fox, then again Pitt, and again Fox, in
sweet vicissitude; and the noise of them, re-
verberating through Brookes's and the club-
rooms, through tavern dinners, electioneering
hustings, leading articles, filled all the earth ;
and it seemed as if those two (though which
might be which, you could not say) were the
Ormuzd and Ahriman of political nature; —
and now! Such difference is there (once
more) between an original man, of never such
questionable sort, and the most dexterous, cun-
ningly-devised parliamentary mill. The dif-
ference is great; and one of those on which
the future time makes largest contrast with
the present. Nothing can be more important
than the mil! while it continues and grinds;
important above all to those who have sacks
about the hopper. But the grinding once done,
how can the memory of it endure] It is im-
portant now to no individual, not even to the
individual with a sack. So that, this tumult
well over, the memory of the original man,
and of what small revelation he, as Son of
Nature and brother-man, could make, does
naturally rise on us: his memorable sayings,
actings, and sufferings, the very vices and
crimes he fell into, are a kind of pabulum
which all mortals claim their right to.

Concerning 7^cMr/;rt, Chausin!rd,G swwrr/, and,
indeed, all the former Biographers of Mira-
beau, there can little be said here, except that
they abound with errors: the present ultimate
Fits AdojXif, has never done picking faults
with them. Not as memorials of Mirabeau,
but as memorials of the world's relation to him,
of the world's treatment of him, they may, a
little longer, have some perceptible signifi-
cance. From poor Peuchet (he was known
in the Monheur once,) and other the like la-
bourers in the vineyard, you can justly demand
thus much; and not justly much more.

Etienne Dumont's Souvenirs siir Mirabeau
iiiight not, at first sight, seem an advance
towards true knowledge, but a movement the
other way, and yet it was really an advance.
The book, for one thing, was hailed by a uni-
versal choral blast from all manner of reviews
and periodical literatures that Europe, in all
its spellable dialects, had: whereby, at least,
the minds of men were again drawn to the
subiecl: and so, amid whatever hallucination.

ancient or new-devised, some increase of in
sight was unavoidable. Besides, the book
itself did somewhat. Numerous specialities
about the great Frenchman, as read by the
eyes of the little Genevese, were conveyed
there ; and could be deciphered, making allow-
ances. Dumont is faithful, veridical; within
his own limits he has even a certain freedom,
a picturesquenes.s and light clearness. It is
true, the whim he had of looking at the great
Mirabeau as a thing set in motion mainly by
him (M. Dumont) and such as he, was one of
the most wonderful to be met with in psycho
logy. Nay, more wonderful still, how the re-
viewers, pretty generally, some from whom
better was expected, took up the same M'ith
aggravations; and it seemed settled on all
sides, that here again a pretender had been
stripped, and the great made as little as the
rest of us (much to our comfort); that, in fact,
figuratively speaking, this enormous Mirabeau,
the sound of whom went forth to all lands, was
no other than an enormous trumpet, or coach-
horn, (of japanned tin,) through which a dex-
terous little M. Dumont was blowing all the
while, and making the noise! Some men and
reviewers have strange theories of man. Let
any son of Adam, the shallowest now living,
try honestly to scheme out, within his head, an
existence of this kind ; and say how verisimi-
lar it looks ! A life and business actually con-
ducted on such coach-horn principle, — we say
not the life and business of a statesman and
world-leader, but say of the poorest laceman
and tape-seller, — were one of the chief miracles
hitherto on record. Oh, M. Dumont! But thus,
too, when old Sir Christopher struck down the
last stone in the Dome of St. Paul's, was it he
that carried up the stone? No; it was a cer-
tain strong-backed man, never mentioned,
(covered with envious or unenvious oblivion,)
— probably of the Sister Island.

Let us add, however, more plainly, that M.
Dumont was less to blame here than his re-
viewers were. The gofid Dumont accurately
records what ingenious journey-work and
fetching and carrying he did for his Mirabeau ;
interspersing many an anecdote, which the
world is very glad of; extenuating nothing we
do hope, nor exaggerating anything: this is
what he did, and had a clear right and call to
do. And what if it failed, not altogether, yet
in some measure if it did fail, to «trike him,
that he still properlv was but a Duinnnt 7 Nay, '
that the gift this Mirabeau had of enlisting
such respectable Dumonts to do hod-work and
even skilful handiwork for him ; and of ruling
them and bidding them by the look of his eye;
and of making them cheerfully fetch and carry
for him, and serve him as loyal subjects, with
a kind of chivalry and willingness, — that this
gift was precisely the kinghood of the man,
and did itself stamp him as a leader among
men ! Let no man blame M. Dumont (as some
have too harshly done) ; his error is of over-
sight, and venial; his worth to us is indisput-
able. On the other hand, let all men blame
such public instructors and periodical indi-
vidiJals as drew that inference ai? 1 life-theory
for him, and brayed it forth in that loud man-
ner; or rather, on the whole, do not blame, bul

MEMOIRS OF MIR ABE AU.

483

pardon, and pass by on the other side. Such
things are an ordained trial of public patience,
which perhaps is the better for discipline;
and seldom, or rather nev^er, do any lasting
injury.

Close following on Dumont's " Reminis-
cences" came this Biography by M. Lucas
Montigny, "Adopted Son;" the first volume in
1834, the rest at short intervals ; and lies
complete now in Eight considerable Volumes
octavo: concerning which we are now to
speak, — unhappily, in the disparaging sense.
In fact it is impossible for any man to say un-
mixed good of M. Lucas's work. That he, as
Adopted Son, has lent himself so resolutely to
the washing of his hero white, and even to the
white-washing of him where the natural colour
was black, be this no blame to him; or even,
if you will, be it praise. If a man's Adopted
Son may not write the best book he can for
him, then who may? But the fatal circum-
stance is, that M. Lucas Montigny has not
written a book at all ; but has merely clipped
and cut out, and cast together the materials for
a book, which other men are still wanted to
write. On the whole M. Montigny rather sur-
prises one. For the reader probably knows,
what all the world whispers to itself, that when
"Mirabeau, in 1783, adopted this infant born
the year before," he had the best of all con-
ceivable obligations to adopt him; having, by
his own act, (»oii-notarial,) summoned him to
appear in this World. And now consider both
what Shakspeare's Edmund, what Poet Savage,
and such like, have bragged; and also that the
Mirabeaus, from time immemorial, had (like a
certain British kindred known to us) " pro-
duced many a blackguard, but not one block-
head !" We almost discredit that statement,
which all the world whispers to itself; or, if
crediting it, pause over the ruins of families.
The Haarlem canal is not flatter than M. Mon-
tigny's genius. He wants the talent which
seems born wiih all Frenchmen, that of pre-
senting M'hat knowledge he has in the most
knowable form. One of the solidest men, too :
doubtless a valuable man; whom it were so
pleasant for us to praise, if we could. May he
be happy in a private station, and never write
more; — except for the Bureaux de Prefecture,
with tolerably handsome official appointments,
which is far better !

His biographical work is a monstrous quar-
rj', or mound of shot-rubbish, in eight strata,
hiding valuable matter, which he that seeks
will find. Valuable, we say; for the Adopted
Son havingaccess, nay welcome and friendly en-
treaty, to family papers, to all manner of ar-
chives, secret record^; and workingtherein long
years, with a filial unweariedness, has made
him'^elf piousjy at home in all corners of the
matter. He might, with the same spirit, (as
we always upbraidingly think,) so easily have
made us at home too! But no: he brings to
light things new and old; now precious illus-
trati\e jirivate documents, now the poorest
public heaps of mere pamphleteer and parlia-
mentary matter, so attainable elsewhere, often
so omissible were it not to be attained ; and
jumbles and tumbles the whole together with
such reckless clumsiness, with such endless

copiousness (having wagons enough) as gives
the reader many a pang. The very pains be-
stowed on it are often perverse; the whole is
become so hard, heavy; unworkable, except
in the sweat of one's brow ! Or call it a mine,
— artificial-natural silver mine. Threads of
beautiful silver ore lie scattered, which you
must dig for, and sift: suddenly, when your
thread or vein is at the richest, it vanishes (as
is the way with mines) in thick masses of
agglomerate and pudding-stone, no man can
guess whither. This is not as it should be;
and yet unfortunately it could be no other.
The long bad book is so much easier to do
than the brief good one; and a poor bookseller
has no way of measuring and paying but by
the ell, cubic or superficial. The very weaver
comes and says, not "I have woven so many
ells of stufl^," but "so many ells of snch stuff:"
satin and Cashmere-shawl stuff, — or, if it be
so, duffle and coal-isacking, and even cobweb
stuff.

Undoubtedly the Adopted Son's will was
good. Ought we not to rejoice greatly in the
possession of these same silver-veins ; and take
them in the buried mineral slate, or in any
Slate ; too thankful to have them now inde-
structible, now that they are printed] Let the
world, we say, be thankful to M. Montigny, and
yet Icnow what it is they are thanking him for.
No Life (f Mirabeau is to be found in these
Volumes, but the amplest materials for writing
a Life. Were the Eight Volumes well riddled
and smelted down into One Volume, such as
might be made, that one were the volume!
Nay it seems an enterprise of such uses, and
withal so feasible, that some day it is as good
as sure to be done, and again done, and finally
well done.

The present reviewer, restricted to a mere
article, purposes, nevertheless, to sift and ex-
tract somewhat. He has bored (so to speak)
and run mine-shafts through the book in vari-
ous directions, and knows pretty well what is
in it, though indeed not so well where to find
the same, having unfortunately (as reviewers
are wont) " mislaid our paper of references !"
Wherefore, if the best extracts be not presented,
let not M. Lucas suffer. By one means and
another, some sketch of Mirabeau's history;
what befel him successively in this World, and
what steps he successively took in consequence ;
and how he and it, working together, made the
thing we call Mirabeau's Life, — may be brought
out; extremely imperfect, yet truer, one can
hope, than the Biographical Dictionaries and
ordinary voice of rumour give it. Whether,
and if so, where and how, the current estimate
of Mirabeau is to be rectified, fortified, or in
any important point overset and expunged, will
hereby come to light, almost of itself, as we
proceed. Indeed, it is very singular, consider-
ing the emphatic judgments daily uttered, in
print and speech, about this man, what Egyp-
tian obscurity rests over the mere facts of his
external history ; the right knowledge of which,
one would fancy, must be the preliminary of
an}' judgment, however faint. But thus, as
we always urge, are such judgments generally
passed: vague /(/fAjS'iVn, (decrees of the common
people;) made up of innumerable loud empty

484

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS ^ RITINGS.

ayes and loud empty noes; which are without
meaning, and have only sound and currency :
plcbisciia needing so much revisai I — To the
work, however. '

One of the most valuable elements in these
eight chaotic volumes of M. Muntigny is the
knowledge he communicates of Muabeau's
father; of his kindred and family, contemporary
and anterior. Tiie father, wc in general knew,
was Victor Rjquetii, Marquis de Mirabeau,
called and calling himself the Friend of Men ,■ a
title, for the rest, which b^ des him no good, in
these days of ours. Accordingly one heard it
added with little sarpriNC, that this Friend of
Men was the enemy of almost every man he
had to do with; beginning at his own hearth,
ending a! the utmost circle of his acquaintance ;
and only beyond that, feeling liimself free to
love men. " The old hypocrite V cry many, —
not we. Alas, it is so much easier to love men
while ihey exist only on paper, or quite flexible
and compliant in your itnagination, than to
love Jack and Kit who stand there in the body,
hungry, untoward; jostling you, barring you,
with angular elbows, with appetites, irasci-
bilities, and a stupid will of their own! There
is no doubt but old Marquis Mirabeau found it
exti'emely difficult to get on with his brethren
of mankind; and proved a crabbed, sulphurous,
choleric old gentleman, many a sad time:
nevertheless, there is much to be set right in
that matter; and M. Lucas, if one can carefully
follow him, has managed to do it. Had M.
Lucas but seen good to print these private
letters, family documents, and more of them,
(for he "could make thirty octavo volumes,")
in a separate state; in mere chronological
order, \^iih some small commentary of anno-
tation; and to leave all the rest alone! — As it
is, one must search and sift. Happily the old
Marquis himself, in periods of leisure, or forced
leisure, whereof he had many, drew up certain
"unpublished memoirs" of his father and pro-
geniu.rs ; out of which memoirs young Mira-
beau also in forced leisure (still more forced,
in the (Jastle of If!) redacted one Memoir, of a
very readable sort: by the light of this latter,
so far as it will last, we walk with convenience.
The Mirabeaus were Riquettis by surname,
which is a slight corruption of the Italian Jlrri-
gliiiti. They came from Florence: cast out of
it in some Guelph-Ghibelline quarrel, such as
were common there and then, in the year 1267.
Stormy limes then, as now I The chronologist
can remark that Dante Alighieri was a little
boy of some four years that morning the Arri-
ghetlis had to go, and men had to say, "They
are gone, these villains ! They are gone, these
martj rs !" the little boy listening with interest.
Let the boy become a man, and he too shall
have to go; and prove rnnie e duro cdUc, and
what a world this is; and have his poet-nature
not killed, for it would not kill, but darkened
into Old-Hebrew sternness, and sent onwards
to Hades and Eternity for a home to itself.
As Dame Quickly said in the Dream — "Those
were rare tiines, Mr. Rigmarole ! — Pretty much
like ourown, "answered he. — In this manner did
the Arrighettis (doubtless in grim Longobardic
ire) scale the Alps; and become Tramontane

French Riquettis; and produce, — among othef
things, the present article in this Review.

It was hinted above that these Riquettis
were a notable kindred ; as indeed there ia
great likelihood, if we knew it rightly, the
kindred and fathers of most notable men are.
The Vaucluse fountain, that gushes out as a
river, may well have run some space unde?
ground in that character, before it found vent.
Nay perhaps it is not always, or often, the in-
trinsically greatest of a family-line that be-
comes the noted one, but only the best favoured
of fortune. So rich here, as elsewhere, is
Nature, the mighty Mother; and scatters froiA
a single Oak-tree, as provender for pigs, what
would plant the whole Planet into an oak-
forest ! For truly, if there were not a mute
force in her, where were she with the speak-
ing and exhibiting one? If under that frothy
I superficies of braggarts, babblers, and high-
sounding, richly-decorated personages, that
strut and fret, and preach in all times Qwim
piirvn sipienlid resa.'tn; there lay not some sub-
stratum of silently heroic men; working as
men ; with man's energy, enduring and en-
deavouring; invincible, who whisper not even
to themselves how energetic they are ? — l^he
Riquetti family was, in some measure, defined
already by analogy to that British one; as a
family totally exempt from blockheads, but a
little liable to produce blackguards. It took
root in Provence, and bore strong southern
fruit there: a restless, stormy line of men;
with the wild blood running in them, and as
if there had been a doom hung over them
("like the line of Atreus," Mirabeau used to
say,) which really there was, the wild blood
.itself being doom enough. How long they had
stormed in Florence and elsewhere, these
Riquettis, history knows not; but for the space
of those five centuries, in Provence, thev were
never without a man to stand Riquetti-like on
the earth. Men sharp of speech, prompt of
stroke ; men quick to discern, fierce to resolve ;
headlong, headstrong, strong everyway; who
often found the civic race-course too strait for
them, and kicked against the pricks ; doing
this thing or the other, which the world had to
animadvert upon, in various dialects, and find
" clean against rule."

One Riquetti (in performance of ^some vow
at sea, as the tradition goes) chained two
mountains together: "the iron chain is still to
be seen at Moustier; — it stretches from one
mountain to the other, and in the middle of it
there is a large star with five rays;" the sup-
posed date is 1390. Fancy the Smiths at
work on ilns business ! The town of Moustier
is in the Basses-Alpes of Provence : whether
the Riquetti chain creaks there to this hour,
and lazily sM'ags in the winds, with its "star
of five rays" in the centre, and ofl^ers an un-
certain perch to the sparrow, we know not.
Or perhaps it was cut down in the Revolution
time, when tlipre rose such a hatred jf no-
blesse, such a fiimine for iron; and made into
pikes'? The Adopted Son, so minute general'/,
ought to have mentioned, but does not. — That
there ^Vas building of hospitals, endowing of
convents, Chartreux, Recollets, down even to
Jesuits; still more, that there ivas harrying

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

48S

hnd fightinfir, needs not be mentioned : except
only that all this went on with uncommon
emphasis among the Riquettis. What quarrel
could there be and a Riquetti not in iti They
fought much; with an eye to profit, to redress
of disprofit; probably too for the art's sake.

What proved still more rational, they got
footing in Marseilles as trading nobles, (a kind
of French Venice in those days,) and took
with great diligence to commerce. The family
biographers are careful to say that it was in
the Venetian style, however, and not ignoble.
In which sense, indeed, one of their sharp-
spoken ancestors, on a certain bishop's un-
ceremoniously styling him "Jean de Riquetti,
Merchant of Marseilles," made ready answer,
"I am, or was, merchant of police here," (first
consul, an office for nobles only,) "as my
Lord Bishop is merchant of holy-water:" let
his Reverence take that. At all events, the
read3^-spoken proved first-rate traders ; ac-
quired their bas:ide, or mansion, (white, on
one of those green hills behind Marseilles,)
endless warehouses: acquired the lands first
of this, then of that; the lands, Village, and
Castle of Mirabeau on the banks of the Du-
rance; respectable Castle of Mirabeau, "stand-
ing on its scarped rock, in the gorge of two
valleys, swept by the north wind," — very
brown and melancholy-looking now! W^hat
is extremely advantageous, the old Marquis
says, they had a singular talent for choosing
M'ives; and always chose discreet, valiant
■women; whereby the lineage was the better
kept up. One grandmother, whom the Mar-
quis himself might all but remember, was
wont to say, alluding to the degeneracy of the
age: "You are men! You are but mannikins
(^sias Iwuniachnincs, ii) Provencal;) we women,
in our time, carried pistols in our girdles, and
could use them too." Or fancy the Dame Mi-
rabeau sailing stately towards the church-
font; another dame striking in to take preced-
ence other; the Dame Mirabeau despatching
this latter with a box on the ear (savJfJet'^ and
these words: "Here, as in the army, the bag-
gage goes lastl" Thus did the Riquettis
grow, and were strong; and did exploits in
their narrow arena, wailing for a wider one.

When it came to courtiership, and your
field of preferment was the Versailles CEil-de-
BoBuf, and a Grand Monarque walking encir-
cled with scarlet women and adulators there,
the course of the Miiabeaiis grew still more
complicated. They had the career of arms
open, better or worse: but that was not the
only one, not the main one; gold apples seem-
ed to rain on other careers, — on that career
lead bullets mostly. Observe how a Bruno,
Count de Mirabeau, comports himself: — like
a rhinoceros yoked in carriage-gear; his fierce
forest-horn set to dangle a plume of flmrs-dc-
lis. "One day he had chased a blue man (it is
a sort of troublesome usher, at Versailles)
into the very cabinet of the Icing, who there-
upon ordered the Duke de la Feuillade to 'put
Mirabeau under arrest.' Mirabeau refused
to obey; 'he would not be punished for chas-
tising the insolence of a valet; for the rest,
would go to the diner du roi, (king's dinner,)
'*Uo might then give his order himself.' He

came accordingly; the king asked the duke
why he had not executed the order? The
duke was obliged to say how it stood ; the king,
with a goodness equal to his greatness, then
said, 'It is not of to-day that we know him to
bemad; one must not ruin him,'" — and rhino^
ceros Bruno journeyed on. But again, on the
day when they were " inaugurating the pedes-
trian statue of King Louis in the Place des
Victoires," (a masterpiece of adulation,) the
same Mirabeau, "passing along the PontNeuf
with the Guards, raised his spontoon to his
shoulder before Henry the Fourth's statue, and
saluting first, bawled out, ' Friends, we will
salute this one; he deserves it as well as
some:'" (Mes amis, saluons cclui-ci ; d en vaut
bien un autre.) — Thus do they, the wild Riquet-
tis, in a state of courtiership. Not otherwise,
according to the proverb, do wild bulls, unex- >
pectedly finding themselves in crockery-shops.
O Riquetti kindred, into what centuries and
circumstances art thou come down !

Directly prior to our old Marquis himself,
the Riquetti kindred had as near as possible
gone out. Jean Antoine, afterwards named
Silverstock, {Col de Ar<ient,') had, in the earlier
part of his life, been what he used to call killed,
— of seven-and-twenty wounds in one hour.
Haughtier, juster, more choleric man need not
be sought for in biography. He flung gabelle-
nien and excisemen into the river Durance
(though otherwise a most dignified, methodic
man) when their claims were not clear; he
ejected, by the like brief process, all manner
of attorneys from his villages and properties ;
he planted vineyards, solaced peasants. He
rode through France repeatedly, (as the old
men still remembered,) with the gallantest
train of outriders, on return from the wars;
intimidating innkeepers and all the world, into
mute prostration, into unerring promptitude,
by the mere light of his eye ; — withal drinking
rather deep, yet never seen aflfected by it. He
was a tall, straight man (of six feet and up-
wards) in mind as in body; Vendome's "right
arm" in all campaigns. Vendome once pre-
sented him to Louis the Great, with compli-
ments to that effect, which the splenetic Ri-
quetti quite spoiled. Erecting his killed head
(which needed the silver stock now to keep it
straight,) he said: "Yes, Sire; and had I left
my fighting, and come up to court, and bribed
some eaiin (scarlet-woman!) I might have had
my promotion and fewer wounds to-day!"
The Grand King, every inch a king, instan-
taneously spoke of something else.

But the reader should have first seen that
same killing; how twenty-seven of those un-
profitable wounds were come by in one fell
lot. The Battle of Casuno has grown very ob-
scure to most of us ; and indeed Prince Eu-
gene and Vendome themselves grow dimmer
and dimmer, as men and battles must; but,
curiously enough, this small fraction of it has
brightened up again to a point of histor}'' fer
the time being : —

" My grandfather had forseen tnat mancEU-
vre" (it is Mirabeau, the Count, not the Mar-
quis, that reports : Prince Eugene has carried
a certain bridge which the grandfather had
charge of;) " but he did not, as has since hap-
2 82

4»6

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

pened at Malplaquet and Fontenoy, commit
the blunder of attacking right in the teeth a
column of such weight as that. He lets them
advance, hurried on by their own impetuosity
and by the pressure of their rearward; and
now, seeing them pretty well engaged, he
raised his troop, (it was lying flat on the
ground,) and rushing on, himself at the head
of them, takes the enemy in flank, cuts them
in two, dashes them back, chases them over
the bridge again, which they had to repass in
great disorder and haste. Things brought to
their old state, he resumes his post on the
crown of the bridge, shelters bis troop as be-
fore, which, having performed all this service
under the sure deadly fire of the enemy's dou-
ble lines from over the stream, had suffered a
good deal. M. de Vendome coming up, full
gallop, to the attack, finds it already finished,
the whole line flat on the earth, only the tall
figure of the colonel standing erect! He or-
ders him to do like the rest, not to have him-
self shot till the time came. His faithful
servant cries to him, 'Never would I expose
myself without need ; I am bound to be here,
but you, Monseigneur, are bound not. I an-
swer to you for the post; but fake yourself
out of it, or I give it up.' The Prince (Ven-
dome) then orders him, in the king's name, to
come down. ' Go to, the king and you : I am
at my work ; go you and do yours.' The good
generous Prince yielded. The post was en-
tirely untenable.

" A little afterwards my grandfather had his
right arm shattered. He formed a sort of sling
for it of his pocket handkerchief, and kept his
place; for there was a new attack getting
ready. The right moment once come, he
seizes an axe in his left hand ; repeats the
same manoeuvre as before; again repulses the
enemy, again drives him back over the bridge.
But it was here that ill fortune lay in wait for
him. At the very moment while he was re-
calling and ranging his troop, a bullet struck
him in the throat; cut asunder the tendons,
the jugular vein. He sank on the bridge; the
troop broke and fled. M. de Montolieu, Knight
of Malta, his relative, was wounded beside
him: he tore up his own shirt, and those of
several others, to staunch theblood, but fainted
himself by his own hurt. An old serjeant,
named Laprairie, begged the aide-major of the
regiment, one Guadin, a Gascon, to help and
carry him off the bridge. Guadin refused,
saying he was dead. The good Laprairie
could only cast a camp-kettle over his colonel's
head, and then run. The enemy trampled
"■-ver him in torrents to profit by the disorder;
me cavalry at full speed, close in the rear of
the foot. M. de Vendome, seeing his line bro-
ken, the enemy forming on this side the stream,
and consequently the bridge lost, exclaimed,
' Ah ! Mirabeau is dead then ;' a eulogy for ever
dear and memorable to us."

How nearly, at this moment, it was all over
•with the Mirabeaus; how, but for the cast of
an jnsignificant camp-kettle, there had not
only been no Article Mirabeau in this Review,
but no French Revolution, or a very different
urv«; and all Europe had found itself in far

other latitudes at this hour, any one who has
a turn for such things may easily reflect.
Nay, without great difliculty, he may reflect
farther, that not only the French Revolution
and this Article, but all revolutions, articles,
and achievements whatsoever, the greatest
and the smallest, which this world ever be-
held, have not once but often, in their course
of genesis, depended on the veriest trifles,
castings of camp-kettles, turnings of straws;
except only that we do not see that course of
theirs. So inscrutable is genetic history ; im-
practicable the theory of causation, and tran-
scends all calculus of man's devising! Thou,
thyself, O Reader, (who art an achievement
of importance,) over what hair breadth bridges
of Accident, through yawning perils, and the
man-devouring gulf of Centuries, hast thou
got safe hither, — from Adam all the way !

Be this as it can, Col W '^rgc^u came alive
again, by "miracle of surgery:" and, holding
his head up by means of a silver stock, walked
this earth many long days, with respectability,
with fiery intrepidity and spleen ; did many
notable things : among others, produced, in
dignified wedlock, Mirabeau the Friend of
Men; who, again produced Mirabeau the
Swallower of Formulas ; from which latter,
and the wondrous blazing funeral-pyre he
made for himself, there finally goes forth a
light, whereby those old Riquetti destinies,
and many a strange old hidden thing, become
noticeable.

But perhaps in the whole Riquetti kindred
there is not a stranger figure than this very
Friend of Men ; at whom, in the order of time,
we have now arrived. That Riquetti who
chained the mountains together, and hung up
the star with five rays to sway and bob there,
was but a type of him. Strong, tough as the
oak-root, and as gnarled and unwedgeable; no
fibre of him running straight with the other:
a block for Destiny to beat on, for the world to
gaze at, with ineffectual wonder! Really a
most notable, questionable, hateable, loveable
old Marquis. How little, amid such jingling
triviality of Literature, Philosophie, and the
pretentious cackle of innumerable Baron
Grimms, with their correspondence and self-
proclamation, one could fancy that France
held in it such a Nature-product as the Friend
of Men ! Why, there is substance enough in
this one Marquis to fit out whole armies of
Philosophcs, were it properly attenuated. So
many poor Thomases perorate and have eloges,
poor Morellets speculate, Marmontels moralize
in rose-pink manner, Diderots become pos-
sessed of encyclopedical heads, and lean Ba-
rons de Beaumarchais fly abroad on the wings
of Figaros; and this brave old Marquis has
been hid under a bushel ! He was a Writer,
too ; and had talents for it, (certain of the ta-
lents,) such as few Frenchmen have had since
the days of Montaigne. It skilled not : he,
being unwedgeable, has remained in antiqua-
rian cabinets ; the others, splitting up so rea
dily, are the ware you find on all market-stalLs,
much prized (say, as brimstone Lucifers, "light
bringers," so called) by the generality. Such
is the world's way. And yet complain not

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

487

this rich, unwedgeable old Marquis, have we
not him too at last, and can keep him all the
lonfer than the Thomases 1

7 he great Mirabeau used to say always that
his father had the greater gifts of the two;
which surely is saying something. Not that
yru can subscribe to it in the full sense, but
that in a very wide sense you can. So far as
mere speculative heai goes, Mirabeau is pro-
bably right. Looking at the old Marquis as a
speculative thinker and uttcrer of his thought,
and with what rich colouring of originality he
gives it forth, 3^ou pronounce him to be supe-
rior, or even say supreme in his time ; for the
genius of him almost rises to the poetic. Do
our readers know tlie Geirnan Jean Paul, and
his style of thought 1 Singular to say, the
old Miirquis has a quality in him resembling
afar olf that of Paul ; and actually works it
out in his French manner, far as the French
manner can. Nevertheless intellect is not of
tlie speculative head only ; the great end of
intellect surely is, that it makes one see some-
thing; for which laiter result the whole man
must co-operate. In the old Marquis there
dwells withal a crabliedness, stiff, cross-grained
huranur, a latent fury and fuliginosity, very
perveriing; which stiff crabbcdiiess, with its
pride, obstinacy, affectation, what else is it at
bottom but uxini of strength 1 The real quan-
tity of our insight — how justly and how tho-
roughly we shall comprehend the nature of a
thing, especially of a human thing — depends
on our patience, our fairness, lovingness, what
strength soever we have: intellect comes
from the whole man, as it is the light that en-
lightens the whole man. In this true sense,
the younger Mirabeau, with that great flashing
eyesight of his, that broad, fearless freedom
of nature he had, was very clearly the supe-
rior man.

At bottom, perhaps, the main definition you
could give of old Marquis Mirabeau is, that he
was of the Pedant species. Stiff as brass, in
all senses; unsympathizing, uncomplying; of
an endless, unfathomable pride, which cloaks
but does nowise extinguish an endless vanity
and need of shining: stately, euphuistic man-
nerism enveloping the thought, the morality,
the whole being of the man. A solemn, high-
stalking man; with such a fund of indignation
in him, or of latent indignation ; of contumacity,
irrefragability ; — who (after long experiment)
accordingly looks forth on mankind and this
world of theirs with some dull-snuffling word
of forgiveness, of contemptuous acquittal ; or
oftenest with clenched lips, (nostrils slightly
dilated,) in expressive silence. Here is pe-
dantry; but then pedantry under the most
interesting new circumstances; and withal
carried to such a pitch as becomes sublime,
one might almost say, transcendental. Consi-
der indeed whether Marquis Mirabeau could
be a pedant, as your common Scaligers and
Scioppiuses are! His arena is not a closet
with Greek manuscripts, but the wide world
and Friendship to Humanity. Does not the
blood of all the Mirabeaus circulate in his
honorable veins 1 He too would do somewhat
to raise higher that high house ; and yet, alas,
it is plain to him that the house is sinking ;

that much is sinking. The Mirabeaus, and
above all others, this Mirabeau, are fallen oa
evil times. It has not escaped the old Marquis
how nobility is now decayed, nearly ruinous;
based no longer on heroic nobleness of con-
duct and effort, but on sycophancy, formality,
adroitness ; on Parchments, Tailors' trim-
mings, Prunello, and Coach-leather: on which
latter basis, unless his whole insight into
Heaven's ways with Earth have misled him,
no institution in this Gdd-governed world can
pretend to continue. Alas, and the priest "has
now no tongue but for plate-licking;" and the
tax-gatherer squeezes ; and the strumpetocracy
sits at its ease, in high-cushioned lordliness,
under baldachins and cloth of gold : till now
at last, what with one fiction, what with an-
other, (and veridical Nature dishonouring all
manner of fictions and refusing to pay realities
for them,) it has come so far that the Twenty-
five millions, long scarce of knowledge, of vir-
tue, happiness, cash, are now fallen scarce of
food to eat ; and do not, with that natural ferocity
of theirs which Nature has still left them, feel
the disposition to die starved ; and all things
are nodding towards chaos, and no man layeth
it to heart ! One man exists who might perhaps
stay or avert the catastrophe, were he called to
the helm: the Marquis Mirabeau. His high,
ancient blood, his heroic love of truth, his
strength of heart, his loyalty and profound in-
sight, (for you cannot hear him speak without
delecting the man of genius,) this, with the
appalling predicament things have come to,
might give him claims. From time to time, at
long intervals, such a thought does flit, por-
tentous, through the brain of the Marquis.
But ah ! in these scandalous days, how shall
the proudest of the Mirabeaus fall prostrate
before a Pompadour] Can the Friend of Men
hoist, with good hope, as his battle-standard,
the furbelow of an unmentionable woman 1
No; not hanging by the apron-strings of such
a one will this Mirabeau rise to the premier-
ship; but summoned by France in her day of
need, in her day of vision, or else not at all.
France does not summon ; the else goes its
road.

Marquis Mirabeau tried Literature, too, as
we said; and with no inconsiderable talent;
nay, with first-rate talents in some sort: but
neither did this prosper. His Ecce sigmmt, in
such era of downfall and all-darkening ruin,
was Political Economy; and a certain man,
whom he called " the Master," — that is, Dr.
Quesnay. Round this master (whom the Mar-
quis succeeded as master himself) he and
some other idolaters did idolatrously gather : to
publish books and tracts, periodical literature,
proclamation by word and deed — if so were,
the world's dull ear might be opened to salva-
tion. The world's dull ear continued shut.
In vain preached this apostle and that other,
simultaneously or in Melibcean sequence, in
literature, periodical and stationary; in vain
preached the Friend of Men, (L'./lnti dcs Hoinmes,)
number after number, through long volumes, —
though really in a most eloquent manner.
Marquis Mirabeau had the indisputablest ideas;
but then his style ! In very truth, it is the
strangest of styles, though one of the richest;

488

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

a style full of orisrinality, picturesqueness,
sunny vigour; but all cased and slated over,
threefold, in metaphor and trope; distorted
into tortuosities, dislocations ; starling out
into crotchets, cramp turns, quaintnesses, and
hidden satire ; which the French head had no
ear for. Strong meat, too tough for babes ! The
Friend of Men found warm partisans, widely
scattered over this Earth ; and had censer-
fumes transmitted him from Marquises, nay,
from Kings and principalities, over seas and
alpine chains of mountains; whereby the
pride and latent indignation of the man were
only fostered; but at home, with the million all
jigging each after its suitable scrannel-pipe,
he could see himself make no way, — if it
were not way towards being a monstio-^ity
and thing men wanted " to see ;"' not the right
thing ! Neither through the press, then, is there
progress towards the premiership] The stag-
gering state of French statesmen must even
stagger whither it is bound. A light public
froths itself into tempest about Palissoi and
his comedy of "Zfs Plulosophcs,'" — about Gliick-
Piccini Music; neglecting the call of Ruin;
and hard must come to hard. Thou,0 Friend
of Men, clench thy lips together; and wait,
silent as the old rocks. Our Friend of Men
did so, or better; not wanting to himself, the
lion-hearted old Marquis! For his latent in-
dignation has a certain devoutness in it ; is a
kind of holy indignation. The Marquis, though
he knows the EnnjclopeiHc, ha.s not forgotten the
higher Sacred Books, or that there is a God in
this world, (very different from the French
litre Supreme.') He even professes, or tries to
profess, a kind of diluted Catholicism, in his
own way, and thus turns an eye towards
heaven : very singular in his attitude here too.
Thus it would appear this world is a mad im-
broglio which no Friend of Men can set right:
it shall go wrong then, in God's name : and
the staggering state of all things stagger whither
it can. To deep, fearful depths, — not to bot-
tomless ones ! '

But in the Family Circle] Thei-e surely a
man, and Friend of Men, is supreme ; and
ruling with wise autocracy, may make some-
thing of it. Alas, in the family circle it went
not better, but worse ] The Mirabeaus had
once a talent for choosing wives : had it de-
serted them in this instance, then, when most
needed] We say not so: we say only that
Madame la Marquise had human freewill in
her too; that all the young Mirabeaus were
likely to have human freewill, (in great plen-
ty;) that within doors as without, the Devil
is busy. Most unsuccessful is the Marquis as
ruler of men : his family kingdom, for the
most part, little otherwise than in a state of
mutiny. A sceptre as of Rhadamanthus will
sway and drill that household into perfection
of Harrison Clockwork ; and cannot do it.
The royal ukase goes forth in its calm, irre-
fragable justice ! meets hesitation, disobedi-
ence open or concealed. Reprimand is fol-
lowed by remonstrance ; harsh coming thunder
mutters, growl answering growl. With unaf-
fectedly astonished eye the Marquis appeals to
destiny and Heaven ; explodes, since he needs
must then, in red lightning of paternal author-

ity. How it went, or who by forethought might
be to blame, one knows not; for the FiU
Jldoptif, hemmed in by still extant relations, is
extremely reticent on these points: a certain
Dame de Pailly," from Switzerland, very beau-
tiful and very artful," glides half->een through
the Mirabeau household, (the Marquis's Ortho-
doxy, as we said, being but of the diluted kind :)
there are evesdroppers, confidential servants;
there are Pride, Anger, Uncharitableness, Sub-
lime Pedantry and the Devil always busy.
Such a figure as Pailly, of herself, bodes good
to no one. Enough, there are Lawsuits, Lei'
'res (Je ('('chet; on all hands, peine fhr.e et dure.
Lawsuits, long drawn out, before gapins Parle-
ments, between man and wife; to the scandal
of an unrighteous world ; how much more of
a ri2:hteous Marquis, minded once lo be an ex-
ample to it! Leiirex <Jc Ciuhe!, to the nuniber
(as some count) of fifty-four, first and last,
for the use of a single Marquis: at limes the
whole Mirabeau fire-side is seen empty, (except
Pailly and Marquis;) each individual sitting
in his separate Strong-hou^e, there to bethink
himself. Stiff are your tempers, ye young-
Mirabeaus ; not stiffer than inine the old one's !
What pangs it has cost the fond paternal heart
to go through all this Brutus duty, the Marquis
knows and Heaven. In a less degree, what
pangs it may cost the filial heart to go mukr
(or undergo) the same! The former set of
pangs he crushes down into his soul (aided
by Heaven) suppressively, as beseems a man
and Mirabeau : the latter set, — are they not
self-sought pangs; medicinal; that will cease
of their own accord, when the unparalleled
filial impiety pleases to cease] For the rest,
looking at such a world and such a family, at
these prison-houses, mountains of divorce-
papers, and the staggering state of French
statesmen, a Friend of Men may pretty natu-
rally ask himself. Am not I a strong old Mar-
quis, then, whom all this has not driven into
Bedlam, — not into Hypochondria, dyspepsia
even ] The Heavens are bounteous, and make
the back equal to the burden.

Out of all which circumstances, and of such
struggle against them, there has come forth
this Marquis de Mirabeau, shaped (it was the
shape he could arrive at) into one of the most
singular Sublime Pedants that ever stepped
the soil of France. Solemn moral rigour, as
of some antique Presbyterian Ruling Elder:
heavy breadth, dull heat, choler and pride as
of an old "Bozzyof Auchinleck;" then a
high flown euphuistic courtesy, the airiest
mincing ways, suitable to your French Seig-
neur! How the two divine missions (for both
seem to him divine) of Riquetti and Man of
Genius (or World-schoolmaster) blend them-
selves; and philosophism, chivalrous euphu-
ism, presbyterian ruling-elderism, all in such
strength, have met, to give the world assur-
ance of a man! There nev^r entered :he
brain of Hogarth, or of rare old Ben, such a
piece of Humour (high meeting with low, and
laughter with tears) as, in this brave old
Riquetti, Nature has presented us ready-made.
For withal there is such genius in him; rich
depth of character; indestructible cheerful-
ness and health breaking out (in spite of thesf*

MJiiMOlKS 01'' MIRABEAU.

4»5»

Jivjrce-paperj,) ever and anon, — like strong
sunlight in thundery weather. We have heard
of the " strife of Fate with Freewill" produc-
ing Greek Tragedies, but never heard it till
now produce such astonishing comico-tragical
French Farces. Blessed old Marquis,— or
else accursed ! He is there, with his broad
bull-brow; with the huge cheek bones; those
deep eyes, glazed as in weariness ; the lower
visage puckered into a simpering graciosity,
which would pass itself oti^ for a kind of smile.
What to do with himl Welcome, thou tough
old Marquis, with thy better and thy worse !
There is stuff in thee, (very different from
moonshine and formula;) and stuff' is stufl",
were it never so crabbed.

Besides the old Marquis de Mirabeau, there
is a Brother, the Bailli de Mirabeau: a man
who, serving as Knight of Malta, governing in
Guadaloupe, fighting and doing hard sea-duty,
has sown his wild oats long since ; and settled
down here, in the old "Castle of Mirabeau on
its sheer rock," (for the Marquis usually lives
at Bignon, another esiate within reach of
Paris,) into one of the worthiest quiet uncles
and house-friends. It is very beaiuiful, this
mild strength, mild clearness and justice of
the brave Bailli, in contrast with his brother's
nodosity; whom he comforts, defends, ad-
monishes, even rebukes; and on the whole
reverences (both as head Riquetti and as
World-schoolmaster) beyond all living men.
The frank true love of the>e two brothers is
the fairest feature in Mirabeaudom ; indeed
the only feature which is always fair. Letters
pass continually : in letter and extract we here,
from time to time, witness (in these Eight
chaotic Volumes) the various personages
speak their dialogue, unfold their farce-tragedy.
The Fds Mophf admits mankind into this
strange household, though stingily, uncom-
fortably, and all in darkness, save for his own
capricious dark-lantern. Seen or half seen,
it is a stage; as the whole world is. What
with personages, what with destinies, no
stranger house-drama was enacting on the
Earth at that time.

Under such auspices, which were not yet
ripened into events and fatalities, but yet were
inevitably ripening towards such, did Gabriel
Honore, at the Mansion of Bignon, between
Sens and Nemours, on the 9th day of March,
1749, first see the light. He was the fifth
child; the second male child; yet born heir,
the first having died in the cradle. A magni-
ficent "enormous" fellow, as the gossips had
to admit, almost with terror: the head espe-
cially great; "two grinders" in it, already
shot ! — Rough-hewn, truly, yet with bulk, with
limbs, vigour bidding fair to do honour to the
line. The paternal Marquis (to whom they
«:aid, " N'ayc: pus pmr," Don't be frightened)
gazed joyful, we can fancy, and not fearful, on
ihis product of his; the stiff pedant features
relaxing into a veritable smile. Smile, O pa-
ternal Marquis: the future indeed "veils sor-
row and joy," one knows not in what propor-
tion ; but here is a new Riquetti, whom the
gods send ; with the rudiments in him, thou
wouldst guess, of a very Hercules, fit for
62

Twelve Labours, which sureiy aiemcmselves
the best joys. Look at the oaf, how he sprawls.
No stranger Riquetti ever sprawled under our
Sun: it is as if, in this thy man-child. Destiny
had swept together all the wildnesses and
strengths of the Riquetti lineage, and flung
him forth as her finale in that kind. Not
without a vocation ! He is ihe last of the
Riquettis ; and shall do work long memorable
among mortals.

Truly, looking now into the matter, we
might say, in spite of the gossips, that on this
whole Planet, in those years, there was haidly
born such a man-child as this same, in the
"Mansion-house of Bignon, not far from
Paris," whom they named Gabriel Honore.
Nowhere, we say, came there a stouter or
braver into this Earth; whither thev come
marching by the legion and the myriad, out
of Eternity and Night! — Except, indeed, what
is notable enough, one other that arrived some
few months later, at the town of Frankfort on
the Maine, and got christened Johntin Wolfs^mig
Goclhc, 'J'hen, again, in some ten years more,
there came another still liker Gabriel Honore
in his brawny ways. It was into a mean hut
that this one came, an infirm hut, (which the
wind blew down at the time,) in the shire of
Ayre, in Scotland: him they named Jlolert
Lurns.- These, in that epoch, were the Well-
born of the World ; by whom the world's
history was to be carried on. Ah! could the
well-born of the world be always righdy bred,
rightly entreated there, what a world were it?
But it is not so; it is the reverse of so. And
then few (like that Frankfort one) can peace-
ably vanquish the world, with its black im-
broglios ; and shine above it, in serene helj.
to it, like a sun ! The most can but Titani
cally vanquish it, or be vanquished by it:
hence, instead of light, (stillest and strongest
of things,) we have iDut lightning ; red fire, and
oftentimes conflagrations, which are very
woful.

Be that as it might. Marquis Mirabeau de-
termined to give his son, and heir of all the
Riquettis, such an education as no Riquetti had
yet been privileged with. Being a world-
schoolmaster, (and indeed a Martnms Scriblaus,
as we here find, more ways than one,) this was
not strange in him ; but the results were very
lamentable. Considering the matter now, at
this impartial distance, you are lost in wonder
at the good Marquis; know not whether to
laugh at him, or weep over him ; and on the
whole are bound to do both. A more sufficient
product of Nature than this "enormous Ga-
briel," as we said, need not have been wished
for: "beating his nurse," but then loving her,
and loving the whole world ; of large desire,
truly, but desire towards ull things, the highest
and the lowest: in other words, a large mass
of hfe in him, a large man waiting there ! Does
he not rummage (the rough cub, now tenfold
rougher by the effect of small-pox) in all
places, seeking something to know : dive down
to the most unheard-of recesses for papers tc
read? Does he not, spontaneousl)% give his
hat to a peasant-boy whose head-gear was de-
fective ? He writes the most sagacious things,
in his fifth year, extempore, at table ; setting

190

CARLYLE'S MISCELI-ANEOUS WRITuVGS.

forth wha.1 " Monsieur 3Toi" (\Tr. Me) is bound
to do. A rough strong senuiue sc ul, of the
frimkest open temper; full of having fire and
strength; looking out so brisk with his clear
hazel eyes, with his brisk sturdy bulk, what
might not fair breeding have done for him !
On so many occasion^i, one feels as if he need-
ed nothing in the world but to be well let alone.
But no; the scientific paternal hand must
interfere, at every turn, to assist Nature: tlie
young lion's whelp has to grow up all bestrap-
ped, betnuzzled in the most extraordinary man-
ner: shall wax and unfold himself by theory
of education, by square and rule, — going punc-
tual, all the way, like Harrison Clockwork, ac-
cording to the theoretic program; or d.ic — ! O
Mirquis, world-schoolmaster, what thenry of
education is this] No lion's whelp or young
Mirabeau will go like clockwork, but far other-
wise. " He tliat spareth the rod hateth the chiUI ;"
thai in its side is true : and yet Nature, too, is
strong: "Nature will come running back, though
thou expel her with a fork!" In one point of view
there is nothing more Hogarthian comic than
this Kmg Peter Peeble's nan gins: pica of "Mar-
quis Mirabeau versus Natur'e and others:" yet
in a deeper point -of view it is but too serious.
Candid history will say that whatsoever of
tvorst it was in the power of art to do, against
this young Gabriel Honore, was done. Not
with unkind intentions; nay, with intentions
which, at least, began in kindness. How much
better was Burns's education, (though this, too,
went on under the grimmest pressures,) on the
wild hill-side, by the brave peasant's hearth,
with no theory of education at all, but poverty,
toil, tempest, and the handles of the plough !

At bottom, the Marquis's wish and purpose
was not complex, but simple. That Gabriel
Honore de Riquetti shall become the very
same man that Victor de Riquetti is; perfect
as he is perfect: this will satisfy the fond fa-
ther's heart, and nothing short of this. Better
exemplar, truly, were hard to find; and 3'et, 0
Victor de Riquetti, poor Gabriel, on his side,
wishes to be Gabriel and not Victor! Stiffer
loving Pedant never had a more elastic loving
Pupil. Offences (o( mere clasUiity, mere natural
fipringing-up, for most part) accumulate by
addition: Madame Pailly and the confidential
servants, on this as on all matters, are busy.
The household itself is darkening, the mistress
of it gone; the Lawsuits (and by-and-by Di-
vorce-Lawsuits) have begun. Wor-se will grow
worse, and ever worse, till Rhadamanthus-
Scriblerus Marquis de Mirabeau, swaying
vainly the sceptre of order, see himself envi-
roned by a waste chaos as of Bedlam. Stifi'is
he ; elastic (and yet still loving, reverent) is
his son and pupil. Thus cruelty, and yearn-
ings that must be suppressed ; indignant re-
volt, and hot tears of penitence, alternate, in
the strangest way, between the two; and for
long years our young Alcides has (by Destiny,
his own Demon, and .Iiino de Pailly) Labours
enough imposed on him.

But, to judge what a task was set this poor
paternal Marquis, let us listen to the following
successive utterances from him; which he
emits, in letter after letter, mostly into the ear
of hi; Bi'wther the good Bailii. Cluck, cluck, —

is it not as the sound of an agitated parent-
fowl, now in terror, now in anger, at the brood
it has brought out 1

" ' This creature promises to be a very pret-
ty subject.' ' Talent in plenty, and cleverness,
but more faults still inherent in the substance
of him.' 'Only just ccme into life, and the
extr'a'vasation (c.itravasoiient) of the thing al-
ready visible! A spirit cross-grained, fantas-
tic, iracund, incompatible, tending towards
evil before knowin;^ it, or being capable of it.'
'A high heart under the jacket of a boy; it
has a strange instinct of pride this creature;
noble withal; the embryo of a shaggy-headed
bully and killcow, that would swallow all the
world, and is not twelve years old yet.' 'A
type, profoundly inconceivable, of baseness,
sheer dull grossness, {plaivude nbsoluv,) and the
quality of your dirty, rou-^h-crusted cuerpillar,
that will uncrust itself or fly.' 'An intelli-
gence, a memory, a capacity, that strike you,
that astonish, that frighten you.' 'A nothing
bedizened with crotchets. May fling dust in
the eyes of silly women, but will never be the
fourth part a man, if by good luck he be any
thing.' 'One whom you may call ill-born,
this elder lad of mine; who bodes, at least
hitherto, as if he could become nothing but a
madman : almost invincibly maniac, with all
the vile qualities of the maternal stock over
and above. As he has a great many masters,
and all, from the confessor to the comrade, are
so many reporters for me, I see -the nature of
the beast, and don't think we shall ever do any
good with him.'"

In a word, offences (of elasticity or expan-
sivity) have accumulated to such height, in
the lad's fifteenth year, that there is a determi-
nation taketi, on the part of Rhadamanthus-
Scriblerus, to pack him out of doors, one way
or the other. After various plannings, the plan
of one Abbe Choquenard's Boarding-school is
fallen upon: the rebellious Expansive shall to
Paris ; there, under ferula and sh(u-t-commons,
contract himself and consider. Farther, as the
name Mirabeau is honourable and right ho-
nourable, he shall not have the honour of it;
never again, but be called Pierre Ihifficrc, till
his ways decidedly alter. This Pierre Bvffiere
was the name of an estate of his mother's in
the Limousin : sad fuel of those smoking law-
suits which at length blazed out as divorce-
lawsuits. Wearing this melancholy nick-name
of Peter Buffiere, as a perpetual badge, had
poor Gabriel Honore to go about for a number
of years; like a misbehaved soldier with his
eyebrows shaven off; alas, only a fifteen-
years' recruit yet, too young for that !

Nevertheless, named or shorn of his name,
Peter or Gabriel, the youth himself was still
there. At Choquenard's Boarding-school, as
always afterwards in life, he carries with him,
he unfolds and employs, the qualities which
Nature gave, which no shearing or shaving of
art and mistr-'atment could take away. The
Fds jl^'opiif gives a grand list of studies fol-
lowed, acquisitions made: ancient languaares,
("and we have a thousand proofs of his inde-
fatigable tenacity in this respect;") modern
languages, English, Italian, German, Spanish ;
then "passionate study of mathematics;" de-

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

491

sign pictorial and geometrical ; music, so as
to read it at sight, nay, to compose in it ; sing-
ing, to a high degree; "equitation, fencing,
dancing, swimming, and tennis:" if only the
half of which were true, can we sav that
Pierre Bnffiere spent his time ill? What is
more precisely certain, the disgi'aced Buffiere
workid his way very soon into the good affec-
tions of all and sundry, in this House of Dici-
pline, who came in contact with him ; school-
fellows, teachers, the Abbe Choquenard him-
self. For, said the paternal Marquis, he has
the tongue of the old Serpent! In fact, it is
very ntUable how poor Butfit're, Comte de Mi-
rabeau, revolutionary King Riquetti, or what-
ever else they might call him, let him come,
under what discommendation he might, into
any circle of men, was sure to make them his
ere long. To the last, no man could look into
him with his own eyes, and conlinne to hate
him. He could tallf men over, thenl Yes, 0
Reader: and he could aci men over: for ai
bottom, that was it. The large open soul of
the man, purposing deliberately no paltry, un-
kindly, or dishonest thing towards any crea-
ture, was felt to be withal !ibrnther''s soul. De-
faced by black drossy obscurations very many ;
but yet shiniug out, lustrous, warm; in its
troublous effulgence, great ! That a man be
loved the better by men the nearer they come
to him : is not this the fact of all facts 1 To
know what extent of prudential diplomacy
(good, indifferent, and even bad) a man has,
ask public opinion, journalistic rumour, or at
most the persons he dines with : to know what
of real worth is in him, ask infinitelv deeper
and farther; ask, first of all, those who have
tried by experiment ; who, were they the fool-
ishest people, can answer pertinently here if
anywhere. " Those at a distance esteem of
me a little worse than I; those near at hand a
little better than I:" so said the good Sir
Thomas Browne; so will all men say who
have much to say on that.

The Choquenard Military Boarding-School
having, if not fulfilled its functions, yet ceased
to be a house of penance, and failed of its func-
tion. Marquis Mirabeau determinded to try the
Army. Nay, it would seem, the wicked mother
has been privily sending him money; which
he, the traitor, has accepted! To the army
therefore. And so Pierre Buifiere has a basnet
on his big head; the shaggy pock-pitted visage
looks martially from under horse-hair and
clear metal; he dresses rank, with light bridle-
hand and drawn falchion, in the town of
Saintes, as a bold volunteer dragoon. His age
was but eighteen as yet, and some months.

The people of Saintes grew to like him
amazingly; would even "have lent him money
to any extent." His Colonel, one De Lambert,
proved to be a martinet, of sharp sour temper :
the shaggy visage of Buffiere, radiant through
its seaminess with several things, had not
altogether the happiness to content him.
Furthermore there was an Archer (Bailiff) at
Saintes, who had a daughter: she, foolish
minx, liked the Buffiere visage bcticreven than
the Colonel's ! For one can fancy what a
pleader Buffiere was, in this great cause; with
the tongue of the eld serpent. It was liis first

amourette; plainly triumphant: the beginning
of a quite unheard-of career in that kind. The
aggrieved Colonel emitted " satires," through
the mess-rooms; this bold volunteer dragoon
was not the man to give him worse than he
brought : matters fell into a very unsatisfactory
state between them. To crown the whole,
Buffiere went one evening (contrary to wont,
now and always) to the gaming-table, and
lost four hnis. Insubordination, Gambling,
Archer's daughter: Rhadamanthus thunder
from Bignon: Buffiere doffs his basnet, flies
covertly to Paris. Negotiation there now was;
confidential spy to Saintes; correspondence,
fulmination : Dupontde Nemours as daysman
between a Colonel and a Marquis, both in
high wrath, — Buffiere to pay the piper! Con-
fidential spy takes evidence ; the whole atrocity
comes to light : what wilt thou do, O Marquis,
with this devil's child of thine ? Send him to
Surinam; let the tropical heats and rain tame
the hot liver of him ! — so whispered paternal
Brutus-justice and Pailly; but milder thoughts
prevailed. Leiirc dc Cachet and the Isle of
Rhe shall be tried first. Thither fares poor
Buffiere; not with Archers' daughters, but with
Archers; amid the dull rustle and autumnal
brown of the falling leaves of 1768, his nine-
teenth autumn. It is his second Hercules' La-
bour ; the Choquenard Boarding-house was
the first. Bemoaned by the loud Atlantic he
shall sit there, in winter season, under ward
of a Bailli d'Aulan, governor of the place, and
said to be a very Cerberus.

At Rhe the old game is played : in few weeks,
the Cerberus Bailli is Buffiere's; baying, out
of all his throats, in Buffiere's behalf! What
" sorcery" is this that the rebellious prodigy
has in him, 0 Marquis ] Hypocrisy, cozenage
which no governor of strong places can resist 1
Nothing short of the hot swainps of Surinam
will hold him quiet, then ? Happily there is
fighting in Corsica; Pacli fighting on his last
legs there; and Baron de Vaux wants fresh
troops against hi:ri. Buifiere, though he likes
not the cause, will go thither gladly; and fight
his very best: how happy if, by any fighting,
he can conquer back his baptismal name, and
some gleam of paternal tolerance! After
much soliciting, his prayer is acceded to:
Bnffiere, with the rank now of" Sub-lieutenant
of Foot, in the Legion of Lorraine," gets across
the country to Toulon, in the month of April ;
and enters "on the plain which furrows itself
without plough" (euphuistic for ocein:) "God
grant he may not have to row there one day,"
— in red cap, as convict galley-slave ! Such
is the paternal benediction and prayer; which
was realized. Nay, Buffiere, it would seem,
before quitting Rochelle, indeed "hardly yet
two hours out of the fortress of Rhe," had
fallen into a new atrocity, — his first duel; a
certain quondam messmate (discharged for
swindline) having claimed acquaintance witn
him on the streets ; which claim Buffiere saw-
good to refuse ; and even to resist, when de-
manded at the sword's point ! The " Corsicaa
Buccaneer" (Jlibusiicr Com) that he is !

The Corsican Buccaneer did, as usual, a
giant's or two giants' work in Corsica; fight-
ing, writing, loving; "eight h: irs a day of

492

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

study," and gamed golden opinions from all
manner of men and women. It was his own
notion that Nature had meant him for a soldier;
he felt so equable and at home in that busi-
ness,— the wreck of discordant death-tumult,
and roftr of cannon serving as a fine regulator}'
marching-music for him. Doubtless Nature
meant him for a Man of Action ; as she means
ail great souls that have a strong body to dwell
in: but Nature will adjust herself to much.
In the course of twelve months, (in Ma.y, 1770,)
Buffiere gets back to Toulon ; with mu'ch manu-
script in his pocket; his head full of military
and all other lore, "like a library turned topsy-
turvy;" his character much risen, as we said,
with every one. The brave Bailli Mirabeau,
though almost against principle, cannot refuse
to see a chief nephew, as he passes so near
the old Castle on the Durance: the good uncle
is charmed with him; finds, "under features
terriidy seamed and altered from what they
■were," (bodily and mentally,) all that is royal
and strong, nay, an "expression of something
refined, something gracious;" declares him,
after several days of incessant talk, to be the
best fellow on earth, (if well dealt with,) who
will sha])e into statesman, generalissimo, pope,
what thou pleasest to desire ! Or, shall we
give poor Bufiicre's testimonial in mess-room
dialect; in its native twanging vociferosity,
and garnished with old oaths, — which, alas,
have become for us almost old prayers now, —
the vociferous Moustachio-figures, whom they
twanged through, having all vanished so long
since: '• Morblcn, Monsieur, VAbbe; c^cst un gar-
goii, diablcmeat v[f ; muis c'est un bon gargon,
qui a de r^sprit conime trois cent milk diables ; el
parblcu, un honinio Ires brave."

Moved by all manner of testimonials and
entreaties from uncle and family, the rigid
Marquis consents, not without difficulty, to see
this anomalous Peter Buffiere of his ; and then,
after solemn deliberation, even to un-Peter
him, and give him back his name. It was in
Sep ember that they met; at Aiguesperse, in
the Limousin near the lindi< of Pierre Hnvffiere.
Soft ruth comes stealing through the Rhada-
manihine heart; tremblings of faint hope even,
which, however, must veil itself in austerity
and rigidity. The Marquis writes: "I perorate
him very much;" observe " my man, how he
droops his nose, and looks fixedly, a sign that
he is reflecting; or whirls away his head, hid-
ing a tear: serious, now mild, now severe, we
give it him alternately; it is thus I manage
the mouth of this fiery animal." Had he but
read the Epkemeridex, the Economicpics, the
Precis des Siemens (" the most laboured book I
have done, though I wrote it in such health:")
had he but got grounded in my Political Eco-
nomy ! Which, however, he does not take to
with any heart. On the contrary, he unhappily
finds it hollow, pragmatical, a barren jingle
of formulas; pedantic even; unnutritive as
the east wind. Blasphemous words ; which
(or the like of them) any eavesdropper has but
to report to " the Master !" — And yet, after all,
is it not a brave Gabriel this rough-built young
Hercules; and has finished handsomely his
Second Labour? The head of the fellow is
* a wind-mill and fire-mill of ideas." The

War-office makes him captain, and he is pas-
sionate for following soldiership: but then,
unluckily, your Alexander needs such tools; —
a whole world for workshop! "Where are
the armies and herring-shoals of men to come
from 1 Does he think I have money," snuffles
the old Marquis, "to get him up battles like
Harlequin and Scaramouch V The fool ! he
shall settle down into rurality; first, however,
though it is a risk, see a little of Paris.

At Paris, thi-ough winter, the brave Gabriel
carries all before him ; shines in saloons, in
the Versailles CEil-de-Boeuf ; dines with your
Duke of Orleans, (young Chartres, not yet be-
come Eguliie, hob-nobbing with him ;) dines
with your Guemenes, Broglies, and mere
Grandeurs; and is invited to hunt. Even the
old women are charmed with him, and rustle
in their satins: such a light has not risen in the
CEil-de-Bo9uf for some while. Grant, O Mar-
quis, that there are worse sad-dogs than this.
The Marquis grants partially; and yet, and
yet ! Few things are notabler than these suc-
cessive surveys by the old Marquis, critically
scanning his young Count: —

"'I am on my guard; remembering how
vivacity of head may deceive you as to a cha-
racter of morass (de tourbe ;) but, all considered
one must give him store of exercise; what the
devil else to do with such exuberance, intel-
lectual and sanguineous ? I know no woman
but the Empress of Russia with whom this
man were good to marry yet.' 'Hard to find
a dog {drole) that had more talent and action
in the head of him than this ; he would reduce
the devil to terms.' 'Thy nephew Whirlwind
(I'Onragati^ assists me; yesterday the valet
Luce, who is a sort of privileged simpleton,
said pleasantly, "Confess, M. le Comte, a man's
body is very unhappy to carry a head like
that." ' * The terrible gift of familiarity (as Pope
Gregory called it!) He turns the great people
here round his finger.' Or again, though all
this is some years afterwards: 'They have
never done telling me that he is easy to set
a-rearing; that you cannot speak to him re-
proachfully but his eyes, his lips, his colour
testify that all is giving way : on the other hand,
the smallest word of tenderness will make him
burst into tears, and he would fling himself
into the fire for you.' 'I pass my life in
cramming him (a le bourrcr) with principles,
with all that I know; for this man, ever the
same as to his fundamental properties, has done
nothing by these long and solid studies but aug-
ment the rubbish-heap in his head, which is a
library turned topsy-turvy; and then his talent
for dazzling by superficials, for he has swal-
Inwed all formulas, and cannot substantiate any
thing.' 'A wicker-basket, that lets all through ;
disorder born; credulousasanurse; indiscreet;
a liar' (kind of white liar) 'by exaggeration,
affirmation, etfrontery, without need, and merely
to tell histories; a confidence that dazzles you
on everything; cleverness and talent without
limit. For the rest, the vices have infinitely
less root in him than the virtues ; all is facility,
impetuosity, ineffectuality, (not for want of
fire, but of plan ;) wrong-spun, ravelled (r/e-
faufile) in character: a mind that meditates ia
the vague, and builds of soap-bells.' 'Soite

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

493

of the bitter ugliness, the intercadent step, the
trenchant breaililess blo\vn-up precipitation,
and the look, or, to say belter, the atrocious
eyebrow of this man when he listens and re-
flects, something told me that it was all but a
scarecrow of old cloth, this ferocious outward
garniture of his ; that, at bottom, here was per-
haps the man in all France least capable of
deliberate wickedness.' ' Pie and jay by in-
stinct.' 'Wholly reflex and reverberance (^oiti'
de reflel el dc reverbirr) ; drawn to the right by
h'. : neart, to the left by his head, wliich he
carries four, paces from him.' 'May become
the Coryphceus of the Time.' 'A blinkard
{myope) precipitancy, born with him, which
makes him take the quagmire for firm earth — '"

('luck, cluck, — in the name of all the gods,
what prodigy is this I have hatched? Web-
footed, broad-billed; which will run and drown
itself, if Mercy and the parent-fowl prevent
not!

How inexpressibly true, meanwhile, is this
that the old Marquis says: "He has swal-
lowed all formulas" (i/ a huwe. lovlca les formuka)
and made away with them ! Formulas, indeed,
if v\-e think of it. Formulas and Gabriel Honore
had been, and were to be, at death-feud from
first to last. What formulas of this formalized
(established) world had been a kind one to
Clabriel ! His soul could find no shelter in
them, they were unbelievable; his body no
solacement, they were tyrannical, unfair. If
there were not pubulum and substance be-
yond formulas, and in spite of them, then
wo to him! To this man formulas would
yield no existence or habitation, if it were not
in the Isle of Rhe and such places; but threat-
ened to choke the life out of him : either
formulas or he must go the wall; and so, after
a tough fight, (hey, as it proves, will go. So
cunningly thrifty is Destiny; and is quietly
shaping her tools for the work they are to do,
M'hile she seems but spoiling and breaking
them ! For, consider, O Marquis, whether
France herself will not, hy-and-by, have to
swallow a formula or two! This sight thou
lookesl on from the baths of Mount d'Or, does
it not bode something of that kind 1 A sum-
mer day in the year 1777: —

'•' O Madame ! the narrations I would give
you if I had not a score of letters to answer,
on dull sad business! I would paint to you
the votive feast of this town, which took' place
on ih' 14ih. The savages descending in tor-
rents from the Mountains, — our people ordered
not to stir out. The curate with surplice and
stole; public justice in periwig; Marcrhiusn',
sahre in hand, guarding the place, before the
bagpipes were permitted to begin. The dance
interrupted, a quarter of an hour after, by
battle; the cries and fierce hissings of the
children, of the infirm, and other onlookers,
ogling it, tarring it on, as the mob does when
dogs fight. Frightful men, or rather wild crea-
tures of the forest, in coarse woollen jupes and
broad girths of leather, studded with copper
nails ; of gigantic stature, heightened by the
high sabots; rising still higher on tip-toe, to
look at the battle; beating time 4o it; rubbing
their si(l»>s with their elbows: their face hag-
smrd, covered with their long greasy hair; top

of the visage waxing pale, bottom of it twiiting
itself into the rudiments of a crue. laugh, a
ferocious impatience. — And these people pay
the taille! And you want to take from them
their salt too! And you know not what you
strip bare, or, as you call it, govern; what,
with the heedless, cowardly squirt of your pen,
you will think you can continue stripping with
impunity for ever, till the Catastrophe come!
Such sights recall deep thoughts to one. 'Poor
Jean-Jacques!' I said to myself; 'they that
sent thee, and thy System, to copy music among
such a People as these same, have confuted
thy System but ill !' But, on the other hand,
these thoughts were consolatory for a man who
has all his life preached the necessity of solac-
ing the poor, of universal instruction ; who has
tried to show what such instruction and such
solacement ought to be, if it would form a
harrier (the sole possible barrier) between op-
pression and revolt; the sole but the inlallible
treaty of peace between the high and the low!
AJi, Madame ! this government by blind-man's-
buff, stumbling along too far, will end by the

GEXEHAL OVKRTUnX.' "

Prophetic Marquis ! — Might other nations
listen to thee better than France did: for it
concerns them all! But now is it not curious
to ihihk how the whole world might have gone
so differently, but for this very prophet] Had
the young Mirabeau had a father as other men
have ; or even no father at all ! Consider him,
in that case, rising by natural gradation, by
the rank, the opportunity, the irrepressible
buoyant faculties he had, step after step, to
official place, — to the chief oflicial place; as in
a liine when Turgots, Neckers, and men of
abilit}', were grown indispensable, he was sure
to have done. By natural witchery he be-
witches Marie Antoinette ; her most of all, with
her quick susceptive instincts, her quick sense
for whatever was great and ^noble, her quick
hatred for whatever was pedantic, Neckerish,
Fayettish, and pretending to be great. King^
Louis is a nullity; happily then reduced to be
one: there would then have been at the summit
of France the one French man who could have
grappled with that great question ; who, yield-
ing and refusing, managing, guiding, and, in
short, sieivg and daring what was to be done,
had perhaps saved France her Revolution;
remaking her by peaceabler methods! But
to the Supreme Powers it seemed not so.
Once after a thousand years all nations were
to see the great Confl;igraiion and Self-com-
bustion of a Nation, — and learn from it if they
could. And now,for a Swallower of Formulas,
was there a better schoolmaster on earth than
this very Friend of Men ; a better education
conceivable than this which Alcides-Mirabeaii
had] Trust in heaven, good reader, for ths
fate of nations, for the fall of a sparrow.

Gabriel Honoru has acquitted himself so well
in Paris, turning the great people round his
thumb, with that ''foiid gnillanl," (basis of
gayety,) with that terrible ilon. de la fannliante,
with those ways he has. Neither, in the quite
opposite Man-of-business department, when
summer comes and rurality with it, is he foand
wanting. In the summer of the year, the olil
2T

494

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Friend of Men despatches him to the Limousin,
to his ou'a estate of Pierre BuHiore, or his
wife's own estate, (under the law-balance about
this lime;) to see whether any thing can be
done for men there. Much is to be done there ;
the Peasants, short of all thing;s, even of
victuals, here as everywhere, wear " a settled
soiiffre-doukur (pain-stricken) look, as if they
reckoned that the pillage of men was an inevi-
table ordinance of Heaven, to be put up with
like the wind and the hail." Here, in the
solitude of the Limousin, Gabriel is still
Gabriel: he rides, he writes, and runs; eats
out of the poor people's pots ; speaks to
them, redresses them ; institutes a court of
Villager Prai(dhomines (good men and true), —
once more carries all before him. Confess, O
Rhadamanthine Marquis, we say again, that
there are wor>e sad-dogs than this! "He is,"
confesses the Marquis, " the Demon of the Im-
possible," (/e dcinoii dc hi chose imposdhlc.')
Most true this also: impossible is a word not in
his dictionary. Thus the same Gabriel Honoro,
long afterwards, (as Dumont will witness,)
orders his secretary to do some miracle or
other, miraculous within the time. The secre-
tary answers, " Monsieur, it is impossible,"
"Impossible!" answers Gabriel: " Ne vw diies
jainids ce bete de mo'.'" (Never name to me that
blockhead of a word!) Really, one would say,
a good fellow, were he well dealt with, — though
still broad-billed, and with latent tendencies to
take the water. The following otherwise in-
significant Letter, addressed to the Bailli, seems
to us worth copying. Is not his young Lord-
ship, if still in the dandy-state and style-of-
mockery, very handsome in it ; standing there
in the snow"! It is of date December. 1771,
and far onwards on the road towards Mirabeau
Castle:

" Fracti bello salisque rcpnJsi ductorcs Dnnaum :
here, dear uncle, is a beginning in good Latin,
which means that I am broken with fatigue,
not having, this whole week, slept more than
sentinels do; and sounding, at the same time,
with the wheels of my vehicle, most of the ruts
and jolts that lie between Paris and Marseilles.
Ri.ts deep and numerous. Moreover, my axle
broke between Mucreau, Romane, Chambertin,
and Beaune; the centre of four wine districts;
what a geographical point, if I had had the wit
to be a drunkard! The mischief happened
towards five in the evening; my lackey had
gone on before. There fell nothing at the time
but melted snow; happily it afterwards took
some consistency. 'The neighbourhood of
Beaune made me hope to find genius in the
natives of the country: I had need of good
counsel; the devil counselled me at first to
swear, but that whim passed, and I fell by pre-
ference mto the ternptation of laughing; for a
holy priest came jogging up, wrapt to the chin ;
against the blessed visage of whom the sleet
■was beating, which made him cut so singular
a face, that I think this was the thing drove me
fiom swearing. The holy man inquired,
seeing my chaise on its beam-ends, and one of
the wheels wanting, whether any thing had be-
fallen me? I answered, 'there was nothing
falling here b«t snow.' 'Ah,' said he, in-
geniously, ' it is your chaise, then, that is

broken.' I admired the sagacity of the man,
and begged him to double his pace, with his
horse's permission, (who was also making a
pleasant e.\pression of countenance, as the
snow beat on his nose,) and to be so good as
give notice at Chaigny that I was there. He
assured me he would tell it to the post-mistress
herself, she being his cousin; that she was a
very amiable woman, marrieil three years ago
to one of the honestest men of the place,

nephew to the Icing's procureur at : in

fine, after giving me all the outs and ins of
himself the curate, of his cousin, his cousin's
husband, and I know not whcnn more, he was
pleased to give his spurs to his horse, which
thereupon gave a grunt, and went on. I forgot
to tell you that I had sent the postilion oif to
Mucreau, which he knew the road to, for he
went thither daily, he said, to have a glass; a
thing I c uld well believe, or even two glasses.
The man was but tipsified when he went ; happi-
ly when he returned, which was very lale, he was
drunk. I walked sentry : several Beaune men
passed, all of whom asked me, if any thing had
befallen ? I answered one of them, that it was
an experiment; that I had been sent from Paris
to see whether a chaise would run with one
wheel ; mine had come so far, but I was going
to write that two wheels were preferable. At
this moment my worthy friend struck his shin
against the other wheel; clapped his hand on
the hurt place ; swore, as I had near done ; and
then said, smilin?, 'Ah, Monsieur, there is the
other wheel !' ' The devil there is !' said I, as
if astonished. Another, after examining long,
with a very capable air, informed me, ' Ala foi.
Monsieur! it is ycmr cssV (meaning fssiew, or
axle) ' that is broken.' "

Mirabeau's ecrand to Provence, in this
winter season, was several-fold. To look after
the Mirabeau estates ; to domesticate himself
among his people and peers in that region ; —
perhaps to choose a wife. Lately, ks we saw,
the old Marquis could think of none suitable,
if it were not the Empress Catharine. But
Gabriel has ripened astonishingly since that,
under this sunshine of paternal favour, — the
first gleam of such weather he has ever had.
Short of the Empress, it were very well to
marry, the Marquis now thinks, provided your
bride had money. A bride, not with money,
yet with connections, expectations, is found;
and by stormy eloquence (Marquis seconding)
is carried: wo worth the hour! Her portrait,
by the seconding Marquis himself, is not very
captivating: " Marie-Emilie de Covet, only
daughter of the Marquis de Marignane, in her
eighteenth year then; she had a very ordinary
face, even a vulgar one at thf; first glance;
brown, nay, almost tawny {tn luricimd); fine
eyes, fine hair; teeth not good, but a pretty ish
continual smile; figure small, but agreeable,
though leaning a little to one side: showed
great sprightliness of mind, ingenuous, adroit,
delicate, lively, sportful; one of the most
essentially pretty characters." This brown,
almost tawny, little woman (much of a fool
too) Mirabeau gets to wife (on the 'i2d of June,
1772:) with Tier, and with a pension of 3,000
francs from his fathei-in-law, and one of 6,00C
from his own father, (.-.ay 500/. in all,) and rich

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

499

expectancies, he shall sit down, in the bollom
of Provence, by his own hired hearth, in the
town of Aix, and hless Heaven.

Candour will admit that this young Alex-
ander (just beginning his twenty-fourth year)
might grumble a little, seeing only one such
world to conquer. However, he had his books,
he had his hopes ; health, faculty; a Universe
(whereof even the town of Aix formed part)
all rich with fruit and forbidden-fruit round
him ; the unspeakable " seed-field of Time"
wherein to sow : he said to himself, " Go to, I
will be wise." And yet human nature is frail.
One can judge, too, whether the old Marquis,
now coming into decided lawsuit with his
wife, was of a humour to forgive peccadilloes.
The terrible, hoarsely calm, Rhadamanthine
way in which he expresses himself on this
matter of the lawsuit to his Brother, and
enjoins silence from all mortals but him, might
affect weak nerves ; wherefore, contrary to
purpose, we omit it. O, just Marquis] In
fact, the Riquetti household, at this time, can
do little for frail human nature; except, per-
haps, make it fall faster. The Riquetti house-
hold is getting scattered ; not always led
asunder, but driven and hurled asunder: the
tornado times for it have begun. One daugh-
ter is Madame du Saillant, (still living.) a
judicious sister: another is Madame de Cabris,
not so judicious ; for, indeed, her husband has
lawsuits, (owing to "defamatory couplets"
proceeding from him ;) she gets "insulted on
the public promenade of Grasse," by a certain
Baron de Villeneuve-Moans, whom some de-
famatory couplet had touched upon ; — all the
parties in the business being fools. Nay, poor
woman, she, by-and-by, we find, takes up with
preternuptial persons ; with a certain Brainson
in epaulettes, described candidly, by the Fils
Jldopiif, as "a man who" — is not fit to be de-
scribed.

A youns; heir-apparent of all the Mirabeaus
is required to make some figure; especially in
marrying himself 'I'he present young heir-
apparent has nothing: to make a figure with
but bare 500/. a year, and very considerable
debts. Old Mirabeau is hard as the Mosaic
rock, and no wand proves miraculous on him;
for tronssruvf, cadcaus, foot-washings, festivities,
and house-heatings, he does simply not yield
one sous. The heir must himself yield them.
He does so, and handsomely : but, alas, the
500/. a year, and very considerable debts''
Quit Aix and dinner-giving ; retire to the old
Chateau in the gorge of two valleys ! Devised
and dime. But now, a young wife used to the
delicacies of life, ought she not to have some
suite of rooms done up for her? Upholsterers
hammer and furbish; with efl^ect; not without
bills. Then the very considerable .few-debts !
Poor Mirabeau sees nothing for it, but to run
to the father-in-law with tears in his eyes; and
conjure him to make those " rich expectations"
in some measure fruitions. Foriy thousand
francs; to such length will the father-in-law,
moved by these tears, by this fire-eloquence,
table ready nioney ; provided old Marquis
Mirabeau, who has some provisicmal rever-
sionary interest in the thins:, will grant quit-
lance. Old Marquis Mirabeau, written to in

the most impassioned, persuasive manner,
answers by a letter, of the sort they call Sealed
Letter, (kiire de cachet,) ordering the impas-
sioned Persuasive, under his Majesty's hand
and seal, to bundle into Coventry, as we should
say; into Manosque.as the Sealed Letter says !
— Farewell, thou old Chateau, with thy uphol-
stered rooms, on thy sheer rock, by the angry-
flowing Durance: welcome, thou miserable
little borough of Manosque, since hither Fate
drives us! In Manosque, loo, a man can live,
and read; can write an Essai sur le DcKpoiame,
(and have it printed in Switzerland, 1774 ;)
full of fire and rough vigour, and still worth
reading.

The Essay on Despotism, wi'h so little of the
Epheiucridcs and Quesnay in it, could find but
a hard critic in the old Marquis ; snuffling out
something (one fancies) about "Reflex and
reverberance ;" formulas getting swallowed;
rash hairbrain treating matters that require
age and gravity; — however, let it pass. Un-
happily there came other offences. A certain
gawk, named Chevalier de Gassaud, accus-
tomed to visit in the house at Manosque, sees
good to commence a kind of theoretic flirtation
with the little brown Wife, which she theoreti-
cally sees good to return. Billet meets billet;
glance follows glance, crescendo allesro; — till
the husband opens his lips, volcano-like, with
a proposal to* kick Chevalier de Gassaud out
of doors. Chevalier de Gassaud goes unkick-
ed, but not without some explosion or edat .
there is like to be a duel; only that Gassaud,
li/iowing what a sword this Riquetti wears,
will not fight; and his father has to plead and
beg. Generous Count, kill not my poor son :
alas, already this most lamentable explosion
itself has broken off the finest marriage settle-
ment, and now the family will not hear of him !
The generous Count, so pleaded with, not only
flings the duel to the winds, but gallops otl",
(forgetful of the letlre de cachet,) half desperate,
to plead with the marriage-family; to preach
with them, and pray, till they have taken poor
Gassaud into favour again. Prosperous in
this, (for what can resist such pleading?) he
may now ride home more leisurely, with the
consciousness of a right action for once.

As we said, this ride of his lies beyond the
limits fixed in the royal Sealed Letter; but nc
one surely will mind it, no one will report it.
A beautiful summer evening: O, poor Gabriel,
it is the last jieaceably prosperous ride tl'oii
shalt have for long, — perhaps almost ever in
the world ! For lo ! who is this that comes
curricling through the level yeliow sun-light
like one of Respectability, keeping his gig!
By Day and Night! it is that base Baron, de
Villeneuve-Moans, who insulted sister Cabris
in the Promenade of Grasse ! Human nature,
without time for reflection, is liable to err.
The swift-rolling gig is already in contact with
one, the horse rearing against your horse; and
you dismount, almost without knovving. Satis-
faction which gentlemen expect, Mcmsieur!
NoT Do I hear rightly No? In that case,
Monsieur, — and this wild Gabiiel, {liocescc
referens!) clutches the respectable Villeneuxe
Moans; and horsewhips him there, not em-
blomatically only, but practically, on the king's

496

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

highway seen of some peasants ! Here is a
message for Rumour to blow abroad.

Rumour blows, — to Paris as elsewhither:
for answer, (on the 26th of June, 1774,) there
arrives a fresh Sealed Letter, of more em-
phasis; there arrive with it grim catchpoles
and their chaise: the Swallower of Formulas,
snatched away from wife, child, (then dying,)
and last shadow of a home even in exile, is
trundling towards Marseilles ; towards the
Castle of If, which frowns out among the
waters in the roadstead there! Girt with the
blue Mediterranean; within iron stanchions;
cut off from pen, paper, and friends, and men,
except the Cerberus of the place, who is
charged to be ver}' sharp with him, there shall
he sit: such virtue is in a Sealed Letter; so
has the grim old Marquis ordered it. Our
gleam of sunshine, then, is darkening mise-
rably down ] Down, O thou poor Mirabeau,
to thick midnight! Surely Formulas are all
too cruel on thee: thou art getting really into
war with formulas, (terriblest of wars;) and
thou, by God's help and the devil's, wilt make
away with them, — in the terriblest manner!
From this hour, we say, thick and thicker
darkness settles round poor Gabriel ; his life-
path growing evf,( painfuUer; alas, growing
ever more devious, beset by igncs futui, and
lights not of heaven. Such Alcides' Labours
have seldom been allotted to any man.

Check thy hot frenzy, thy hot tears, poor
Mirabeau; adjust thyself as it may be; for
there is no help. Autumn becomes loud win-
ter, revives into gentle spring: the waves beat
round this Castle of If, at the mouth of Mar-
seil'les harbour; girdling in the unhappiest
man. No, not the unhappiest: poor Gabriel
has such a "fond gaillard," (basis of joy and
gayety;) there is a deep fiery life in him,
which no blackness of destiny can quench.
The Cerberus of If. M. Dallegre, relents, as all
Cerberuses do with him; gives paper; gives
sympathy and counsel. Nay, letters have al-
ready been introduced; "buttoned in some
scoundrel's gaiters," the old Marquis says !
On Sister du Saillant's kind letter there fall
" tears ;" nev( ithelcss you do not always weep.
You do better; write a brave Col dt JrgcnCs
Memoiis (quoted from above;) occupy your-
self with projects and efforts. Sometimes,
alas, you do worse, though in the other direc-
tion,— where Canteen-keepers have pretty
wives! A mere peccadillo this of the frail
fair Cantiiiicre, (according to the Fils Ailoptif ;)
of which too much was made at the time. —
Nor are juster consolations wanting; sisiers
and brothers bidding you be of hope. Our
readers have heard Count Mirabeau designated
"as the elder of my lads:" what if we now
exhibited the younger for one moment? The
Maltese Chevalier de Mirabeau, a rough son
of the sea in those days : he also is a sad dog,
but has the advantage of not being the elder.
He has started from Malta, from a sick bed,
and got hither to Marseilles, in the dead of
winter; the link of Nature drawing him, shag-
gy sea-monster as he is.

" It was a rough wind ; none of the boatmen
would leave the quay with me: I induced two
■ >f them more by bullying than by money: for

thou knowest I have no money, and am well
furnished, thank God, with the gift of speak-
ing or stuttering. I reach the 'Castle of If:
gates closed; and the Lieutenant, as M. Dalle-
gre was not there, tells me quite sweetly that
I must return as I came. 'Not, if you please,
till I have seen Gabriel.' — 'It is not allowed.'
— 'I will write to him.' — 'Not that either.' —
'Then I will wait for M. Dallegre.' — 'Just
so ; but for four-and-twenty hours, not more.'
Whereupon I take my resolution; go to la
Mouret," (canteen-keeper's pretty wife;) "we
agree that so soon as the tattoo is beat, I shall
see this poor devil. I get to him, in fact; not
like a puladin, but like a pickpocket or a gal-
lant, which thou wilt ; and we unbosom our-
selves. They had been afraid that he would
heat my head to the temperature of his own :
Sister Cabris, they do him little justice; I can
assure thee that while he was telling me his
story, and when my rage broke out in these
words: 'Though still weakly, I have two
arms, strong enough to break M. Villeneuve-
Moans's, or his cowardly persecuting brother's
at least,' he said to me, ' Mon o»(i, thou wilt
ruin us both.' And, I confess, this considera-
tion alone, perhaps, hindered the execution of
a project, which could not have profited,
which nothing but the fermentation of a head
such as mine could excuse." — Vol. ii. p. 43.

Reader, this tarry young Maltese chevalier
is the Vicomte de Mirabeau, or Younger Mira-
beau; whom all men heard of in the Revolu-
tion time, — oflenest by the more familiar name
of Mirabcau-Tonm'aii , or Barrel Mirabeau, from
his bulk, and the quantity of drink he usually
held. It is the same Barrel Mirabeau who, in
the States-General, broke his sword, because
the Noblesse gave in, and chivalry was now
ended: for in politics he was directly the op-
posite of .his elder brother; and spoke consi-
derably as a public man, making men laugh,
(for he was a wild surly fellow, with much
wit in him and much liquor;) — then went in-
dignantly across the Rhine, and drilled Emi-
grant Regiments; but as he sat one morning
in his tent, sour of stomach doubtless and of
heart, meditating in Tartarean humour on the
turn things took, a certain captain or subaltern
demands admittance on business; is refused;
again demands, and then again, till the Colo-
nel Viscount Barrel INfirabeau, blazing up into
a mere burning brandy-barrel, clutches his
sword, and tumbles out on this canuille of an
intruder, — alas, on the canaille of an intruder's
sword's point, (who drew \^'ith swift dexterity,)
and dies, and it is all done with him! That
was the fifth act of Barrel Mirabeau's life-
tragedy, (unlike, and yet like, this first act in
the Castle of If;) and so the curtain fell, the
Newspapers calling it " apoplexy" and " alarm-
ing accident."

Brother and sisters, the little brown Wife,
the Cerberus of If, all solicit for a penitent un-
fortunate sinner. The old Marquis's ear is
deaf as that of Destiny. Solely, by way of
variation, not of alleviation, (especiallv as the
If Cerberus too has been bewitched,) he has
this sinner removed, in May next, after some
nine months' space, to the Castle of Joux; an
"old Owl's nest, with a few invalids," among

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

497

the Jura Mountains. Instead of melancholy
main, let him now try the melancholy granites,
(still capped with snow at this season,) with
their mists and owlets; and on the whole ad-
just himself as if for permanence or continu-
ance there; on a pension of 1,200 francs, fifty
pounds a year, since he could not do with five
hundred! Poor Mirabeau ; — and poor Mira-
beau's Wife'! Reader, the foolish little brown
V oinan tires of soliciting; her child being
buried, her husband buried alive, and her little
brown self being still above ground and under
twenty, she takes to recreation, theoretic flirta-
tion ; ceases soliciting, begins successful for-
getting. The marriage, cut asunder that day
the catchpole chaise drew up at Manosque,
will never come together again, in spile of ef-
forts; but flow onwards in two separate
streams, to lose itself in the frightfullest sand-
deseris. Husband and wife never more saw
each other with eyes.

Not far from the melancholy Castle of Joux
lies the little melancholy borough of Pontar-
lier; whither our Prisoner has leave, on his
parole, to walk when he chooses. A melan-
choly little borough ; yet in it is a certain Mon-
nier Household; whereby hangs, and will hang,
a tale. Of old M. Monnier, respectable legal
President, now in his seventy-fifth year, we
shall say less than of his wife, Sophie Mon-
nier, (once de Ruffeyjfrom Dijon, sprung from
legal Presidents there,) who is still but short
way out of her teens. Yet she has been mar-
ried (or seemed to be married) four years:
one of the loveliest sad-heroic women of this
or any district of countr}'. What accursed
freak of Fate brought January and May to-
gether here once again 1 Alas, it is a custom
there, good reader! Thus the old Naturalist
Buffdn, who, at the age of sixty-three, (what is
called "the St. Martin's summer of incipient
dotage and new myrtle garlands," which visits
some men,) went ransacking the country for a
young wife, had very nearlj' got this identical
Sdphie ; butdid get another, known as Madame
de Bufl'un, well known to Philip Egalitii, having
turned out ill. Sophie de Ruffey loved wise
men, but not at that extremely advanced pe-
riod of life. However, the question for her
is: Does she love a Convent better 1 Her
mother and father are rigidly devout, and
rigidly vain and poor: the poor girl, sad-
heroic, is probablya kind of freethinker. And
now, old President Monnier "quarrelling with
his daughter; and then coming over to Pontar-
lier with gold-bags, marriage-settlements, and
the prospect of dying soon!" It is that same
miserable tale, often sung against, often
spoken against; very miserable indeed. — But
fancy what an cfliect the fiery eloquence of a
Mirabeau produced in this sombre Household:
one's young girl-dreams incarnated, most un-
expectedly, in this wild glowing mass of man-
hodd, (though rather ugly;) old Mt)nnier him-
self gleaming up into a kind of vitality to hear
him ! Or fancj' whether a sad-heroic face,
glancing on you with a thankfulness like to be-
come glad-heroic, were not 1 Mirabeau

felt, by known symptoms, that the sweetest,
fatalesl incantation was stealing over him,
S3

which could lead only to the devil, for all pai-
ties interested. He wrote to his wife, entreat-
ing, in the name of Heaven, that she would
come to him : thereby might the " sight of his
duties" fortify him; he meanwhile would at
least forbear Pontarlier. The wife " answered
by a few icy lines, indicating, in a covert way,
that she thought me not in my wits." He
ceases forbearing Pontarlier; sweeter is it
than the Owl's nest: he returns thither, with

sweeterandeversweeterwelcome; and so !

Old Monnier saw nothing, or winked hard;
— not so our old foolish Commandant of the
Castle of Joux. He, though kind to his pri-
soner formerly, "had been making some pre-
tensions to Sophie himself; he was but forty or
five-and-fbrty years older than I; my ugliness
was not greater than his ; and I had the ad-
vantage of being an honest man." Green-eyed
Jealousy, in the shape of this old ugly Com-
mandant, warns Monnier by letter; also, on
some thin pretext, restricts Mirabeau hence-
forth to the four walls of Joux. Mirabeau flings
back such restriction in an indignant Letter
to this green-eyed Commandant ; indignantly
steps over into Switzerland, which is but a few
miles oflT; — returns, however, in a day or two,
(it is dark January, 1776,) covertly to Pontar-
lier. There is an explosion, what they call
edat. Sophie Monnier, sharply dealt with,
resists; avows her love for Gabriel Honore;
asserts her right to love him, her purpose to
continue doing it. She is sent home to Dijon ;
Gabriel Honore covertly follows her thither.
Explosions: what a continued series of ex-
plosions,— through winter, spring, summer!
There are tears, devotional exercises, threaten-
ings to commit suicide; there are stolen in-
terviews, perils, proud avowals, and lowly con-
cealments. He on his part, "voluntarily
constitutes himself prisoner;" and does other
haughty, vehement things; some Coinmand
ants behaving honourably, and some not : one
Commandant (old Marquis Mirabeau of the
Chateau of Bignon) getting ready his thunder-
bolts in the distince! "I have been lucky
enough to obtain Mont St. Michel, in INorraan-
dy," says the old Marquis: "I think thai pri-
son good, because there is first the castle itself,
then a ring-work all round the mountain; and,
after that, a pretty long passage among the
sands, where you need guides, to avoid beinjf
drowned in the quicksands." Yes, it rises there,
that Mountain of St. Michel, and Mountain ol*
Misery ; towering sheer up, like a bleak Pisgab
with outlooks only into Desolation, sand, salt-
water, and Despair.* Fly, thou poor (iabriei
Honore ! Thou poor Sopliie, return to Pontar-
lier; for Convent- walls too are cruel !

Gabriel flies; and indeed there fly with him
sister Cabris and her preternuptial epauletted
Brianson, who are already in flight for their
own behoof: into deep thickets and covered
ways, wide over the South-west of France.
Marquis Mirabeau, thinking with a fimd sor-
row of Mont St. Michel and its quicksands,
chooses the two best bloodhounds the Police of
Paris has, ("Inspector Brugniere and another) ,
and, unmuzzling them, cries: Hunt! — " Mon
sieur, we have done all that the human mind
♦ See Menioires de Madame de Geulis, iii. 201.
2 T 2

498

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

(fesprit humain) can imagine, and this when
the heats are so excessive, and we are worn
out with fatigue, and our legs swoln."

No: all that the human mind can imagine
is ineffectual. On the twenty-third night of
August, (1776,) Sophie de Monnier, in man's
clothes, is scaling the Monnier garden-wall at
Pontarlier; is crossing the Swiss marches,
wrapped in a cloak of darkness, borne on the
wings of love and despair. Gabriel Honore,
wrapped in the like cloak borne on the like
vehicle, is gone with her to Holland, — thence-
forth a broken man.

" Crime jor ever lamentable," ejaculates the
Fih jidoptif; "of which the world has so
spoken, and must for ever speak!" There
are, indeed, many things easy to be spoken
of it; and also some things not easy to be
spoken. Why, for example, thou virtuous Fils
Moptif, was that of the Canteen-keeper's wife
at If such a peccadillo, and this of the legal
President's wife such a crime, lamentable to
that late date of "for ever?" The present re-
viewer fancies them to be the same crime.
Again, might not the first grand criminal and
sinner in this business be legal President Mon-
nier, the distracted, spleen-slricken, moon-
stricken old man ; — liable to trial, with non-
acquittal or difficult acquittal, at the great Bar
of Nature herself] And then the second sin-
ner in it? and the third and the fourth ? "He
that is iciihout sin among you !" — One thing,
therefore, the present reviewer will speak, in
the words of old Samuel .lohnson : My dear
Fils Adoptif, my dear brethren of Mankind,
"endeavour to clear your mind of Cant !" It
is positively the prime necessity for all men,
and ail women and children, in these days,
who would have their souls live, (were it even
feebly,) and not die of the detestablest as-
phyxia; as in carbonic vapour, the more hor-
rible (for breathing of) the more clean it looks.

That the Pa)7c/?ip«< of Besangon indicted Mi-
rabeau for rapt el vol, abduction and robbery ;
that they condemned him "in contumacious
absence," and went the length of beheading a
Paper Effigy of him, was perhaps extremely
suitable ; — but not to be dwelt on here. Neither
do we pry curiouslv into the gan-ei-life in Hol-
land and Amsterdam; being straitened for room.
The wild man and his beautiful sad-heroic
woman lived out their romance of reality, as
well as was expected. Hot tempers go not al-
ways softly together; neither did the course of
true love, either in wedlock or in elopement,
ever run smooth. Yet it did run, in this in-
stance, copious, if not smooth ; with quarrel
and reconcilement, tears and heart-effusion ;
sharp tropical squalls, and also the gorgeous
effulgence and exuberance of general tropical
weather. It was like a little Paphos islet in
the middle of blackness; the very danger and
despair that environed it made the islet bliss-
ful ; — even as in virtue of death, life to the
fretfuUest becomes tolerable, becomes sweet,
den''' being so nigh. At any hour, might not
kill •, exempt or other dread alguazil knock at
our garret establishment, (here " in the A>///jc.f-
trand, at Lequesne the tailor's,") and dissolve
it'! Gabriel toils for Dutch booksellers ; bear-
ing their heavy load; translating Watson\

Philip Second: doing endless Gibeonite work:
earning, however, his gold louis a day. Sophie
sews and scours beside him, with her scft fin-
gers, not grudging it: in hard toils, in trem-
bling joys begirt with terrors, with one terror,
that of being parted, — their days roll swiftly on.
For eight tropical months ! — Ah, at the end of
some eight months, (14th May, 1777,) enter the
alguazil ! He is in the shape of Brugniere, our
old slot-hound of the South-west; the swelling
of his legs is fallen now; this time the human
mind has been able to manage it. He carries
Kings orders. High Mightiness' sanctions;
sealed parchments. Gabriel Honore shall
be carried this way, Sophie that ; Sophie, like
to be a mother, shall behold him no more.
Desperation, even in the female character, can
go no farther: she will kill herself that hour,
as even the slot-hound believes. — had not the
very slot-hound, in mercy, undertaken that
they should have some means of correspond-
ence ; that hope should not utterly be cut away.
With embracings and interjections, sobbings
that cannot be uttered, they tear themselves
asunder, stony Paris now nigh : Mirabeau to-
wards his prison of Vincennes ; Sophie to some
milder Convent-parlour relegation, there to
await what Fate, very minatory at this time,
will see good to bring.

Conceive the giant Mirabeau locked fast,
then, in Doubting-castle of Vincennes ; his hot
soul surging up, wildly breaking itself against
cold obstruction ; the voice of his despair re-
verberated on him by dead stone walls. Fallen
in the eyes of the world, the ambitious haughty
man; his fair life-hopes from without all
spoiled and become foul ashes: and from
within, — what he has done, what he has parted
with and ?n/done ! Deaf as Destiny is a Rha-
damanthine father; inaccessible even to the at-
tempt at pleading. Heavy doors have slammed
to; their bolts growling Wo to thee! Great
Paris sends eastward its daily multitudinous
hum ; in the evening sun thou seest its
weathercocks glitter, its old grim towers and
fuliginous life-breath all gilded: and thou 1 —
Neither evening nor mornins;, nor change of
day nor season, brings deliverance. For-
gotten of Earth; not too hopefully remem-
bered of Heaven ! No passionate Pater-Pec-
rnvi can move an old Marquis ; deaf he as
Destiny. Thou must sit there. — For forty-two
months, by the great Zodiacal Horologe! The
heir of the Riquettis, sinful, and yet more
sinned against, has worn out his wardrobe;
complaints that his clothes get looped and
windowed, insufficient against the M'eather.
His eyesight is failing; the family disorder,
nephritis, afflicts him; the doctors declare
hoi-se-exercise essential to preserve life.
Within the walls then! answers the old
Marquis. Count de Mirabeau "rides in the
garden of forty paces;" with quick turns,
hamperedly, overlooked by donjons and high
stone barriers.

And yet fancy not Mirabeau spent his time
in mere wailing and raging. Far from that!—

To wtiiiiH, |int fitiL'er i' ths pye, ;in(i sob,

Because lie h^id ne'er another liili,

was in no case Mirabeau's method, more than
Diogenes's. Other such wild-glowing Mass

MEMOIRS OF MIR ABE A u.

499

of I^ife, which you might beat with Cyclops'
hammers, (and, alas, not beat the dross out. of,)
was not in Europe at that time. Call him not
the strongest man then living; for light, as we
said, and not fire, is the strong thing; yet call
him strong too, very strong; and for tough-
ness, tenacity, vivaciousness, and a fond gail-
liird, call him toughest of all. Raging pas-
sions, ill-governecl ; reckless tumult from
within, merciless oppression from without;
ten men might have died of what this Gabriel
Honore did not yet die of. Police-captain
Lenoir allowed him, in mercy and according
to engagement, to correspond with Sophie;
the condition was that the letters should be
seen by Lenoir, and be returned into his keep-
ing. Mirabeau corresponded ; in fire and tears,
copiously, not Werter-like, but Mirabeau-like.
Then he had penitential petitions, Pater-Pec-
cuvis to write, to get presented and enforced;
for whicii end all manner of friends must be
urged: correspondence enough. Besides, he
could read, though very limitedly : he could
even compose or compile; extracting, jio^ in
the manner of the bee, from the very Bible
and Dom Calmet, a Bihlum Erotuon, which can
be recommended to no woman or man. The
pious Ftls ./idoptif drops a veil over his face
at this scandal ; and says lamentably that there
is nothing to be said. As for Correspondence
with Sophie, it lay in Lenoir's desk forgotten ;
but was found there by Manuel, Procureur of
the Commune in 1792, when so many desks
flew open; and by him given to the world. A
book which fair sensibility (rather in a private
way) loves to weep over: not this reviewer,
to any considerable extent; not at all here, in
his present strait for room. Good love-letters
of their kind notwithstanding. But if any
thing can swell farther the tears of fair sensi-
bility over Mirabeau's " Correspondence of Vin-
ccnnes," it must be this: the issue it ended in.
After a space of years these two lovers,
wrenched asunder in Holland, and allowed to
correspond that they might not poison them-
selves, met again: it was under cloud of
night; in Sophie's apartment, in the country ;
Mirabeau, "disguised as a porter," had come
thither from a considerable distance. And
they fievv into each other's arms; to weep
their child dead, their long unspeakable woes 1
Not at all. They stood, arms stretched ora-
torically, calling one another to account for
causes of jealousy; grew always louder, arms
set a-kimbo; and parted quite loud, never to
meet more on earth. In September, 1789,
Mirabeau had risen to be a world's wtmder:
and Sophie, far from him, had sunk out of the
;vorld's sight, respected only in the little town
of Gien. On the 9th night of September, Mira-
beau might be thundering in the Versailles
Salle dis Menus, to be reported of all Journals
on the morrow; and Sophie, twice disap-
pointed of new marriage, the sad-heroic tem-
per darkened now into perfect black, was re-
clining, solt'-tied to her sofa, with a pan of
charcoal burning near; to die as the unhappy
die. Said we not, "the course of true love
never did run smooth V

However, after two-and-forty months, and
negotiations, an.l more intercessions than in

Catholic countries will free a soul ou\. of pur-
gatory, Mirabeau is once more delivered from
the strong place: not into his own home,
(home, wife, and the whole Past are far parted
from him;) not into his father's home; but
forth ; — hurled forth, to seek his fortune Ish-
mael-like in the wide hunting-field of the world.
Consider him, 0 Reader; thou wilt find him
very notable. \. disgraced man, not a broken
one; ruined outwardly, not ruined inwardly;
not yet, for there is no ruining of him on that
side. Such a buoyancy of radical fire and
fond gailliird he has ; with his dignity and
vanity, levity, solidity, with his virtues and his
vices, — what a front he shows ! You would
say, he bates not a jot, in these sad circum-
stances, of what he claimed from Fortune, but
rather enlarges it: his proud soul, so galled,
deformed by manacles and bondage, flings
away its prison-gear, bounds forth to the fight
again, as if victory, after all, were certain.
Post-horses to Pontaiiier and the Besan^on
Parlement; that that "sentence by contu-
macy" be annulled, and the Paper Effigy have
its Head stuck on again ! The wild giant,
said to be "absent by contumacy," sits volun-
tarily in the Pontarlier Jail ; thunders in plead-
ings which make Parlementeers quake, and
all France listen ; and the Head reunites it-
self to the Paper Effigy with apologies. Mon-
nier and the De Kuff"eys know who is the most
impudent man alive: the world with astonish-
ment, who is one of the ablest. Even the old
Marquis snuffles approval, though with quali-
fication. Tough old Man, he has lost his own
world-famous Lawsuit and other lawsuits, with
ruinous expenses ; has seen his fortune and
projects fail, and even Icdres de cadhct turn out
not always satisfactory or sanatory; where-
fore he summons his children about him ; and,
really in a very serene way, declares himself
invalided, fit only for the chimney-nook now;
to sit patching his old mind together again,
{a rebouter sa tele, a se recoudre piece a jncce :)
advice and countenance they, the deserving
part of them, shall always enjoy; but Idtres de
cachet, or other the like benefit and guidance,
not any more. Right so, thou best of old
Marquises ! There he rests then, like the still
evening of a thundery day ; thunders no more ;
but rays forth many a curiously-tinted light-
beam and remark on life ; serene to the last.
Among Mirabeau's small catalogue of virtues,
(very small of formulary and conventional
virtues,) let it not be forgotten thnt he loved
this old father warmly to the end ; and forgave
his cruelties, or forgot them in kind interpie-
tation of them.

For the Pontarlier paper effigy, therefore, it
is well : and yet a man lives not comfortably
without money. Ah, were one's marriage not
disrupted; for the old father-in-law wi.i soon
die; those rich expectations were then fruitions!
The ablest, not the most shame-faced man in
France, is off, next spring (1783,) to Aix ; stir-
ring Parlement and Heaven and Earth there,
to have his wife back. How he worked; with
what nobleness and courage, (according to
the Fils Jdoplif:) giant's work! The soun.i
of him is spread over France and over the
world; English travellers (high foreign lord-

500

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS;

ships) turning aside to Aix; and "multitudes
gathered even on the roofs" to hear him, the
Couri-house being crammed to bursting! De-
mosthenic fire and pathos; penitent husband
calling for forgiveness and restitution: — "cc
n^est qu'tin daipte-dentscl un fol,'' rays forth theold
Marquis from the chimney-nook : "achalter-
teelh and madman?" The world and Parle-
ment thought not that; knew not what to think,
if not that this was the qneslionablest able man
they had ever heard; and, alas, still farther, —
that his cause was vniennblc. No wife then ;
and no money ! From this second attack on
Fortune, Mirabeau returns foiled, and worse
than before ; resourceless, for now the old
Marquis, loo, again eyes him askance. He
must 'hunt Ishmael-like, as we said. Whatso-
ever of wit or strength he has within himself
will stand true to him; on that lie can count;
unfortunately on almost nothing but that.

Mirabeau's life for the next five years, which
creeps troublous, obscure, through several of
these Eight Volumes, will probably, in the
One right Volume which they hold imprisoned,
be delineated briefly. It is the long-drawn
practical improvement of the sermon already
preached in Rhe, in If, in Joux, in Holland, in
Vinceniies, and elsewhere. A giant man in
the flower of his years, in the winter of his
prospects, has to see how he will reconcile
these twf) contradictions. With giant energies
and talents, with giant virtues even, he, burn-
ing to unfold himself, has got put into his
hands, for implements and means to do it with,
disgrace, contumely, obstruction; character
elevated only as Haman was; purse full only
of debt-summonses; household, home, and
possessions, as it were, sown with salt; Ruin's
plough-share furrowing too deeply himself and
all that was his. Under these, and not under
other conditicms, shall this man now live and
struggle. Well might he "weep" long after-
wards, (though not given to the melting mood,)
thinking over, with Dumont, how his life had
been blasted, by himself, by others; and was
now so defaced and thunder-riven, no glory
could make it whole again. Truly, as we
often say, a weaker, and yet very strong man,
might have died, — by hypochondria, by brandy,
or by arsenic: but Mirabeau did not die. 'J'he
world is not his friend, nor the world's law
and formula 1 It will be his enemy then ; his
conqueror and master not altogether. There
are strong men who can, in case of necessity,
make way with formulas, {hiuiier Ics forrnules.)
and yet find a habitation behind them : these
are the very strong; and Mirabeau was of
these. The world's esteem having gone quite
against him, and most circles of society, with
their codes and regulations, pronouncing little
but anaiheina on him, he is nevertheless not
lost ; he does not sink to desperation ; not to dis-
honesty, or pusillanimity, or splenetic aridity.
Nowise! In spite of the world, he is a living
strong man there : the world cannot take from
him his just consciousness of himself, his warm
open-hearted feeling towards others; there
are still limits, on all sides, to which the world
and the devil cannot drive him. The giar.:,
*e sav! How he stands, like a mountain;

thunder-riven, but broad-based, rooted in the
Earth's (in Nature's) own rocks; and will not
tumble prostrate ! So true is it what a moralist
has said: "One could not wish any man to
fall into a fault; yet is it often precisely after
a fault, or a crime even, that the morality
which is ill a man first unfolds itself, and what
of strength he as a man possesses, now when
all else is gone from him."

Mirabeau, through these dim years, is seen
wandering from place to place ; in France,
Germany, Holland, England; finding no rest
for the sole of his foot. It is a life of shifts
and expedients, au jour le jour. Extravagant
in his expenses, thriftless, swimming in a
welter of debts and difficulties; for which he
has to provide by fierce industry; by skill in
financiership. The man's revenue is hi.>» wits ;
he has a pen and a head; and, happily for
him, "is the demon of the impossible." At no
time is he without some blazing project or
other, which shall warm and illuminate far
and wide; which too often blazes out inefl^ec-
tual; which in that case lie replaces and re-
news, for his hope is inexhaustible. He w ites
pamphlets unweariedly as a steam-engine:
On the Vpemiig ofihe Scheldi, and Kaiser Joseph :
On the Order of Cnicinuuttis and Washington:
on Count Ciigliostro, and the Diamond Necklace.
Innumerable are the helpers and journeymen
(respectable Mauvillons, respectable Dumonts)
whom he can set working for him on such
matters ; it is a gift he has. He writes Books,
in as many as eight volumes, which are pro-
perly only a larger kind of Pamphlets. He
has polemics with Caron Beaumarchais on
the water-company of Paris; lean Caron shoot-
ing sharp arrows into him, which he responds
to demoniacally, "flinging hills with all their
woods." He is intimate with many men ; hij
" terrible gift of familiarly," his joyous courtier-
ship and faculty of pleasing, do not forsake
him : but it is a questionable intimacy, granted
to the man's talents, in spite of his character:
a relation which the proud Riqueiti, not the
humbler that he is poor and ruined, coriectly
feels. With still more women is be intimate;
girt with a whole system of intrigues, in that
sort, wherever he abide; seldom travelling
without a — wife (let us call her) engaged by
the year, or during mutual satisfaction. On
this large department of Mirabeau's history,
what can you say, except that his incontinence
was great, enormous, entirely indefensible?
If any one please (which we do not) to be pre-
sent, with the Fils Jdop'if, at "the aulopde,"
and post-mor:em examination, he will see curious
documents on this head; and to what depths
of penalty Nature, in her just self-vii.dication,
can sometimes doom men. The Fih Jdopiif
is very soit}'. To the kind called unfortunate-
females, it would seem, nevertheless, this un-
fortunate-male had an aversion amounting
to complete nuli-liuigcre.

The old Marquis sits apart in the chimney-
nook, observant: what this roaming, unresting,
rebellious Titan of a Count may ever prove of
use fori If it be not, O Marquis, for the
general Overturn, Culbute Generale.^ He is
swallowing Foruiulas; getting endless ac-
quaintance with the Realities of things ana

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

501

men: in audacity, in recklessness, he will not,
it is like, be wantinsr- The old Marquis ia)'s
out curious observations on life; — yields no
effectual assistance of money.

Ministries change and shift; but never, in
the new deal, does there turn up a ^ood card
for Mirabeau. INecker he does not love, nor
is love lost between them. Plausible Calonne
hears him Stentor-like denouncing stock-job-
bing, (i'cwoMc/a/joM de r.i'}giotas:e :) communes
with him, corresponds with him; is glad to
get him sent, in some semi-ostensible or spy-
diplomatist character, to Berlin; in any way
to have him sopped and quieted. The Great
Frederic was still on the scene, though now
very near the side-scenes: the wiry thin Drill-
serjeant of the World, and the broad burly
Mutineer of the World, glanced into one another
with amazement; the one making entrance,
the other making exit. To this Berlin busi-
ness we owe pamphlets; we owe Corre^pnnd-
eiices, ("surreptitiously published" — with con-
sent;) we owe (brave .Major Mauvillon serving
as hodman) the Monarchic Priissionie, a Pam-
phlet in some eight octavo Volumes, portions
of which are still well worth reading.

Generally, on first making personal ac-
quaintance with Mirabeau as a writer or
speaker, one is not a little surprised. Instead
of Irish oratory, with tropes and declamatory
fervid feeling, such as the rumour one has
heard gives prospect of, you are astonished to
meet a certain hard angular distinctness, a
totally unornamented force and massiveness:
clear perspicuit3% strong perspicacity, convic-
tion that wishes to convince, — this beyond all
things, and instead of all things. You would
say the primary character of those utterances,
nay, of the man himself, is sincerity and in-
sight ; strength, and the honest use of strength.
Which, indeed, it is, O Reader! Mirabeau's
spiritual gift will be found on examination to
be verily an honest and a great one; far the
strongest, best practical intellect of that time;
entitled to rank among the strong of all times.
These books of his ought to be riddled, like
this book of the Fih Jldoptif. There is pre-
cious matter in them; too good to lie hidden
among shot rubbish. Hear this man on any
subject, you will find him worth considering.
He has words in him, rough deliverances;
such as men do not forget. As thus : " I know
but three ways of living in this world: by
wages for work ; by begging ; thirdly, by
stealing, (so named, or not so named.)" Again :
"Malebranche saw all things in God; and M.
Necker sees all things in Necker!" There
are nicknames of Mirabeau's worth whole
treatises. "Grandison-Cromwell Lafayette:"
write a volume on the man, as many volumes
have been written, and try to say more! It is
the best likeness yet drawn of him, — by a
flourish and two dots. Of such inexpressible
advantage is it that a man have " an eye, in-
stead of a pair of spectacles merely ;" that,
seeing through the formulas of things, and
even " making away" with many a formula,
he sees into the thing itself, and so know it
and be master of it !

As the years roll on, and that portentous
tlecaJe of the Eighties (or "Era of Hope")

draws towards completion, and it becomes
ever more evident to Mirabeau that great
things are in the wind, we find his wanderings,
as it were, quicken. Suddenly emerging out
of Night and Cimmeria, he dashes down on
the Paris world, time after time; flashes into
it with that fire-glance of his ; discerns that
the time is not yet come; and then merges
back again. Occasionally his pamphlets pro-
voke a fulmination and order of arrest, where-
fore he must merge the faster. Nay, your
Calonne is good enough to signify it before-
hand : On such and such a day I shall order
you to be arrested; pray make speed there-
fore. When the Notables meet, in the spring
of 1787, Mirabeau spreads his pinions, alights
on Paris and Versailles; it seems to him he
ought to be secretary of those Notables. No!
friend Dupont de Nemours gets it: the time
is not yet come. It is still but the time of
" Crispin-Catiline" d'Espremenil, and other
such animal-magnetic persons. Nevertheless,
the Reverend Talleyrand, judicious Dukes,
liberal noble friends not a few, are sure that
the time will come. Abide thy time.

Hark! On the 27lh of December, 1788, here
finally is the long-expected announcing itsp'f :
royal Proclamation definitively convoking the
States-General for May next! Need we ask
whether Mirabeau bestirs himself now; whe-
ther or not he is off to Provence, to the As-
sembly of Noblesse there, with all his faculties
screwed to the sticking-place ? One strong
dead-lift pull, thou Titan ; and perhaps thou
carriest it ! How Mirabeau wrestled and
strove under these auspices; speaking and
contending all day, writing pamphlets, para-
graphs, all night; also suffering much, gather-
ing his wild soul tojrether, motionless under
reproaches, under drawn swords even, lest his
enemies throw him off his guard ; how he
agitates and represses, unerringly dexterous,
sleeplessly unwearied, and is a " demon of the
impossible," let all readers fancy. With "a
body of Noblesse more ignorant, greedier,
more insolent than any I have ever seen," the
Swallower of Formulas was like to have rough
work. We must give his celebrated flinging
up of the handful of dust, when they drove
him out by overwhelming majority: —

"What have I done that was so criminal?
I have wished that my Order were wise enough
to give to-day what will infallibly be wrested
from it to-morrow; that it should receive the
merits and glory of sanctioning the assemblage
of the Three Orders, which all Provence loudly
demands. This is the crime of your 'enemy
of peace!' Or rather I have ventured to be-
lieve that the people might be in the right.
Ah, doubtless, a patrician soiled with such a
thought deserves vengeance ! But I am still
guiltier than you think; for it is my belief that
the people which complains is always in the
right ; that its indefatigable patience invariably
waits the uttermost excesses of oppression,
before it can determine on resisting; that it
never resists long enough to obtain complete
redress ; and does not sufficiently know that to
strike its enemies into terror and submission,
it has only to stand still, that the most inno-
cent as the most invincible of all powers is

B02

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Ihe power of refusing to do. I believe after
this manner: punish the enemy of peace !

" But you, ministers of a God of peace, who
are ordained to bless and not to curse, and yet
have launched your anathema on me, without
even the attempt at enlightening me, at rea-
soning with me! And you, 'friends of peace,'
■who denounce to the people, with all vehe-
mence of hatred, the one defender it has yet
found, out of its own ranks; — who, to bring
about concord, are filling capital and province
with placards calculated to arm the rural dis-
tricts against the towns, if your deeds did not
refute your writings; — who, to prepare ways
of conciliation, protest against the royal Re-
gulation for convoking the States-General,
because it grants the people as many deputies
as both the other orders, and against all that
' the coming National Assembly shall do, unless
its laws secure the triumph of your preten-
sions, the eternity of your privileges ! Disin-
terested ' friends of peace !' I have appealed
to your honour, and summon you to state what
expressions of mine have offended against
either the respect we owe to the royal authority
or to the nation's right? Nobles of Provence,
Europe is attentive; weigh well your answer.
Men of God, beware; God hears you !

"And if you do not answer, but keep silence,
shutting yourselves up in the vague declama-
tions you have hurled at me, then allow me to
add one word.

"In all countries, in all times, aristocrats
have implacably persecuted the people's
friends ; and if, by some singular combination
of fortune, there chanced to arise such a one
in their own circle, it was he above all whom
they struck at, eager to inspire wider terror by
the elevation of their victim. Thus perished
the last of the Gracchi by the hands of the
patricians ; but, being struck with the mortal
stab, he flung dust towards Heaven, and called
on the Avenging Deities ; and from this dust
sprang Marius, — Marius not so illustrious for
exterminating the Cirnbri as for overturning
in Rome the tyranny of the Noblesse!"

There goes some foolish story of Mirabeau
having now opened a cloth-shop in Marseilles,
to ingratiate himself with the Third Estate ;
whereat we have often laughed. The image
of Mirabeau measuring out drapery to man-
kind, and deftly snipping at tailors' measures,
has something pleasant for the mind. So, that
though there is not a shadow of truth in this
story, the very lie may justly sustain itself for
a while, in the character of lie. Far other-
wise was the reality there : "voluntary guard
of a hundred men ;" Provence crowding by
the ten thousand round his chariot wheels ;
explosions of rejoicing musketry, heaven-
rending acclamation ; " people paying two
louis for a place at the window !" Hunger
itself (very considerable in those days) he
can pacify by speech. Violent meal mobs
at Marseilles and at Aix, unmanageable by
fire-arms and governors, he smooths down
by the word of his mouth ; the governor soli-
citing him, though unloved. It is as a Roman
Tnumph, and more. He is chosen deputy for
two places ; has to decline Marseilles, and
honour Aix, Let his enemies look and won-

der, and sigh forgotten by him. For this Mira
beau too the career at last opens.

At last! Does not the benevolent Reader,
though never so unambitious, sympathize a
little with this poor brother mortal in such a
easel Victory is always joyful ; but to think
of such a man, in the hour when, after twelve
Hercules' lAibours, he does finally triumph !
So long he fought M'ith the many-headed coil
of Lernean serpents; and, panting, wrestled
and wrang with it for life or death, — forty long
stern years; and now he has it under his
heel ! The mountain tops are scaled, are
scaled ; where the man climbed, on sharp
flinty precipices, slippery, abysmal; in dark-
ness, seen by no kind eye, — amid the brood
of dragons ; and the heart, many times, was
like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in his
extreme need: yet he climbed, and climbed,
glueing his footsteps i,n his blood; and now,
behold, Hyperion-like he has scaled it, and oa
the summit shakes his glittering shafts of war I
What a scene and new kingdom for him; all
bathed in auroral radiance of Hope; far-
stretching, solemn, joyful: what wild Meno-
non's music, from the depths of Nature, comes
toning through the soul raised suddenly out
of strangling death into victory and life! The
very bystander, we think, might weep, with
this Mirabeau, tears of joy.

Which, alas, will become tears of sorrow !
For know, O Son of Adam, (and Son of Lu-
cifer, with that accursed ambition of thine,)
that tbey are all a delusion and piece of de-
monic necromancy, these same auroral splen-
dours, enchantments and Memnon's tones !
The thing thou as mortal wantest is equili-
brium, (what is called rcsi or peace:) which,
God knows, thou wilt never get so. Happy
they that find it without such searching. But
in some twenty-three months more, of blazing
solar splendour and conflagration, this Mira-
beau will be ashes; and lie opaque, in the
Pantheon of great men (or say, French-Pan-
theon of considerable, or even of considered,
and small-noisy men,) — at rest nowhere, save
on the lap of his mother earth. There are to
whom the gods, in their bounty, give glory:
but far oftener it is given in wrath, as a curse
and a poison; disturbing the whole inner
health and industry of the man ; leading on-
ward through dizzy staggerings and tarantula
jiggings, — towards no saint's shrine. Truly,
if Death did not intervene ; or still more hap-
pily, if Life and the Public were not a block-
head, and sudden unreasonable oblivion were
not to follow that sudden unreasonable glory,
and beneficently, though most painfully, damp
it down, — one sees not where many a poor
glorious man, still more many a poor glorious
woman, (for it falls harder on the distin-
guished-female,) could terminate, — far short
of Bedlam.

On the 4th day of May, 1789, Madame de
Stael, looking from a window in the main
street of Versailles, amid an assembled world,
as the Deputies walked in procession from the
church of Notre-Dame to that of Saint Louis,
to hear High Mass, and be constituted S'ates'
General, saw this: "Among tliese Nobles who

MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU.

503

nad bcfiti Imputed to the Third Estate, above
all others, the Comte de Mirabeau. The opi-
nion men had of his genius was singularly
augmented by the fear entertained of his im-
morality; and yet it was this very immorality
which straitened the influence his astonishing
faculties were to secure him. You could not
but loolc long at this man, when once you had
noticed him : his immense black head of hair
distinguished him among them ail ; you would
have said his force depended on it, like that
of Samson: his face borrowed new expression
from its very ugliness; his whole person gave
yt'U the idea of an irregular power, but a
power such as you would figure in a Tribune
of the People." Mirabeau's history through
the first twentj'-lhree m.dntlis of the Revolution
falls not to be written here: yet it is well
worth writing somewhere. The Constituent
Assembly, when his name was first read out,
received it with murmurs; not knowing what
they murmured at! This honourable member
they were murmuring over was the member
of all members; the august Constituent, with-
out him, were no Constituent at all. Very
notable, truly, is his procedure in this section
of world-history : by far the notablest single
element there : none like to him, or second to
him. Once he is seen visibly to have saved,
as with his own force, the existence of the
Constituent Assembly; to have turned the
whole tide of things: in one of those moments
which are cardinal ; decisive for centuries.
The royal Declaration of the Twoiiy-ihird of
June is promulgated : there is military force
enough ; there is then the king's express order
to disperse, to meet as separate Third Estate
on the morrow. Bastilles and scaffolds may
be the penalty for disobeying. Mirabeau dis-
obeys ; lifts his voice to encourage others, all
pallid, panic-stricken, to disobey. Supreme
Usher De Breze enters, with the king's re-
newed order to depart. "Messieurs," said De
Breze, "you heard the king's order?" The
Swallowtr of Form.ulas bellows out these
words, that have become memorable: "Yes,
Monsieur, we heard what the king was advised
to say; and you, who cannot be interpreter of
his meaning to the States-General ; you, who
have neither vote nor seat, nor right of speech
here, you are not the man to remind us of it.
Go, Monsieur, tell those who sent you that we
are here by will of the Nation ; and that no-
thing but the force of bayonets can drive us
hence !" And poor De Breze vanishes, —
back foremost, the Fih Jdoplif s:\ys.

But this, cardinal moment though it be, is
perhaps intrinsically atnong his smaller feats.
In general, we would say once more with em-
phasis, He has " Iwnic /oi'Ick lex foniwlcs." He
goes through the Revolution like a substance
and a force, not like a formula of one. While
innumerable barren Sieyeses and Constitution-
pedants are building, with such hammering
and troweling, their august paper constitution,
(which endured eleven months,) this man
looks not at cobwebs and Soiial-('onlracts,hul
at things and men; discerning what is to be
done, — proceeding straight to do it. He shi-
vers out Usher De Breze, back foremost, when
that is the problem. " Marie Antoinette is

charmed with him," when it comes to thaw
He is the man of the Revolution, while he
lives; king of it; and only with life, as we
compute, would have quitted his kingship of
it. Alone of all these Twelve Hundred, there
is in him the faculty of a king. For, indeed,
have we not seen how assiduously Destiny
had shaped him all along, as with an express
eye to the work now in hand? O crabbed old
Friend of Men, whilst thou wert bolting this
man into Isles of Rhe, Castles of If, and tiain-
ing him so sharply to be thyself, not litmseK,—
how little knewest thou ivhnt thou wert doing!
Let us add, that the brave old Marquis lived
to see his son's victory over Fate and men,
and rejoiced in it ; and rebuked Barrel Mira-
beau for controverting such a Brother Gabriel.
In the invalid chimney-nook at Argenteuil,
near Paris, he sat raying out curious observa-
tions to the last; and died three days t'Cfore
the Bastille fell, precisely when the CvJbule
Generale was bursting out.

But finally, the twenty-three allotted months
are over. Madame de Stat'l,on the 4th of May,
1789, saw the Roman Tribune of the People,
and Samson with his long black hair: and on
the 4th of April, 1791, there is a Funeral Pro-
cession extending four miles: king's ministers,
senators, national guards, and all Paris, —
torchlight, wail of trombones and music, and
the tears of men ; mourning of a whole people,
— such mourning as no modern people ever
saw for one man. This Mirabeau's work then
is done. He sleeps with the primeval giants.
He has gone over to the majority: Abiit aa
pliires.

In the way of eulogy and dyslogy, and sum-
ming up of character, there many doubtless be
a great many things set forth concerning this
Mirabeau; as already there has been much
discussion and arguing about him, belter and
wiirse : which is proper surely ; as about all
manner of new things, were they much less
questionable than this new giant is. The pre-
sent reviewer, meanwhile, finds it suitabler to
restrict himself and his exhausted readers to
the three following moral reflections.

Moral reflection /7r5/, — that, in these centuries
men are not born demi-gods and perfect cha-
racters, but imperfect ones, and mere blamable
men, namely, environed with such short-com-
ing and confusion of their own, and then witli
such adscititious scandal and misjudgment
(got in the work they did,) that they resemble
less demi-gods than a sort of god-devils, — very
imperfect characters indeed. The demi-god
arrangement were the one which, at first sight,
this reviewer might be inclined to prefer.

Moral reflection second, — however, that pro-
bably men were never born demi-gods in any
century, but precisely god-devils as we see;
certain of whom do become a kind of demi-
gods ! How many are the men, not censured,
misjudged, calumniated only, but tortured,
crucified, hung on gibbets, — not as god-devils
even, but as devils proper ; who have never-
theless grown to seem respectable, or infinitely
respectable! For the thing which was not
they, which was not any thing, has fallen away
piecemeal; and become avowedly babble and

604

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITLNGS.

confused shadow, and no-thing: the thing, which
■was they, remains. Depend on it, Harmodius
and Aristogiton, as clear as they now look,
had illegal plottings, conclaves at the Jacobins'
Church (qJ Athens) ; and very intemperate
things were spoken, and also done. Thus too,
Marcus Brutus and the elder Junius, are they
not palpable Heroes ] Their praise is in all
Debating Societies ; but didst thou read what
the Morning Papers said of those transactions
of theirs, the week after? Nay, Old Noll,
whose bones were dug up and hung in chains,
here at home, as the just emblem of himself
and his deserts, (the offal of Creation, at that
time,) has not he too got to be a very respect-

able grim bronze-figure, though it is yet only
a century and half since; of whom England
seems proud rather than otherwise?

Moral reflection ihinl, and last, — ihatneither
thou nor we, good Reader, had any hand in
the making of this Mirabeau ; — else who knows
but we had objected, in oi/y wisdom ? But it
was the Upper Powers that made him, without
once consulting us; they and not we, so and
not otherwise! To endeavour to understand
a little what manner of Mirabeau he, so made,
might be: this we, according to opportunity,
have done; and therefore do now, wiih a lively
satisfaction, take farewell of him, and leave
him to fare as he can.

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF THE ERENCH
REVOLUTION.*

[London and Westminster Review, 18o7.]

It appears to be, if not stated in words, yet
tacitly felt and "understood everywhere, that
the event of these modern ages is the French
Revolution. A huge explosion bursting through
all formulas and customs; confounding into
wreck and chaos the ordered arrangements of
earthly life; blotting out, one may say, the
very firmament and skyey load-stars, — though
only for a season. Once in the fifteen hundred
years such a thing was ordained to come. To
those who stood present in the actual midst
of that smoke and thunder, the effect might
well be too violent: blinding and deafening,
into confused exasperation, almost into mad-
ness. These on-lookers have played their part,
■were it with the printing-press or with the
battle-cannon, and are departed : their work,
such as it was, remaining behind them; —
where the French Revolution also remains.
And now, for us who have receded to the dis-
tance of some half-century, the explosion be-
comes a thing visible, surveyable: we see its
flame and sulphur-smoke blend with the clear
air, (far iinHer the stars;) and hear its uproar
as part of the sick noise of life, — loud indeed,
yet imbosomed too, as all noise is, in the in-
finite of silence. It is an event which can be
looked on ; which may still be execrated, still

* Ifistoire Parlementaire de la Revolulinn Fravfaise, njt
Journal des ^ssemblees M'ationales depuis 1789 jusqu'en
1815 ; conlevant la J\rarratitin des Erenemevs, les Dehals,
S^c. SfC. (Parliamentary History of the French Revo-
lution, or Journal of the National Assemblies from 1789
to 1815: containing a Narrative of the Occurrences;
Debates of the Assemblies ; Discussions in the chief
Popular Societies, especially in that of the Jacobins ;
Recortis of the Commune of Paris ; Sessions of the
Revolutionary Tribunal ; Reports of the leading Politi-
cal Trials ; Detail of the Annual Bnd<rets ; Picture of
the Moral Movement, extracted from the Newspapers,
Pamphlets, &c., of each Period ; preceded by an In-
troduction on Ihe History of France till the Convocation
of the States-General.) By P. J. B. Buchez and P. C.
Roui. (Tomes ler_23rae et seq.— Pans, 1833—1836.)

he celebrated and psalmodied ; but which it
were better now to begin understanding.
Really there are innumerable reasons why we
ought to know this same French Revolution as
it was : of which reasons (apart allngelher
from that of "Philosophy teaching by Experi-
ence," and so forth) is there not the best sum-
mary in this one reason, that we so %nsh to
know it? Considerins: the qualities of the
matter, one may perhaps reasonably feel that
since the time of the Crusades, or earlier, there
is no chapter of history so well worth study-
ing.

Stated or not, we say, this persuasion is
tacitly admitted, and acted upon. In these
days everywhere you find it one of the most
pressing duties for the wriling guild, to pro-
duce history on history of the French Revolu-
tion. In France it would almost seem as if
the young author felt that he must make this
his proof-shot, and evidence of craftsmanship:
accordingly they do fire off Hisloircs, Preiis of
HiMoires, AnnaJes, Fasles, (to say nothing of
Historical Novels, Gil Elapses, Dantons, P.ar-
iiaves, Grangeneitveg,) in rapid succession, with
or without effect. At all events it is curious
to look upon : curious to contrast the picturing
of the same fact by the men of this generation
and position with the picturing of it by the
men of the last. From Barruel and Fantin
Desodoai-ds to Thiers and Mignet there is a
distance ! Each individual takes up the Phe-
nomenon according to his own point of vision,
to the structure of his optic organs; — gives,
consciously, some poor crolchetty picture of
several things; unconsciously some picture
of himself at least. And the Phenomenon, for
its part, subsists there, all the while, unal-
tered ; waiting to iie pictured as often as you
like, its entire meaning not to be compressed
into any picture drawn by man.

HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

505

Thiers's History, in ten volumes foolscap-
octavo, contains, if we remember rightly, one
reference ; and that to a book, not the page or
chapter of a book. It has, for these last seven
or eight years, a wide or even high reputa-
tion ; which latter it is as far as possible from
meriting. A superficial air of order, of clear-
ness, calm candour, is spread over the work;
but inwardly, it is waste, inorganic: no human-
head that honestly tries can conceive the
French Revolution so. A critic of our ac-
quaintance undertook, by way of bet, to find
four errors per hour in Thiers : he won amply
on the first trial or two.* And yet, readers
(we must add) taking all this along with them,
may peruse Thiers with comfort in certain
circumstances, nay, even with profit; for he
is a brisk man of his sort; and does tell you
much, if you knew nothing.

Mignet's, again, is a much more honestly
Avritien book; yet also an eminently unsatis-
factory one. His two volumes contain far
more meditation and investigation in them
than Thiers's ten: their degree of preferability
therefore is very high ; for it has been said,
" Call a book difl^use, and you call it in all
senses bad; the writer could not find the right
word to say, and so said many more or less
wrong ones; did not hit the nail on the head,
only smote and bungled about it and about it."
Mignet's book has a compactness, a rigour, as
if rivetted with iron rods : t^is also is an image
of what symmetry it has; — symmetry, if not
of a living earth-born Tree, yet of a firm well-
manufactured Gridiron. Without life, \vi\\\-
out colour or verdure : that is to say, Mignet's
genius is heartily prosaic; you are too happy
that he is not a cpiark as well ! It is very mor-
tifying also to study his philosophical reflec-
tions: how he jingles and rumbles a quantity
of mere abstractions and dead logical formu-
las, and calls it Thinking; — rumbles and rum-
bles, till he judges there may be enough; then
begins again narrating. As thus: —

"The Constitution of 1791 was made on
such principles as had resulted from the ideas
and the situation of France. It was the work
of the middle class, which chanced to be the
strongest then; for, as is well known, what-
ever force has the lead will fashion the insti-
tutions according to its own aims. Now this
force, when it belongs to one, is despotism ;
when to several, it is privilege; when to all, it
is right: which latter state is the ultimatum of
society, as it was its beginning. France had
finally arrived thither, after passing through
feudalism, which is the aristocratic institu-
tion; and then through absolutism, which is
the monarchic one.

"The work of the Constituent Assembly
perished not so much by its own defects as by
the assaults of factions. Standing between
the aristocracy and the multitude, it was at-
tacked by the former, and stormed and won

* " 'Notables consented with eagerness,' (Vol. I..p.
10 ;) whereas they properly did not consent at all ;
'Parliament recalled on the 10th of September,' (for the
15th ;) and then ' Seance Royale took place on the '20tli
of the same month, (19th of quite a difTerent month, not
the same, nor next to the same;) ' D'lispreineiiil, a
youne Counsellor' (of forty and odd ;) ' Duport, a young
Dian,' (turned of sixty,) &.c., &.c.
64

by the latter. The multitude would never
have become supreme, had not civil war and
the coalition of foreign states rendered i-ts in-
tervention and help indispensable. To defend
the country the multitude required to have the
governing of it: thereupon (alois) it made its
revolution, as the middle class had made its.
The multitude too had its Fonrlcenth of Jvly,
which was the Tcnili of Jhigvsl .■ iis Constitu-
ent, which was the Convention ; its Govern-
ment, which was the Committee of Snlul Pub-
lic: but, as we shall see," &c. (Chap, iv.,
voi. I., p. 271.)

Or thus ; for there is the like at the end of
every chapter: —

"But royally had virtually fallen, on the
Tenth of August; that day was the insurrec-
tion of the multitude against the middle class
and constitutional throne, as the Fourteenth
of July had been the insurrection of the mid-
dle classes against the privileged classes and
an absolute throne. The Tenth of August
Avitnessed the commencement of the dictato-
rial and arbitrary epoch of the Revolution.
Circumstances becoming more and more diffi-
cult, there arose a vast war, which required
increased energy; and this energy, unregu-
lated, inasmuch as it was popular, rendered
the sway of the lower class an unquiet, oppres-
sive, and cruel sway." "It was not any way
possible' that the Eonrgeoisie, (middle class,)
which had been strong enough to strike down
the old government and the privileged classes,
but which had taken to repose after this vic-
tory, could repulse the Emigration and united
Europe. There was needed for that a new
shock, a new faith ; there was needed for that
a new Class, numerous, ardent, not yet fa-
tigued, and which loved its Tenth of August,
as the Burgherhood loved its Fourteenth of,"
&c., &c. (Ch. v., vol. I., p. 371.)

So uncommonly lively are these Abstractions
(at bottom only occurrences, similitudes, days
of the months, and such like) as rumble here
in the historical head! Abstractions really
of the most lively, insurrectionary character;
nay, which produce ofT-^pring, and indeed are
oftenest parricidally devoured thereby: such
is the jingling and rumbling which calls itself
Thinking. Nearly so, though with greater
effect, might algebraical .r's go rumbling in
some Pascal's or Babbage's inill. Just so, in-
deed, do the Kalmuck people pray: quantities
of written prayers are put in some rotary pip-
kin or calabash, (hung on a tree, or going like
the small barrel-churn of agricultural dis-
tricts;) this the devotee has only to whirl and
churn; so long as he whirls, it is prayer;
when he ceases whirling, the prayer is done.
Alas! this is a sore error, very generally,
among French thinkers of the present time.
One ought to add that Mignet takes his place
at the head of that brotherhood of his ; that his
little book, though abounding too in error? of
detail, better deserves what place it has than
anv other of recent date.

The older Desodoards,Barruels,Lacretelles,
and such like, exist, but will hardly profit
much. Toulongeon, a man of talent and in
tegrity, is very vague; often incorrect for au
eyewitness: h/s military details used to be
2 U

606

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

reckoned valuable; but, we suppose, Jomini
has eclipsed them now. The Abbe Mont-
^aillard has shrewdness, decision, insight;
abounds in anecdotes, strange facts and re-
ports of facts : his book, being written in the
form of Annals, is convenient for consulting.
For the rest, lie is acrid, exaggerated, occa-
sionall}^ altogether perverse; and, with his
hastes and his hatreds, falls into the strangest
hallucination ; — as, for exan^ple, when he
coolly records that "Madame cle Stael, Neck- 1
er's daughter, was seen (o» vii) distributing
brandy to the Ganks Fnivgniscs in their bar-
racks ;" that D'Orleans Egalite had " a pair of
niHw-skin breeches," — leather breeches, of |
human skin, such as they did prepare in the
tannery of Meudon, but loo lute for D'Orleans,
The history by JJeux jliitis de liberie (if the !
reader secure the original edition) is, perhaps, j
worth all the others, and offers (at least till
171)2, after which it becomes convulsive, semi-
fatuons, in the remaining dozen volumes) the
best, correctest, most picturesque narrative
yet published. It is very correct, very pic-
turesque; wants on]y forc-shor/oiivp:, shadow,
and compression; a work of decided merit:
the authors of it, what is singular, appear not
to be known.

Finally, our English histories do likewise
abound: copious if not in facts, yet in reflec-
tions on facts. They will prove to the most
incredulous that this French Revolution was,
as Chamfort said, no "rose-water Revolu-
tion;" that the universal insurrectionary ab-
rogation of law and custom was managed in a
most unlawful, uncustomary manner. He who
wishes to know how a solid Cnslos roiuhnun,
speculating over his port after dinner, inter-
prets the phenomena of contemporary univer-
sal history, may look in these books : he who
does not wish that, need not look.

On the whole, after all these writings and
printings, the weight of which would sink an
Indiaman, there are, perhaps, only some three
publications hitherto that can be considered
as forwarding essentially a right knowledge
of this matter. The first of these is the
" Analyse du Moniteur," (complete expository
Index, and Syllabus of the Moniteur news-
paper from 1789 to 1799;) a work carrying
its significance in its title; — provided it be
faithfully executed; which it is well known to
he. Along with this we may mention the
series of portraits, a hundred in number, pub-
lished with the original edition of it: many
of them understood to be accurate likenesses.
The natural face of a man is often worth more
than several biographies of him, as biogra-
phies are written. These hundred portraits
have been copied into a book called "Scenes
de la Revolution," (which contains other pic-
tures, of small value, and some not useless
writing by Chamfort;) and are often to be
found in libraries. A republication of Vernet's
Caricatures* would be a most acceptable ser-
vice, but has not been thought of hitherto.
The second irork to be counted here is the
**Choix des Rapports, Opinions, et Discours,"
in some twenty volumes, with an excellent

• See Mercier's Nouveau Paris, vol. iv. p. 254.

index : parliamentary speeches, reports, &c,
are furnished in abundance ; complete illus-
tration of all that this Senatorial province
(rather a M'earisome one) can illustrate.
Thirdly, we have to name the "Collection of
Memoirs," completed several years ago, in
above a hundred volumes. Booksellers Bau-
douin. Editors Berville and Barnere, have
done their utmost ; adding notes, explanations,
rectifications, with portraits also if you like:
Louvet, Riouffe, and the two volumes of " Me-
moirs on the Prisons" are the most attractive
pieces. This Baudouin Collection, therefore,
joins itself to thatofPetitot, as a natural sequel.
And now a fourlh work, which follows in
the train of these, and deserves to be reckoned
along with them, is this "Histoire Parle-
mentaire" of Messieurs Buchez and Roux.
The authors are men of ability and repute:
Buchez, if we mistake not, is Dr. Buchez, and
practises medicine with acceptance; Roux is
known as an essayist and journalist: they
once listened a little to Saint Simon, but it
was before Saint Simonism called itself " a
religion," and vanished in Bedlam. We have
understood there is a certain bibliomaniac
military gentleman in Paris, wno in the course
of years has amassed the most astonishing
collection of revolutionary ware : books, pam-
phlets, newspapers, even sheets and handbills,
ephemeral printings and paintings, such as
the day brought them forth, lie there without
end.* Into this warehouse (as into all man-
ner of other repositories) Messrs. Buchez
and Roux have happily found access : the
" Histoire Parlementaire" is the fruit of their
labours there. A number (two forming a
volume) is published every fortnight: we
have the first twenty-two volumes before us,
which bring down the narrative to January,
1793; there must be several other volumes
out, which we have not yet seen. Conceive
a judicious compilation with such resources.
Parliamentary Debates, in summary, or (where
the occasion warrants it) given at large; this
is by no means the most interesting part of
the matter- we have excerpts, notices, hints
of all imaginaole sorts; of newspapers, of
pamphlets, of Sectionary and Municipal re-
cords, of the Jacobins' club, of placard-jour-
nals, nay, of placards and caricatures. No
livelier emblem of the time, in its actual move-
ment and tumult, could be presented. The
editors connect these fragments by expositions
such as are needful; so that a reacler coming
unprepared to the work can still know what
he is about. Their expositions, as we can
testify, are handsomely done: but altogether
apart from these, the excerpts themselves are
the valuable thing. The scissors, in such a

» It is eenerally Icnowii that a similar collertion, j»er-
hnps stiU liirjier and more curious, lipi? (liuried) in the
Brilish Miiseinii hi^re — inaccpssihle for .varilofa proper
catalo<:ne. Some eiffhteen months at'o. the respectahle
suli-lihrarian seemed to be worliini; at snch a ihinK: by
respectful application to him. yon coiitil cain access to
his room, and have the satisfaction of inoniitinj; on lad-
ders, and readini; the outside titles of his boolts, which
was a great help. Otherwise you could not in many
weeiss ascertain so much as the table of contents of
this repository ; and, after days of weary waititi;:, dusty
rummaiiius, and sicl<ness of hope deferred, cave up the
enterprise as a "game not worth the candle."

HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

607

case, are independent of the pen. One of the
most interesting English biographies we have
is that long thin folio on Oliver Cromwell,
published some five-and-twenty years ago,
where the editor has merely dipt out from the
contemporary newspapers v.-hatsoever article,
paragraph, or sentence he found to contain the
name of (Did Noll, and printed them in the
order of their dates. It is surprising that the
like has not been attempted in other cases.
Had seven of the eight translators of Faust,
and seventy times seven of the four hundred
four-score and ten Imaginative Authors, but
thrown down the writing instrument, and
turned to the old newspaper files judiciously
with the cutting one!

We can testify, after not a little exarhina-
tion, that the editors of the "Histoire Parle-
mentaire" are men of fidelity, of diligence;
that their accuracy in regard to facts, dates,
and so forth, is far beyond the average. Of
course they have their own opinions, prepos-
sessions even : but these are honest prepos-
sessions, which they do not hide; which one
can estimate the force of, allow for the result
of. Wilful falsification, did the -possibility of
it lie ill their character, is otherwise out of
the question. But, indeed, our editors are
men of earnestness, of strict principle; of a
faith, were it only in the republican Tricolor.
Their Jemocratic faith, truly, is palpable,
thorough-going; as it has a right to be, in
these days, since it likes. The thing you have
to praise, however, is that it is a quiet faith,
never an hysterical one; never expresses it-
self otherwise than with a becoming calm-
ness, especially with a becoming brevity.
The hoarse deep croak of Marat, the brilliant
sharp-cutting gayety of Desmoulins, the dull
bluster of Prudhomme, the cackling garrulity
of Brissot, all is welcomed with a cold gravity
and brevity; all is illustrative, if not of one
thing then of another. Nor are the Royalists
Royous, Suleaus, Peltiers, forgotten; "Acts of
the Apostles," "King's Friend," nor "Crow-
ing of the Cock :" these, indeed, are more
sparingly administered; but at the right time,
as is promised, we shall have more. In a
word, it may be said of this "Histoire Parle-
mentaire," that the wide promise held out in
its title page is really, in some respectable
measure, fulfilled. With a fit index to wind
it up, (which index ought to be not good only
but excellent, so much depends on it here.)
this work bids fair to be one of the most im-
portant yet published on the History of the
Revolution. No library, that professes to have
a collection in this sort, can dispense with it.

A "Histoire Parlementaire" is precisely the
house, or say, rather, the unbuilt city, of which
the single brick can form a specimen. In so
rich a varietv the only ditiiculty is where
to choose. We have scenes of tragedy, of
comedy, of farce, of farce-tragedy, oftenest of
all; there is eloquence, gravity; there is blus-
ter, bombast, and absurdity: scenes tender,
scenes barbarous, spirit-stirring, and then
flatly wearisome: a thing waste, incoherent,
wild to look 'ipon; but great with the great-
ness of reality; for the thing exhibited is no
vision but a i'act Let us, as the first excerpt,

give this tragedy of old Fouloii, which all the
world has heard of, perhaps not very accu-
rately. Foulon's life-drama, with its hasty
cruel sayings ai)d mean doings, with its
thousandfold intrigues, and "the people eating
grass if they like," ends in this miserable man-
ner. It is the editors themselves who speak;
compiling from various resources: —

"Towards five in the morning, (Paris, 22d
July, 1789,) M. Foulon was brought in ; he had
been arrested at Vitry, near Fountainhleau, by
the peasants of the place. Doubtless this man
thought himself very guilty towards the people,"
(say, very hateful ;) " for he had spread abroad
a report of his death ; and had even buried one
of his servants, who happened to die then,
under his own name. He had afterwards hid-
den himself in an estate of M. de Sartines ;"
where he was detected and seized.

" M. Foulon was taken to the Hotel de Ville,
where they made him wait. Towards nine
o'clock the assembled Committee had decided
that he should be sent to the Abbaye prison.
M. de Lafayette was sent for, that he might
execute this order; he was abroad over the
Districts: he could not be found. During
this time a crowd collected in the square; and
required to sec Foulon. It was noon: M.
Bailly came down ; the people listened to him ;
but still persisted. In the end they penetrated
into the great hall of the Hotel de Ville ; would
see Foulon, ' whom,' say, they, ' you are want-
ing to smuggle off from justice.' Foulon was
presented to them. Then began this remarka-
ble dialogue. M. de la Poize, an Elector: —
'Messieurs, every guilty person should be
judged.' 'Yes, judged directi}', and then
hanged.' M. Osselin : — 'To judge, one must
have judges; let us send M. Foulon to the
tribunals.' 'No, no,' replied the people, 'judge
him just now.' 'Since you will not have the
common judges,' said M. Osselin, ' it is indis-
pensable to appoint others.' ' Well, judge
him yourselves.' ' We have no right either
to judge or to create judges ; name them your-
selves.' 'Well,' cried the people, 'M. le Cure
of Saint Etienne then, and M. le Cure of
Saint-Andre.' Osselin: — ^"Two judges are not
enough ; there needs seven.' Thereupon the
people named Messrs. Qiiatremere, Varangue,
&c. ' Here are seven judges indeed,' said Os-
selin, 'but we still want a clerk.' 'Be you
clerk.' 'A king's Attorney.' 'Let it be M.
Duveyrier.' ' Of what crime is M. Foulon ac-
cused 1' asked Duveyrier. 'He wished to
harass the people ; he said he would make
them eat grass; he was in the plot; he was
fir national bankruptcy; he bought up corn.'
The two curates then rose, and declared that
they refused to judge ; the laws of the church not
permitting them. 'They are right,' said some;
' they are cozening us,' said others, 'and the
prisoner all the while is making his escape.' At
these words there rose a frightful tumult in the
Hall. ' Messieurs,' said an Elector, 'name four
of yourselves to guard him.' Four men accord-
ingly were chosen ; sent into the neighbouring
apartment, where Foulon was. 'But will you
judge then?' cried the crowd. 'Messit-nrs,
you see there are two judges wanting.' 'We
name M. Bailly and M. Lafayette.' 'ButM.

508

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Lafayette is absent ; one must either wait for
him, or name some other.' ' Well, then, name
directijr, and do it yourself.'

" At length the Electors agreed to proceed to
judgment ; Foulon was again brought in. The
foremost part of the crowd joined hands, and
formed a chain several ranks deep, in the mid-
dle of which he was received. At this moment
M. Lafayette came in ; went and took his place
at the board among the electors, and then ad-
dressed to the people a discourse, of which the
Jmi dii lloi and the Records of the Town-hall,
the two authorities we borrow from here, give
different reports."

Lafayette's speech, according to both ver-
sions, is to the effect that Foulon is guilty: but
that he doubtless has accomplices ; that he
must be taken to the Abbaye prison, and in-
vestigated there. " Yes, yes, to prison ! Off
with him, off!" cried the crowd. The Deux
jSiiiis add another not insignificant circum-
stance, that poor Foulon himself, hearing this
conclusion of Lafayette's, clapped hands ;
whereupon the crowd said, " See ! they are
both in a story !" Our editors continue and
conclude: —

"At this moment there rose a great clamour
in the square. ' It is the Palais Royal coming,'
said one; 'It is the Faubourg Samt Antoine,'
said another. Then a well dressed person
(hornme bien mis) advanced towards the board,
and said, ' Vonz vmts moqiicz : what is the use of
judging a man who has been judged these thirty
years]' At this word, Foulon was clutched;
hurled out to the square; and finally tied to the
fatal rope, which hung from the LanUrne at the
corner of the Rue de la Vannerie. The rope
was afterwards cut; the head was put on a
pike, and paraded," — with " grass" in the mouth
of it, they might have added ! — Vol. ii. p. 148.

From the " Revolution de Fiance et de
Brabant," Camille Desmoulin's newspaper
furnishes numerous extracts, in the earlier
volumes; always of a remarkable kind. This
Procurcur General de la Laii.lcriie has a place of
his own in the history of the Revolution ;
there are not many notabler persons in it than
he. A light, harmless creature, as he says of
himself; " a man born to write verses," but
whom destiny had directed to overthrow bas-
tilles, and go to the guillotine for doing that.
How such a man will comport himself in a
French Revolution, as he from time to time
turns up there, is worth seeing. Of loose, head-
long character; a man stuttering in speech;
stuttering, infirm, in conduct too, till one huge
idea laid hold of him: a man for whom art,
fortune, or himself, would never do much, but
to whom Nature had been very kind ! One
meets him always M^ith a sort of forgiveness,
almost of underhand love, as for a prodigal
son. He has good gifts, and even acquire-
ments elegant law-scholarship, quick sense,
the freest joyful heart: a fellow of endless wit,
clearness, soft lambent brilliancy ; on any
•subject you can listen to him, if without ap-
proving, yet without yawning. As a writer, in
fact, there is nothing French that we have
heard of superior or equal to him for these
fifty years. Probably some French editor,
some day or other, will si/t that journalistic

rubbish and produce out of it, in small neat
compass, a "Life and Remains" of this poor
Camille. We pick up three light fractions,
illustrative of him and of the things he moved
in ; they relate to the famous Fifth of October.
(1789,) when the women rose in insurrection
The Palais Royal and Marquis Saint-Huruge
have been busy on the King's vc(o, and Lally
Tollendall's proposal of an upper house: —

" Was the Palais Royal so far wrong," sa3's
Camille, "to cry out against such things'! I
know that the Palais Royal promenade is
strangely miscellaneous; that pickpockets fre-
quently employ the Uberly of ihe press there, and
many a zealous patriot has lost his handker-
chief in the iire of debate. But for all that I
must bear honourable testimony to the pro-
menaders in this Lyceum and Stoa. 1'he
Palais Royal garden is the focus of patriotism:
there do the chosen patriots rendezvous, who
have left their hearths and their provinces to
witness this magnificent spectacle of the Re-
volution of 1789, and not to witness without
aiding in it. They are Frenchmen; they have
an interest in the Constitution, and a right to
concur in it. How many Parisians too, in-
stead of going to their Districts, find it shorter
to come at once to the Palais Royal. Here
you have no need to ask a President if you
may speak, and wait two hours till your turn
comes. You propose your motion; if it find
supporters, they set you on a chair: if you are
applauded, you proceed to the redaction : if
you are hissed, you go your ways. It is very
much the mode the Romans followed; their
Forum and our Palais Royal resemble one
another." — Vol. ii. p. 414.

Then a few days further on — the celebrated
military dinner at Versailles, with the white
cockades, black cockades, and " O Richard. ' 0
mon Roi!" having been transacted: —

^^ Paris, Sunday, 4ih October. The king's wife
had been so gratified with it, that this brotherly
repast of Thursday must needs be repeated. It
was so on the Saturday, and with aggrava-
tions. Our patience was worn out: you may
suppose whatever patriot observers there were
at Versailles hastened to Paris with the news,
or at least sent off despatches containing them.
That same day (Saturday evening) all Paris
set itself astir. It was a lady, first, who,
seeing that her husband was not listened to at
his District, came to the bar of the Cafe de
Foi, to denounce the anti-national cockades.
M. Marat flies to Versailles ; returns like
lightning; makes a noise like the four blasts
of doom, crying to us — Awake, ye Dead !
Danton, on his side, sounds the alarm in the
Cordeliers. On Sunday this immortal Corde-
liers' District posts its manifesto* and that
very day they would have gone t: Versailles,
had not M. Crevecceur, their commandant,
stood in the way. People seek out their arms
however; sally out to the streets in chase of
anti-national cockades. The law of reprisals
is in force ; these cockades are torn off, trampled
under foot, with menace of the Lanteme in case
of relapse. A military gentleman, picking up
his cockade, is for fastening it en again ; a
hundred canes start into the air, saying veto.
The whole Sunday passes in hunting down

HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

509

.he white and the black cockades; in holding
council at the Palais Royal, over the Faubourg
8aiiit Antoine, at the end of bridges, on the
quais. At the duors of the coffee houses there
arise free conferences between the Upper
House, of the coats that are within, and the
liower House, of jackets a:id v.'ool-caps, as-
se;nbled cxira 'iiiuros. It is agreed upon that
the audacity of the aristocrats increases ra-
pidly; that Madame ViUepatour and the queen's
women are distributing enormous white cock-
ades to all comers in the CEil-dc-Boeuf ; that
M. Lecointre, having refused to take one from
their hands, has all but been assassinated. It
is agreed upon that we have not a moment to
lose; that the boat which used to bring us
flour from Corbeil, morning and evening, now
comes only once in two days: — do they plan
to make their attack at the moment when they
hai'e kept us for eight-and-forly hours in a
fasting state .' It is agreed upon," &c. — Vol.
•.:i. p.V.3.

VVe has'en to the catastrophe, which arrives
on the morrow. It is related elsewhere, in
another leading article : —

"At break of day the women rush towards
the Hotel de Ville. \\l the way, they recruit
fresh hands, among their own sex, to march
wiih tliem ; as sailors are recruited at London :
there is an active press of women. The Quai
de la Ferraille is covered with female crimps.
The robust kitchen-maid, the slim mantua-
maker, all must go to swell the phalanx; the
ancient devotee, tripping to mass in the dawn,
sees herself Ibr the first time carried off, and
shrieks help! whilst more than one of the
younger sort secretly is not so sorry at going
without mother or mistress to Versailles to
pay her respects to the august Assembly. At
the same time, for the accuracy of this narra-
tive, I must remark that these women, at least
the battalion of them which encamped that
night in the Assembly Hall, and had marched
under the flag of M. Maillard, had among
themselves a Presidentess and Staff; and that
every woman, on being borrowed from her
mother or husband, was presented to the Pre-
sideniess or some of her aids-de-camp, who
engaged to watch over her morality, and in-
sure her honour for this daj'.

'• Once arrived on tiie Place de Greve, these
women piously begin letting down the Lun-
levhc, as, in great calamities, you let down the
shnne of Saint Genevieve. Next they are for
mounting into the Hotel de Ville. The Com-
niaiidani had been forewarned of this move-
ment: he knew that all insurrections have
begun by women, whose maternal bosom the
bayonet cif the satellites of despotism respects.
Four ihwusand soldiers presented a front
bristling with bayonets ; kept them back from
the step: but behind these women there rose
and grew every moment a nucleus of men,
armed with pikes, axes, bills ; blood is about
lo flow on the ))lace ; the presence of these
Sabine women hindered it. The National
Guard, which is nc)t purely a machine, as the
Minister ol' War would have the soldier be,
makes use of its reason. It discerns that
these women, now for Versailles, are going to
the root of the misi;hief. The four thousand

Guards, already getting saluted with stoner,
think it reasonablest to oj)en a passage ; and,
lilce waters through a broken dike, the tiooda
of the multitude inundate the Hotel de Ville.

"•It is a picture interesting to paint, and one
of the greatest in the Revolution, this same
army of ten thousand Judiths setting forth to
cut off the head of Holofernes ; forcing the
Hotel de Ville; arming themselves with what-
ever they can lay hands on ; some tying ropes
to the cannon-trains, arresting carts, loading
them with artillery, with powder and balls for
the Versailles National Guard, which is left
without ammunition ; others driving on the
horses, or seated on cannon, holding the re-
doubtable match ; seeking for their generalis-
simo, not aristocrats with epaulettes, but Con-
querors of the Bastille !" — Vol. iii. p. 110.

So far Camille on veto, scarcit}^ and the
Insurrection of Women, in the end of 1789.

We terminate with a scene of a very dif-
ferent complexion, being some three years
farther on, that is to say, in September, 1792!
Felemhcsi, (anagram for Mehee Fils,) in his
" Verite toute entiere," a pamphlet really more
veracious than most, thus testifies, after a good
deal of-preambling : —

"I was going to my post about half past
two," (Sunday, the 2d of September, tocsins
all ringing, and Brunswick just at hand;) "I
was passing along the Rue Dauphine ; sud-
denly I hear hisses. I look, I observe four
hackney-coaches, coming in a train, escorted
by the Federe's of the departments.

"Each of these coaches contained four per-
sons: they were individuals" (priests) "ar-
rested in the preceding domiciliary visits.
Billaud-Varennes, Procureur-Substitute of the
Commune, had just been interrogating them
at the Hotel de Ville ; and now they were pro-
ceeding towards the Abbaye, to be provision-
ally detained there. A crowd is gathering;
the cries and hisses redouble: one of the pri-
soners, doubtless out of his senses, takes fire
at these rnurmurs, puts his arm over the coach-
door, gives one of the Federe's a stroke over
the head with his cane. The Federe, in a
rage, draws his sabre, springs on the carriage-
steps, and plunges it thrice over into the heart
of his aggressor. I saw the blood come out ia
great jets. 'Kill every one of them; they are
scoundrels, aristocrats!' cry the people. The
Federe's all draw their sabres, and instantly
kill the three companions of the one who had
just perished. I saw, at this moment, a young
man in a white nightgown stretch himself out
of that same carriage: his countenance, ex-
pressive, but pale and w-orn, indicated that he
was very sick; he had gathered his stasiiering
strength, and, though already wounded, was
crying still, ' Grarc, ^mre, pardon !' but in vain
— a mortal stroke united him to the lot of the
others.

"This coach, which was the hindmost, now
held nothing but corses; it had not slopped
during the carnage, which lasted about the
space of two minutes. The crowd increases,
irescit entifio : the yells redouble. The coaches
are at the Abbaye. The corpses are hurled
into the court ; the twelve living prisoners
dismount to enter the committee-room. Tw»
2 u 2

610

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

are sacrificeJ on alighting; ten succeed in en-
tering. The committee had not had time to
put the slightest question, when a multitude,
armed with pikes, sabres, swords, and bayonets,
dashes in ; seizes the accused, and kills them.
One prisoner, already much wounded, kept
hanging by the skirts of a Committee-member,
and still struggled against death.

" Three yet remained; one of whom was the
Abbe Sicard, teacher of thedeaf and dumb. The
sabres were already over his head, when Mon-
not, the watchmaker, flung himself before
them, crying, 'Kill me rather, and not this
man, who is useful to our country!' These
words, uttered with the fire and impetuosity
of a generous soul, suspended death. Profit-
ing by this moment of calm. Abbe Sicard and
the other two were got convej'ed into the back
part of the room."

Abbe Sicard, as is well known, survived ;
and the narrative which he also published ex-
ists— sufficient to prove, among other things,
that "Felenihesi" had but two eyes, and his
own share of sagacity and heart ; that he has
w/7s-seen, miscounted, and, knowingly or un-
knowingly, misstated not a little, — as one poor
man, in these circumstances, might. Felomhe-
si continues, — we only inverting his arrange-
ment somewhat: —

"Twelve scoundrels, presided by Maillard,
with whom they had probably combined this
project beforehand, find themselves ' by chance'
among the crowd ; and now, being well-known
one to another, they unite themselves 'in the
name of the sovereign people,' whether it were
of iheir own private audacity, or that they had
secretly received superior orders. They lay
hold of the prison registers, and turn them
over; the turnkeys fall a-trembling; the jail-
er's wife and the jailer faint; the prison is
surrounded by furious men; there is shouting,
clamouring: the door is assaulted, like to be
forced; when one of the Committee-members
presents himself at the outer gate, and begs
audience : his signs obtain a moment's silence ;
the doors open, he advances, gets a chair,
mounts on it, and speaks: — * Comrades, friends,'
said he, 'you are good patriots; your resent-
ment is just. Open war to the enemies of the
common good ; neither truce nor mercy ; it is
a war to the death ! I feel like you that they
must all perish ; and yet, if you are good citi-
zens, you must love justice. There is not one
of you but would shudder at the notion of
shedding innocent blood.' 'Yes, yes!' reply
the people. ' Well, then, I ask of you if, with-
out inquiry or investigation, you fling your-
selves like mad tigers on your fellow-men V

Here the speaker was interrupted by one of
the crowd, who, with a bloody sabre in his
hand, his eyes glancing with rage, cleaves the
press, and refutes him in these terms : 'Tell us,
Monsieur le Citoyen, explain to us then, would
Ihe nacres ettei/a: of Prussians and Austrians, if
they were at Paris, investigate for the guilty 1
Would they not cut right and left, as the Swiss
on the Tenth of August didl Well, I am no
speaker, I can stufl" the ears of no one ; but
I tell you I have a wife and five children, whom
Heave with my section here while I go and
{ighl the enemy : but it is not my bargain that

the villains in this prison, whom other villains
outside will open the doors to, shall go and
kill my wife and children in the meanwhile!
I have three'boys, who I hope will be usefuller
to their country one da}-- than these rascals you
want to save. Any way you have but to send
them out; we will give them arms, and fight
them number for number. Die here or die on
the frontiers, I am sure enough to be killed by
these villains, but I mean to sell them my life ;
and, be it I, be it others, the prison shall be
purged of these fanes i^ueu.i la.' 'He is right I'
responds the general cry." — And so the fright-
ful "purgation" proceeds.

"At five in the afternoon, Billaud Varennes,
Procureur-Substitut, arrives ; he had on his
sash, and the small puce coat and black wig
we are used to see on him : walking over car-
casses, he makes a short harangue to the peo-
ple, and ends thus : 'People, thou art sacrific-
ing thy enemies; thou art in thy duty.' This
cannibal speech lends thetn new animation.
The killers blaze up, cry louder than ever for
new victims: — how to staunch this new thirst
of blood ? A voice speaks from beside Billaud ;
it was Maillard's voice: 'There is nothing
more to do here; let us to the Cnnries !' They
run thither: in five minutes more I saw them
trailing corpses by the heels. A killer, (I can-
not say a mau,) in very coarse clothes, had, as
it would seem, been specially commissioned
to dispatch the Abbe Lenfant; for, apprehen-
sive lest the prey might be missed, he takes
water, flings it on the corpses, washes their
blood-smeared faces, turns them over, and
seems at last to ascertain that the Abbe Len-
fant is anions: them." — Vol. xviii. p. 169.

This is the September massacre, the last
scene we can give as a specimen. Thus, in
these curious records of the " Histoire Parle-
mentaire," as in some Ezekiel vision become
real, does scene after scene disclose itself, now
in rose-light, now in sulphurous black, and
grow ever more fitful, dream-like, — till the
Vendemiaire scene come, and Napoleon blow
forth his grape-shot, and Sansculottism be no
more!

Touching the political and metaphysical
speculations of our two editors, we shall say
little. They are of the sort we lamented in
Migiiet, and generally in Frenchmen of this
day — a jingling of formulas; unfruiti'ul as
that Kalmuck prayer ! Perhaps the strangest-
looking particular doctrine we have noticed is
this : that the French Revolution was at bot-
tom an attempt to realize Christianity, and
fairly put it in action, in our world. For eigh-
teen centuries (it is not denied) men had been
doing more or less that way ; but they set
their shoulder rightly to the wheel, ^nd gave
a dead-lift, for the first lime tlmi. Good M.
Roux! and yet the good Roux does mean
something by this ; and even something true.
But a marginal annotator has written on our
copy — "For the love of Heaven, Messieurs,
huiiicz vos foriiiuh's :" make away with your
formulas ; take off" your facetted spectacles;
open your eyes a little and look! There if,
indeed, here and there, consi lerable rumbling
of the rotatory calabash, which rattles and rum-
bles concerning Progress of the Species, Bci'

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

611

trine du Progres, Exploitations, le Clrist, the
Verbc, and what not ; written in a vein of deep,
even of intense seriousness ; but profitable,
one would think, to no man or woman. In this
style M. Koux (for it is he, we understand)
painfully composes a preface to each volume,
and has even given a whole introductory his-
tory of France: we read some seven or eight
of his first prefaces, hoping always to get some
nourishment; but seldom or never cut him
open now. Fighting in that way, behind cover,
he is comparatively harmless ; merely wasting
vou so many pencfj per number : happily the

space he takes is small. Whoever wants to
form for himself an image of the actual state
of French Meditation, and under what sur-
prising shackles a French thinking man of
these days finds himself gyved, and mechan-
ized, and reduced to the verge of zero, may
open M. Roux's Prefaces, and see it as in an
expressive summary.

We wish our two French friends all speed
in their business; and do again honestly re-
commend this "Histoire Parlementaire*' toany
and all of our English friends who take inte-
rest in that subject.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT/

[London and Westminster Review, 1838.]

Ameuican Cooper asserts, in one of his
books, that there is "an instinctive tendency
in men to look at any man who has become
distinguished." True, surely; as all observa-
tion and survey of mankind, from China to
Peru, from Nebuchadnezzar to Old Hickory,
will testify ! Why do men crowd towards the
improved drop at Newgate, eager to catch a
sight 1 The man about to be hanged is in a
distinguished situation. Men crowd to such
extent, that Greenacre's is not the only life
choked out there. Again, ask of these leathern
vehicles, cabriolets, neat-flies, with blue men
and women in them, that scour all thorough-
fiues. Whither so fast? To see dear Mrs.
Rigmarole, the distinguished female! Great
Mr. Rigmarole, the distinguished male. Or,
consider the crowning phenomenon, and sum-
mary of modern civilization, a soiree of lions.
Glittering are the rooms, well-lighted, thronged ;
bright flows their undulaiory flood of blonde
gowns and dress-coats, a soft smile dwelling
on all faces ; for behold there also flow the
lions, hovering distinguished: oracles of the
age, of one sort or another. Oracles really
pleasant to see; whom it is worth while to go
and see: look at them, but inquire not of them,
depart rather and be thankful. For your lion-
soirce admits not of speech; there lies the spe-
ciality of it. A meeting together of human
ci'catures; and yet (so high hns civilization
gone) the primary aim of human meeting, that
soul might in some articulate uiterance unfold
itself to soul, can be dispensed with in it.
Utterance there is not: nay, there is a certain
grinning play of tongue-fence, and make-believe
of utterance, considerably worse than none.
For which reason it has been suggested, with an
eye to sincerity and silence in such lion- ofVc'c'-,
Might nf)t each lion be, for example, ticketed,
as wine-dccaniers are 1 Lei him carry, slung
round him, in such ornamental manner as
seemed good, his silver label with name en-
graved ; you lift his label, and read it, with

*Mtti(>irs of the Life of Sir tVnller Scott, Baronet.
Vol. i.— v). CadiiU. Ediiil)uigli, 183V.

what farther ocular survey you find useful, and
speech is not needed at all. O Fenimore
Cooper, it is most true there is "an instinctive
tendency in men to look at at any man that has
become distinguished;" and, moreover, an in-
stinctive desire in men to become distinguished
and be looked at!

For the rest, we will call it a most valua-
ble tendency this; indispensable to mankind.
Without it where were star-and-garier, and
significance of rank; where were all ambition,
-money-getting, respectability of gig or no srig;
and, in a word, the main impetus by which
society moves, the main force by which it
hangs together ? A tendency, we saj% of mani-
fold results: of manifold origin, not ridiculous
only, but sublime; — which some incline to
deduce from the mere gregarious purblind
nature of man, prompting him to run, " as dim-
eyed anim;ils do, towards any glittering object,
were it but a scoured tankard, and mfsfake it
for a solar luminary," or even, " sheep-like, to
run and crowd because many have already
run !" It is, indeed, curious to consider how
men do make the gods that themselves worship.
For the most famed man, round whom all ihe
world rapturously huzzahs, and venerates as
if his like were not, is the same man whom all
the world was Wdul to jostle into the kennels;
not a changed man, but in every fibre of him
the same man. Foolish world, what went ye
out to see 1 A tankard scoured bright ; and do
there not lie, of the self-same pewter, whole
barrowfuls of tankards, though by worse fortune
all still in the dim state ?

And yet, at hdltom, it is not merely our gre
garious sheep-like quality, but something better,
and indeed best; what has been called " the
perpetual fact of hero-worship;" our inborn
sincere love of great men ! Not the gilt
farthing, for iis own sake, do even fools covei,
but tlie gold guinea which they mistake it for.
Veneration of great men is perennial in the
nature of man ; this, in all times, especially in
these, is one of the blessedest facts predicable
of him. In all times, even in these seemingly
so disobedient times, " it remains a blessed

618

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

fact, so cunningly has nature ordered it, thol ]
whatsoever man oudil to obey he cannot but cbeij.
Show the dullest clodpole, show the haughtiest
featherliead, that a soul higher than himself is i
actually here; were his kriees stiffened into i
brass, he must down and worship." So it has j
been written; and may be cited and repeated ]
till known to all. Understand it well, this of
" hero-worship" was the primary creed, and has
intrinsically been the secondary and ternary,
and will be the ultimate and final creed of man-
kind; indestructible, changing in shape, but in
essence unchangeable ; whereon politics, re-
ligions, loyalties, and all highest human inte-
rests have been and can be built, as on a rock
that will endure while man endures. Such is
hero-worship ; so much lies in that our inborn
sincere love of great men ! — In favour of which
unspeakable benefits of the reality, what can
we do but cheerfully pardon the multiplex
ineptitudes of the semblance, — cheerfully wish
even lion-soi/rVs, with labels for their lions or
without that improvement, ail manner of pros-
perity 1 Let hero-worship flourish, say we;
and the more and more assiduous chase after
gilt farthings while guineas are not yet forth-
coming. Herein, at lowest, is proof that
guineas exist, that tney arc oelieved to exist,
and valued. Find great men if you can ; if you
cannot, still quit not the search; in defect of
great men, let there be noted men, men, in
such number, to such degree of intensity as the
public appetite can tolerate.

Whether Sir Walter Scott was a great man,
is still a question with some; but there can be
no question with any one that he was a most
noted and even notable man. In this gene-
ration there was no literary man with such a
popularity in any country; there have only
been a few with such, taking in all generations
and all countries. Nay, it is farther to be ad-
mitted that Sir Walter Scott's popularity was
of a select sort rather; not a popularity of the
populace. His admirers were at one time
almost all the intelligent of civilised countries ;
and to the last, included and do still include a
great portion of that sort. Such fortune he had,
and has continued to maintain for a space of
some twenty or thirty years. So long the
observed of all observers ; a great man, or only
a considerable man ; here surely, if ever, is a
singularly circumstanced, is a " distinguished"
man ! In regard to whom, therefore, the " in-
stinctive tendency" on other men's part can-
not be wanting. Let men look, where the
world has already so long looked. And now,
while the new, earnestly expected " Life by his
Son-in-law and literary executor" again sum-
mons the whole world's attention round him,
probably for the last time it will ever be so
summimed; and men' are in some sort taking
leave of a notability, and about to go their way,
and commit him to his fortune on the flood of
things, — why should not this periodical publi-
cation likewise publish its thought about him 1
Readers of miscellaneous aspect, of unknown
quantity and quality, are waiting to hear it
done. With small inward vocation, but cheer-
fully obedient to destiny and necessity, the
ure-ent reviewer will follow a multitude to do

evil or to do no evil; will depend not on the
multitude, but on himself. One thing he did
decidedly wish; at least to wait till the
work were finished: for the six premised
volumes, as the world knows, have flowed
over into a seventh, which will not for some
weeks yet see the light. But the editorial
powers, wearied with waiting, have become
peremptory; and declare that, finished or not
finished, they will have their hands washed of
it at this opening of the year. Perhaps it is
best. The physiognomy of Scott will not be
much altered for us by the seventh volume;
the prior six have altered it but little; — as, in-
deed, a man who has written some two hundred
volumes of his own, and lived for thirty years
amid the universal speech of friends, rnusthave
already left some likeness of himself. Be it
as the peremptory editorial powers require.

First, therefore, a word on the "Life" itself.
Mr. Lockhart's known powers justify strict
requisition in his case. Our verdict in general
would be, that he has accomplished the work
he schemed for himself in a creditable work-
manlike manner. It is true, his notion of
what the work was does not seem to have been
very elevated. To picture forth the life of Scott
according to any rules of art or composition,
so that a reader, on adequately examining it,
might say to himself, "There is Scott, there
is the physiognomy and meaning of Scott's ap-
pearance and transit on this earth; such was
he by nature, so did the world act on him, so
he on the world, with such result and signifi-
cance for himself and us :" this was by no
manner of means Mr. Lockhart's plan. A plan
which, it is rashly said, should preside over ,
every biography! It might have been fulfilled
with all degrees of perfection from that of
the "Odyssey" down to "Thomas Ellwood" or
lower. For there is no heroic poem in the
world but is at bottom a biography, the life of
a man : also, it may be said, there is no life
of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic
poem of its sort, rhymed or un rhymed. It is a
plan one would prefer, did it otherwise suit;
which it does not in these days. Seven volumes
sell so much dearer than one ; are so much
easier to write than one. The "Odyssey." for
instance, what were the value of the " Odys-
sey," sold per sheet? One paper of "Pick-
wick ;" or say, the inconsiderable fraction of
one. This, in commercial algebra, were the
equation : " Odyssey" equal to " Pickwick" di-
vided by an unknown integer.

There is a great discovery still to be made
in literature, that of paying literary men by
the quantity they do voi write. Nay, in sober
truth, is not this actually the rule in all writing;
and, moreover, in all conduct and acting ] Not
what stands above ground, but what lies un-
seen under it, as the root and subterrene element
it isprang from and emblemed forth, determines
value. Under all speech that is good for any
thing there lies a silence that is better. Silence
is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.
Paradoxical does it seem? Wo for the age,
wo for the man, quack-ridden, bespeeched, be-
spouted, blown about like barren Sahara, to
whom this world-old truth were altogether
strange ! — Such we say is the rule, acted on or

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

513

not, recognised or not; and he who departs
from it, what can he do but spread liimself
into breadth and length, into superficiality and
saleabijity; and, except as filigree, become
comparatively useless ? One thinks, had but
the hogshead of thin wash, which sours in a
week ready for the kennels, been distilled, heen
concentrated ! Our dear Fenimore Cooper,
whom we started with, might, in that way,
have given us one Nutly Lcuthcrstocking, one
melodious synopsis of man and nature in the
West, (for it lay in him to do it,) almost as a
Saint Pierre did for the islands of the East;
and the iiundred incoherences, cobbled hastily
together by order of CoJburn and Company,
had slumbered in Chaos, as all incoherences
ought if possible to do. Verily this same ge-
nius of diflTuse-writing, of diffuse-acting, is a
Moloch; and souls pass through the fire to
him more than enough. Surely if ever disco-
very was valuable and needful, it were that
above indicated, of paying by the work not vi-
sibly done ! — Which needful discovery we will
give the whole projecting, railwaying, know-
ledge-diffusing, march-of-intellect, and other-
wise promotive and locomotive societies in the
Old and New World, any required length of
centuries to make. Once made, such disco-
very once made, we too will fling cap into the
air, and shout lo Pecan, the Devil is conquered ;
and in the »;cn«while study to think it nothing
miraculous that seven biographical volumes
are given where one had been better; and that
several other things happen, very much as
they from of old were known to do, and are
like to continue doing.

Mr. Lockhart's aim, we take it, was not that
of producing any such highflown work of art
as we hint at: or indeed lo do much other than
to print, intelligibly bound together by order of
time, and some requisite intercalary exposition,
all such letters, documents, and notices about
Scott as he found lying suitable, and as it
seemed lik'ely the world would undertake to
read. His work, accordingly, is not so much
a composition, as what we may call a compila-
tion well done. Neither is this a task of no dif-
ficulty ; this too is a task that may be performed
with extremely various degrees of talent: from
the "Life and Correspondence of Hannah
More," for instance, up to this " Life of Scott,"
there is a wide range indeed ! Let us take the
seven volumes, and be thankful that they are
genuine in Iheir kind. Nay, as to that of their
being seven and not one, it is right to say that
the public so required it. To have done other
would have shown little policy in an author.
Had Mr. Lockhart laboriously compressed
himself, and instead of well-done compilation,
brought out the well-done composition in one
volume instead of seven, which not many men
in England are better qualified to do, there can
be no doubt that his readers for the time had
been immeasurably fewer. If the praise of
magnanimity be denied him, that of prudence
must be conceded, which perhaps he values
more.

The truth is, the work, done in this manner,

too, was good to have : Scott's Biography, if

uncomposed, lies printed and indestructible

here, in the elementary state, and can at any

65

time be composed, if necessary, by whosoever
has call to that. As it is, as it was meant to
be, we repeat, the work is vigorously done.
Sagacity, decision, candour, diligence, good
sense : these qualities are throughout observa-
ble. The dales, calculations, siatements, we
suppose to be accurate; much laborious in-
quiry, some of it impossible for another
man, has been gone into, the results of which
are imparted with due brevity. Scott's letters,
not interesting generally, yet never absolutely
without in tei-est, are copiously given; copiously,
but with selection ; the answers to them still
more select. Narrative, delineation, and at
length personal reminiscences, occasionly of
much merit, of a certain rough force, sincerity,
and picturesqueness, duly intervene. The
scattered members of Scott's Life do lie here,
and could be disentangled. In a word, this
compilation is the work of a manful, clear-
seeing, conclusive man, and has been executed
with the faculty and combination of faculties
the public had a right to expect from the name
attached to it.

One thing M'e hear greatly blamed in Mr.
Lockhart: that he has been too communica-
tive, indiscreet, and has recorded much that
ought to have lain suppressed. Persons are
mentioned, and circumstances, not always of
an ornamental sort. It would appear there is
far less reticence than was looked for ! Vari-
ous persons, name and surname, have "re-
ceived pain:" nay, the very hero of the bio-
graphy is rendered unheroic ; unornamental
facts of him, and of those he had to do with,
being set forth in plain English : hence "per-
sonality," "indiscretion," cu' worse, " sanctities
of private life," &c. «Stc. How delicate, decent
is English biography, bless its mealy mouth!
A Damocles' sword of J<espectcil>i!i'y hangs for
ever over the poor English life-writer, (as it
does over poor English life in general,) and
reduces him to the veri:e of paralysis. Thus
it has been said, " there are nn English lives
worth reading except those of Players, who by
the nature of the case have bidden Respectabi-
lity good day." The English biographer has
long felt that if in writing his Man's Biography,
he wrote down any thing that could by possi-
bility offend any man, he had written wrong.
The plain consequence was that, properly
speaking, no biography whatever could be pro-
duced. The poor biographer, having the fear
■not of God before his eyes, was obliged to retire
as it were into vacuum ; and write in the most
melancholy, straitened manner, with only
vacuum for a result. Vain that he wrote, and
that we kept reading volume on volume ; there
was no biography, but some vague ghost of a
biography, white, stainless; without feature
or substance ; vacuum, as we say, and wind and
shadow, — which indeed the material of it was.

No man lives without jostling and being
jostled; in all ways he has to ilbow himself
through the world, giving and receiving of-
fence. His life is a battle, in so far as it is an
entity at all. The very oyster, we suppose,
comes in collision with oysters: undoubtedly
enough it does come in collision Avith Neces-
sity and Ditficulty ; and helps itself through,
not as a perfect ideal oyster, but as an imper-

814

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

feet real one. Some kind of remorse must be
known to the oyster; certain hatreds, certain
pusillanimities. But as for man, his conflict
is continual with the spirit of contradiction,
that is without and within; with the evil spirit,
(or call it with the weak, most necessitous,
M pitiable spirit,) that is in others and in him-
self. His walk, like all walking, (say the me-
chanicians,) is a series of falls. To paint
man's life is to represent these things. Let
them be represented, fitly, with dignity and
measure; but above all, let them be repre-
sented. No tragedy of Hamlet, with the part
of Hamlet omitted by particular desire ! No
ghost of a Biography, let the Damocles' sword
of Respectability (which after all is but a
pasteboard one) threaten as it will ! One
hopes that the public taste is much mended in
this matter ! that vacuum-biographies, with a
good many other vacuities related to them, are
withdrawn or withdrawing into vacuum. Pro-
bably it was Mr. Lockhart's feeling of what
the great public would approve that led him,
open-eyed, into this offence against the small
criticising public; we joyfully accept the
omen.

Perh-aps then, of all the praises copiously
bestowed on his work, there is none in reality
so creditable to him as this same censure,
which has also been pretty copious. It is a
censure better than a good many praises. He
is found guilty of having said this and that,
calculated not to be entirely pleasant to this
man and that; in other words, calculated to
give him the thing he worked in a living set
of features, not leave him vague, in the white
beatified ghost condition. Several men, as
we hear, cry out, "See, there is something
written not entirely pleasant to me ! Good
friend, it is pity : but who can help it 1 They
that will crowd about bonfires may, sometimes
very fairly, get their beards singed; it is the
price they pay for such illumination; natural
twilight is safe and free to all. For our part,
we hope all manner of biographies that are
written in England will henceforth be written
so. If it is fit that they be written otherwise,
then it is still fitter that they be not written at
all: to produce not things, but ghosts of things,
can never be the duty of man. The biogra-
pher has this problem set before him : to de-
lineate a likeness of the earthly pilgrimage of
a man. He will compute well what profit is
in it, and what disprofit; under which latter
head this of offending any of his fellow-crea-
tures will surely not be forgotten. Nay, this
may so swell the disprofit side of his account,
that many an enterprise of biography, other-
wise promising, shall require to be renounced.
But once taken up, the rule above all rules is
to do it, not to do the ghost of it. In speaking
of the man and men he has to deal with, he
will of course keep all his charities about
him, but also all his eyes open. Far be it
from him to set down aught m/(/??(c ,• nay, not
to abstain from, and leave in oblivion, much
-jnat is true. But having found a thing or
things essential for his subject, and well com-
puted the for and against, he will in very deed
pet down such thing or things, nothing doubt-
ing,— having, w(^ may say, the fear of God be-

fore his eyes, and no other fear whatever
Censure the biographer's prudence ; dissent
from the computation he made, or agree with
it; be all malice of his, be all falsehood, nay,
be all off'ensive avoidable inaccuracy, con-
demned and consumed ; but know that by this
plan only, executed as was possible, could the
biographer hope to make a biography : and
blame him not that he did what it had been
the worst fault not to do.

As to the accuracy or error of these state-
ments about the Ballantynes and other persons
aggrieved, which are questions much mooted
at present in some places, we know nothing
at all. If they are inaccurate, let them be
corrected; if the inaccuracy was avoidable,
let the author bear rebuke and punishment
for it. We can only say, these things carry
no look of inaccuracy on the face of them ;
neither is anywhere the smallest trace of ill-
will or unjust feeling discernible. Decidedly
the probabilities are, and till better evidence
arise, the fair conclusion is, that the matter
stands very much as it ought to do. Let the
clatter of censure, therefore, propagate itself
as far as it can. For Mr. Lockhart it virtu-
ally amounts to this very considerable praise,
that, standing full in the face of the public, he
has set at naught, and been among the first to
do it, a public piece of cant; one of the com-
monest we have, and closely allied to many
others of the fellest sort, as smooth as it looks.

The other censure, of Scott being made un-
heroic, springs from the same stem ; and is,
perhaps, a still more wonderful flower of it.
Your true hero must have no features, but be
white, stainless, an impersonal ghost-hero!
But connected with this, there is a hypothesis
now current, due probably to some man of
name, for its own force would not carry it far;
That Mr. Lockhart at heart has a , dislike to
Scott, and has done his best in an underhand
treacherous manner to dishero him ! Such
hypothesis is actually current: he that has
ears may hear it now and then. On which
astonishing hypothesis, if a word must be
said, it can only be an apology for silence,
" that there are things at which one stands
struck silent, as at first sight of the Infinite."
For if Mr. Lockhart is fairly chargeable with
any radical defect, if on any side his insight
entirely fails him, it seems even to be in this,
that Scott is altogether lovely to him ; that
Scott's greatness spreads out for him on all
hands beyond reach of eye; that his very
faults become beautiful, his vulgar worldli-
nesses are solid prudences, proprieties ; and
of his worth there is no measure. Does not
the patient biographer dwell on his Mbois, Pi-
rates, and hasty theatrical scene-paintings ;
afl^ectionately analyzing them, as if they were
Raphael pictures, time-defying Hamlets, (Jthellos?
The novel-manufactory, with his £15,000 a
vear, is sacred to him as creation of a genius,
;vhich carries the noble victor up to heaven.
Scott is to Lockhart the unparalleled of the
time ; an object spreading out before him like
a sea without shore. O? tliat astonishing hypo-
thesis, let expressive silence be the only an-
swer.

And so in sum, with regard to "Lockhart's,

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

515

Life of Scotl," readers that believe in us shall
read it with the feeling that a man of talent,
decision, and insight wrote it; wrote it in
seven volumes, not in one, because the public
would pay for it better in that state ; but wrote
it with courage, with frankness, sincerity; on
the whole, in a very readable, recommenda-
ble manner, as things go. Whosoever needs
it can purchase it, or the loan of it, with as-
surance more than usual that he has ware for
his money. And now enough of the written
life ; we will glance a little at the man and his
acted life.

Into the question whether Scott was a great
man or not, we do not propose to enter deeply.
It is, as too usual, a question about words.
There can be no doubt but many men have
been named and printed great who were vastly
smaller than he* as little doubt moreover that
of the specially good a very large portion, ac-
cording to any genuine standard of man's
worth, were worthless in comparison to him.
He for whom Scott is great may most inno-
cently name him so; may with advantage ad-
mire his great qualities, and ought with sin-
cere heart to emulate them. At the same
time, it is good that there be a certain degree
of precision m our epithets. It is good to un-
derstand, for one thing, that no popularity, and
open-mouthed wonder of all the world, con-
tinued even for a long series of years, can
make a man great. Such popularity is a re-
markable fortune; indicates a great adaptation
of the man to his element of circumstances;
but may or may not indicate any thing great in
the man. To our imagination, as above
hinted, there is a certain apotheosis in it; but
in the reality no apotheosis at all. Popularity
is as a blaze of illumination, or alas, of con-
flagration kindled round a man; showing what
is in him; not putting the smallest item more
irlto him; often abstracting much from him;
conflagrating the poor man himself into ashes
and caput mortvmii .' And then, by the nature
of it, such popularity is transient ; your " series
of years," quite unexpectedly, sometimes al-
most all on a sudden, terminates ! For the
stupidity of men, especially of men congre-
gated in masses round any object, is extreme.
What illuminations and conflagrations have
kindled themselves, as if new heavenly suns
had risen, which proved only to be tar-barrels,
and terrestrial locks of straw! Profane
princesses cried out, "One God, one Fari-
nelli !" — and whither now have they and Fari-
nelli danced? In literature, too, there have
been seen popularities greater even than
Scott's, and nothing perennial in the interior
of them. Lope de Vega, whom all the world
swore by, and made a proverb of; who could
make an acceptable five-act tragedy in almost
as many hours; the greatest of all popularities
past or present, and perhaps one of the great-
est men that ever ranked among popularities :
Lope himself, so radiant, far-shining, has not
proved to be a sun or star of the firmament;
but is as good as lost and gone out, or plays at
best, in the e3'es of some few, as a vague
Aurora-borealis, and brilliant ineffectuality.
The great man of Spain sat obscure at the

time, all dark and poor, a maimed soldier;
writing his Don Quixote in prison. And
Lope's fate withal was sad, his popularity per-
haps a curse to him; for in this man there
was something ethereal too, a divine particle
traceable in few other popular men ; and such
far shining diffusion of himself, though all the
world swore by it, would do nothing for the
true life of him even while he lived : he had
to creep into a convent, into a monk's cowl,
and learn, with infinite sorrow, that his bless-
edness had lain elsewhere; that when a man's
life feels itself to be sick and an error, no
voting of by-standers can make it well and a
truth again. Or coming down to our own
times, was not August Kotzebue popular ?
Kotzebue, not so many years since, saw him-
self, if rumour and hand-clapping could be
credited, the greatest man going; saw visibly
his Thoughts, dressed out in plush an 1 paste-
board, permeating and perambulating civilized
Europe; the most iron visages weeping with
him, in all theatres from Cadiz to Kamschat-
ka; his own ''astonishing genius," mean-
while, producing two tragedies or so per
month: he on the whole blazed high enough :
he too has gone out into Night and Orcus, and
already is not. We will omit this of populari-
ty altogether, and account it as making simply
nothing towards Scott's greatness or non-
greatness, as an accident, not a quality.

Shorn of this falsifying nimbus, and reduced
to his own natural dimensions, there remains
the reality, Walter Scott, and what we can find
in him : to be accounted great, or not great,
according to the dialects of men. Friends to
precision of epithet will probably deny his title
to the name " great." It seems to us there
goes other stuff to the making of great men
than can be detected here. One knows not
what idea worthy of the name of great, what
purpose, instinct, or tendency, that could be
called great, Scott ever was inspired with.
His life was worldly ; his ambitions were
worldly. There is nothing spiritual in him;
all is economical,material, of the earth earthy.
A love of picturesque, of beautiful, vigorous,
and graceful things; a genuine love, yet not
more genuine than has dwelt in hundreds of
men named minor poets: this is the highest
quality to be discerned in him. His power
of representing these things too, his poetic
power, like his moral power, was a genius in
exloiao, as we may say, not in vilenso. In ac-
tion, in speculation, broad as he was, he rose
nowhere high; productive without measure as
to quantity, in quality he for the most part
transcended but a little way the region of
commonplace. It has been said, " no man has
written as many volumes with so few sen-
tences that can be quoted." Winged words
were not his vocation ; nothing urged him 'hat
way: the great mystery of existence was not
great to him ; did not drive him into rock)
solitudes to wrestle with it for an answer, to
be answered or to perish. He had nothing of
the martyr; into no "dark region to slay
monsters for us," did he, either led or driven,
venture down : his conquests were for his own
behoof mainly, conquests over common mar
ket labour, and reckonable in good metallic

516

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

coin of the realm. The thing he had faith in,
except power, power of what sort soever, and
even of the rudest sort, would be difficult to
point out. One sees not that he believed in
any thing; nay, he did not even disbelieve; but
quietly acquiesced, and made himself at home
in a world of conventionalities: the false, the
semi-false, and the true were alike true in
this, that they were there, and had power in
their hands more or less. It was well to feel
so; and yet not well! We find it written,
"Wo to them that are at ease in Zion ;" but
surely it is a double wo to them that are at
ease in Babel, in Domdaniei. On the other
hand he wrote many volumes, amusing many
thousands of men. Shall we call this great?
]t seems to us there dwells and struggles
another sort of spirit in the inward parts of
great men !

Brother Ringletub, the missionary, inquired
of Ram-D.HSs, a Hindoo man-god, who had set
up lor godhood lately, What he meant to do,
then, with the sins of mankind] To which
llam-Dass at once answered, he had /ire enouf^h
in. Ins belly to burn up all the sins in the world.
Ram-Das^s was right so far, and had a spice
of sense in him; for surely it is the test of
every divine man this same, and without it he
is not divine or great, — that he haw fire in him
to burn up somewhat of the sins of the world,
of the miseries and errors of the world : why
else is he there T Far be it from us to say
that a great man must needs, with benevolence
prepense, become a "friend of humanity;"
nay, that such professional self-conscious
friends of humanity are not the fatalest kmd
of persons to be met with in our day. All
greatness is unconscious, or it is little and
naught. And yet a great man without smh
fire in him, burning dim or developed as a di-
vine behest in his heart of hearts, never rest-
ing till it be fulfilled, were a solecism in na-
ture. A great man is ever, as the Transcen-
dentalists speak, possessed witli an iden. Na-
poleon himself, not the superfinest of great
men, and ballasted sufficiently with prudences
and egoisms, had nevertheless, as is clear
enough, an idea to start with: the idea thai
Democracy was the Cause of Man, the right
and infinite Cause. Accmdingly he made
liimself "the armed soldier of Democracy;"
and did vindicate it in a rather great manner.
Nay, to ihe very last, he had a kind of idea,
thitt, namely, of " ^t rariie,re ouverte aiix tnlens,
the tools to him that can handle them ;" really
one of the best ideas yet prumulgnted on that
matter, or rather the one true central idea, to-
wards which all the others, if they tend any-
wiil.her, must tend. Unhappily it was in the
military province only that Napoleon could
realiiie this idea of his, being forced to fight
for himself the while: before he got it tried to
any extent in the civil province of things, his
he;i<l by much victory grew lisrht, (no head can
stand more than its quantity;) and he lost
head, as they say, and became a selfish ambi-
tionist and quack, and \va> hurled out, leaving
his idea to be realized, in the civil province of
liiiiv^s, by others! Thus was Napo'eon; thus
are all s;reat men: children of the idea; or, in
Ham-Uass's phraseology, furnished with fire

to burn up the miseries of men. Ccflscious ot
unconscious, latent or unfolded, there is small
vestige of any such fire being extant in th«
inner-man of Scott.

Yet on the other hand, the surliest critic
must allow that Scott was a genuine man,
which itself is a great matter. No affectation,
fantasticality, or distortion, dwelt in him; no
shadow of cant. Nay, withal, was he not a
right brave and strong man, according to his
kind ? What a load of toil, what a measure
of felicity, he quietly bore along with him ;
with what quiet strength he both worked on
this earth, and enjoyed in it; invincible to
evil fortune and to good ! A most composed
invincible man ; in difficulty afid distress, know-
ing no discouragement, Samson-like, carrying
off on his strong Samson-shoulders the gates
that would imprison him; in danger and
menace, laughing at the whisper of fear. And
then, with such a sunny current of true humour
and humanity, a free joyful sympathy with so
many things; what of fire be had, all lying
so beautifully Intent, as radical latent heat, as
fruitful internal warmth of life; a most robust,
healthy man ! The truth is, our best defini-
tion of Scott were perhaps even this, that he
was.if no great man, then something muchplea-
santer to be, a robust, thoroughly healthy, and
withal, very prosperous and victorious man.
An eminently well-conditioned man, healthy
in body, healthy jn soul ; we will call hiuj one
of the hcidlhics' of men. Neither is this a small
matter: health is a great matter, both to the
possessor of it and to others. On the whole,
that humourist in the Moral Essay was not so
fir out, who determined on honouring health
only; and so instead of humbling himself to
the highborn, to the rich and well-dressed, in-
sisted on doffing hat to the healthy : coronetted
carriages with pale faces in them passed by as
failures miserable and lamentable ; trucks with
ruddy-cheeked strength dragging at them were
greeted as successful and venerable. F^/r does
not healih mean harmony, the synonym of all
that is true, justly-ordered, good; is it not, in
some sense, the net-total, as shown by experi-
ment, of whatever worth is in us '! The healthy
man is a most meritorious product of nature,
so far as he goes. A healthy body is good ;
but a sou! in right health, — it is the thing be-
yond all others to be prayed for; the blessed-
est thing this eaith receives of Heaven. With-
out artificial medicament of philosophy, or
tight-lacirig of creeds, (always \Q\y q:;cstion-
able,) the healthy soul discerns what is good,
and adheres to it, and retains it ; discerns what
is bad, and spontaneously casts it off. An in-
stinct from nature herself, like that which
guides the wild animals of the forest to their
food, shows him what he shall do, what
he shall abstain from. The false and f ireign
will not adhere to him ; cant and all fantas-
tic, diseased incrustations are impossible—
as Walker the (Jri<j:,mal, in such eminence
of health was he for his part, rnnld not by
much abstinence from soap and water, at-
tain to a dirty face! This thing thou canst
work with and profit b)% this thing is sub-
stantial and worthy; that other thing thou
canst not work with, it is trivial and inapt: so

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

517

speaks unerringly the inward monition of the
man's whole nature. No need of logic to prove
the most argumentative absurdity absurd; as
Goethe says of himself, "all this ran down
from me like water from a man in wax-cloth
dress." Blessed is the healthy nature; it is
the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not inco-
herent, self-distracting, self-destructive one!
In the harmonious adjustment and play of all
the faculties, the just balance of oneself gives
a just feeling towards all men and all things.
Glad light from within radiates outwards, and
enlightens and embellishes.

Now- all this can be predicated of Walter
Scott, and of no British literary man that we
remember in these days, to any such extent, —
if it be not perhaps of one, the most opposite
imaginable to Scott, but his equal in this quality
and what holds of it : William Cobbett ! Nay,
there are other similarities, widely different as
they two look; nor be the comparison dis-
paraging to Scott: for Cobbett also, as the
pattern John Bull of his century, strong as the
rhinoceros, and with singular humanities and
genialities shining through his thick skin, is a
most brave phenomenon. So bounteous was
Nature to us ; in the sickliest of recorded ages,
when British literature lay all puking and
sprawling in Wertcrism, Byronism, and other
Kentimentalism, tearful or spasmodic, (fruit of
internal ivind,) Nature was kind enough to
send us two healthy Men, of whom she might
still say, not without pride, "These also were
made in England ; such limbs I still make
there!" It is one of the cheerfullest sights,
let the question of its greatness be settled as
you will. A healthy nature may or may not
be great; but there is no great nature that is
not healthy. — Or, on the whole, might we not
say, Scott, in the new vesture of the nineteenth
century, was intrinsically very much the old
fighting Borderer of prior centuries ; the kind
of man Nature did of old make in that birth-
land of his 1 In the saddle, with the foray-
spear, he would have acquitted himself as he
did at the desk with his pen. One fancies how
in stout BeanHe of Harden's time, he could
have plaved Beardie's part; and been the stal-
wart butT-belted terra filiua he in this late time
could only delight to draw. The same stout
self-help was in him ; the same oak and triple
brass round his heart. He too could have
fought at Redswire, cracking crowns with the
fiercest, "if that had been the task; could have
harried cattle in Tynedale, repaying injury
with compound interest ; a right sufficient
captain of men. A man without qualms or
fantasticalities; a hard-headed, sound-hearted
man, of joyous robust temper, looking to the
main chance, and fighting direct thitherward :
vuldc sldlw'iritis homo! — How much in thatcase
had slumbered in him, and passed away with-
out sign. But indeed, who knows how much
slumbers in many men. Perhaps our greatest
poets are the tnutc Miltons; the vocal are those
whom by happy accident we lay hold of, one
here, one there, as it chances, and /nakc vocal.
It is even a question, whether, had not M'ant,
discomfort, and distress-warrants been busy
at Siralford-on-Avon Shakspeare himself had
lot lived killing calves or combing wool !

Had the Edial Boarding-school turned out well,
we had never heard of Samuel Johnson;
Samuel Johnson had been a fat schoolmaster
and dogmatic gerundgrinder, and never know
that he was more. Nature is rich : those two
eggs thou art eating carelessly to breakfast,
could they not have been hatched into a pair of
fowls, and have covered the whole world with
poultry?

But it was not harrying of cattle in Tyne-
dale, or cracking of crowns at Redswire, that
this stout Border chief was appointed to per-
form. Far other work. To be the song-
singer and pleasant tale-teller to Britain and
Europe, in the beginning of the artificial nine-
teenth century; here, and not there, lay his
business. Beardie of Harden would have
found it very amazing. How he shapes him-
self to this new element; how he helps himself
along in it, makes it too do for him, lives
sound and victorious in it, and leads over the
marches such a spoil as all the cattle-droves
the Hardens ever took were poor in com-
parison to: this is the history of the life and
achievements of our Sir Walter Scott, Baronet ;
— whereat we are now to glance for a little !
It is a thing remarkable ; a thing substantial;
of joyful, victorious sort; not unworthy to be
glanced at. Withal, however, a glance here
and there will suffice. Our limits are narrow;
the thing, were it never so victorious, is mt
of the sublime sort, nor extremely edifying,
there is nothing in it to censure vehemently,
nor love vehemently: there is more to wonder
at than admire ; and the whole secret is not an
abstruse one.

Till towards the age of thirty, Scott's lifti
has nothing in it decisively pointing towards
literature, or indeed towards distinction of any
kind; he is wedded, settled, and has gone
through all his preliminary steps, without
symptoms of renown as yet. It is the life of
every other Edinburgh youth of his station and
time. Fortunate we must name it, in many
ways. Parents in easy or wealthy circum-
stances, yet unencumbered with the cares and
perversions of aristocracy: nothing eminent
in place, in facultv, or culture, yet nothing
deficient; all around is methodic regulation,
prudence, prosperity, kind-heartedness ; an
element of warmth and light of affection, in-
dustry, and burgherly comfort, heightened into
elegance ; in which the young heart can
wholesomely grow. A vigorous health seems
to have been given by Nature; yet, as if Na-
ture had said withal, "Let it be a health to
express itself by mind, not by body," a lame-
ness is added in childhood; the brave little
boy, instead of romping and bickering, must
learn to think ; or at lowest, what is a great
matter, to sit still. No rackets and trundling-
hoops for this young Walter; but ballads,
history-books, and a world of egendary stuff,
which his mother and those .Tear him are
copiously able to furnish. Disease, .vhich is
but superficial, and issues in outward lame-
ness, does not cloud the young existence ,
rather forwards it towards the expansion it is
fitted for. The miserable disease had been
one of the internal nobler parts, marring the
2X

518

CAHLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

general organization ; under which no Walter
Scott could have been forwarded, or with all
his other endowments could have been pro-
ducible or possible. "Nature gives healthy
children much: how much! Wise education
is a wise unfolding of this ; often it unfolds
itself better of its own accord."

Add one other circumstance : the place
•where ; namely, Presbyterian Scotland. The
influences of this are felt incessantly, they
stream in at every pore. "There is a country
accent," says La Rochefoucault, " not in
speech only, but in thought, conduct, charac-
ter, and manner of existing, which never for-
sakes a man." Scott, we believe, was all his
days an Episcopalean Dissenter in Scotland;
but that makes little to the matter. Nobody
who knows Scotland and Scott can doubt but
Presbyterianism, too, had a vast share in the
forming of him. A country where the entire
people is, or even once has been, laid hold of,
filled to the heart with an infinite religious
idea, has " made a step from which it cannot
retrograde." Thought, conscience, the sense
that man is denizen of a universe, creature of
an eternity, has penetrated to the remotest
cottage, to the simplest heart. Beautiful and
awful, the feeling of a heavenly behest, of duty
god-commanded, overcanopies all life. There
is an inspiration in such a people: one may
say in a more special sense, " the inspiration
of the Almighty giveth them understanding."
Honour to all the brave and true; everlasting
honour to b;«a*e-o]d Knox, one of the truest of
the true! That, in the moment while he and
his cause, amid civil broils, in convulsion and
confusion, were still but struggling for life, he
sent the schoolmaster forth to all corners, and
said, "Let the people be taught:" this is but
one, and indeed an inevitable and compara-
tively inconsiderable item in his great mes-
sage to men. His message, in its true com-
pass, was, "Let men know that they are men ;
created by God, responsible to God ; who work
in any meanest moment of time what will last
through eternity." It is verily a great mes-
sage. Not ploughing and hammering ma-
chines, not patent digesters (never so orna-
mental) to digest the produce of these: no, in
no wise ; born slaves neither of their fellow-
men, nor of their own appetites ; but men !
This great message Knox did deliver, with a
man's voice and strength ; and found a people
to believe him.

Of such an achievement, we say, were it to
be made once only, the results are immense.
Thought, in such a country, may change its
form, but cannot go out; the country has
attained majority ; thought, and a certain spi-
ritual manhood, ready for all work that man
can do, endures there. It may take many
forms : the form of hard-fisted, money-getting
industry, as in the vulgar Scotchman, in the
vulgar New Englander; but as compact de-
veloped force and alertness of faculty, it is
Btill there; it may utter itself, one day, as the
colossal skepticism of a Hume, (beneficent
Shis too, though painful, wrestling, Titan-like,
through doubt and inquiry towards new belief;)
and again, some better day, it may utter itself

as the inspired melody of a Bums: in a woni,
it is and continues in the voice and the work
of a nation of hardy, endeavouring, consider-
ing men, with whatever that may bear in it, or
unfold from it. The Scotch national character
originates in many circumstances; first of all,
in the Saxon stuff there was to work on ; bu*
next, and beyond all else except that, in tht,
Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox. It seems
a good national character; and, on some sides,
not so good. Let Scott thank John Knox, for
he owed him much, little as he dreamed of
debt in that quarter! No Scotchman of hig
time was more entirely Scotch than Walter
Scott : the good and the not so good, which all
Scotchmen inherit, ran through every fibre of
him. /

Scott's childhood, school-days, college-days,
are pleasant to read of, though they differ not
from those of others in his place and time.
The memory of him may probably enough
last till this record of them become far more
curious than it now is. " So lived an Edin-
burgh Writer to the Signet's son in the end of
the eighteenth century," may some future
Scotch novelist say to himself in the end of
the twenty-first ! The following little fragment
of infancy is all we can extract. It is from an
autobiography which he had begun, which one
cannot but regret he did not finish. Scott's
best qualities never shone out more freely
than when he went upon anecdote and remi-
niscence. Such a master of narrative and of
himself could have done personal narrative
well. Here, if any where, his knowledge was
complete, and all his humour and good-hu-
mour had free scope :

" An odd incident is worth recording. It
seems my mother had sent a maid to take
charge of me, at this farm of Sandy-Knowe,
that I might be no inconvenience to the family.
But the damsel sent on that important mission
had left her heart behind her, in the keeping
of some wild fellow, it is likely, who had done
and said more to her than he was like to make
good. She became extremely desirous to re-
turn to Edinburgh ; and, as my mother made
a point of her remaining where she was, she
contracted a sort of hatred at poor me, as the
cause of her being detained at Sand3r-Knowe.
This rose, I suppose, to a sort of delirious af-
fection, for she confessed to old Alison Wilson,
the housekeeper, that she had carried me up
to the craigs under a strong temptation of the
Devil to cut my throat with her scissors, and
bury me in the moss. Alison instantly took
possession of my person, and took care that
her confidant should not be subject to any
further temptation, at least so far as I was
concerned. She was dismissed, of course, and
I have heard afterwards became a lunatic.

" It is here, at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence
of my paternal grandfather, already mention-
ed, that I have the first consciousness of exist-
ence ; and I recollect distinctly that my situa-
tion and appearance were a little whimsical.
Among the odd remedies recurred to, to aid
my lameness, some one had recommended
that so often as a sheep was killed for the use
of the family, I should be stripped, and swathed
up in the skin warm as it was flayed from the

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

519

carcass of the animal. In this Tartar-like ha-
biliment I well remember lying upon the floor
of the little parlour in the farm-house, while
my grandfather, a venerable old man with white
hair, used every excitement to make me try to
crawl. I also distinctly remember the late Sir
George M'Dougal of Mackerstown, father of
the present Sir Henry Hay M'Dougal, joining
in the attempt. He was, God knows how, a
relation of ours ; and I still recollect him in
his old-fashioned military habit, (he had been
Colonel of the Greys,) wiih a small cocked-
hat deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waist-
coat, and a light-coloured coat, with milk-
white locks tied in a military fashion, kneel-
ing on the ground before me, and dragging his
watch along the carpet to induce me to follow
it. The benevolent old soldier, and the infant
wrapped in his sheep-skin, would have afford-
ed an odd group to uninterested spectators.
This must have happened about my third
year, (1774,) for Sir George M'Dougal and my
grandf'ather both died shortly after that period.
—Vol. i.pp. 15—17.

We will glance next into the " Luhksdale
raids." Scott has grown up to be a brisk-heart-
ed jovial young man and advocate : in vaca-
tion time he makes excursions to the High-
lands, to the Border Cheviots and Northum-
berland ; rides free and far, on his stout gal-
loway, through bog and brake, over the dim
moory debatable land, — over Flodden and other
fields and places, where, though he yet knew
it not, his work lay. No land, however dim
and moory, but either has had or will have its
poet, and so become not unknown in song.
Liddesdale, which was once as prosaic as most
dales, having now attained illustration, let us
glance thither-ward : Liddesdale too is on this
ancient Earth of ours under this eternal Sky ;
and gives and takes, in the most incalculable
manner, with the Universe at large ! Scott's
experiences there are rather of the rustic Ar-
cadian sort; the element of whiskey not want-
ing. We should premise that here and there
a feature has perhaps been aggravated for ef-
fects' sake :

" During seven successive years," writes Mr.
Lockhart, (for the autobiography has long since
left us,) "Scott made a laid, as he called it,
into Liddesdale with Mr. Shorlreed, sheriff-sub-
stitute of Roxburgh, for his guide; exploring
every rivulet to its source, and every ruined
peel from foundation to battlement. At this
time no wheel carriage had ever been seen in
the district — the first, indeed, was a gig, driven
by Scott himself for a part of his way, when
on the last of these seven excursions. There
was no inn or public-house of any kind in the
whole valley; the travellers passed from the
shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and
again from the cheerful hospitality of the
manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the
homestead: gathering, wherever they went,
songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangi-
ble relics of antiquity — even such a 'rowth of
auld knicknackets' as Burns ascribes to Cap-
tain Grose. To these rambles Scott owed much
of the materials of his ' Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border;' and not less of that intimate
.•acquaintance with the living manners of these

unsophisticated regions, which constitutes thr
chief charm ofoneofthe most charming of his
prose works. But how soon he had any defi-
nite object before him in his researches, seems
very doubtful. 'He was makii,' Id/nscll a.' the
time,' said Mr. Shortretd ; ' but he didna ken
maybe what he was about till years had passed :
at first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the
queerness and the fun.'

'"In those days,' says the Memorandum be-
fore me, ' advocates were not so plenty — at least
about Liddesdale;' and the worthy Sherifl-sub-
stitute goes on to describe the sort of bustle,
not unmixed with alarm, produced at the first
farm-house they visited, (Willie Elliot's at
Millburnholm,) when the honest man was in-
formed of the quality of one of his guests.
When they dismounted, accordingly, he re-
ceived Mr. Scott with great ceremony, and in-
sisted upon himself leading his horse to the
stable. Shortreed accompanied Willie, how-
ever, and the latter, after taking a deliberate
peep at Scott, 'out by the edge of the door
cheek,' whispered, ' Weel, Robin, I say, de'il
hae me if Fs be a bit feared for him now ; he's
just a chield like ourselves, I think.' Half-a-
dozen dogs of all degrees had already gather-
ed round the 'advocate,' and his way of re-
turning their compliments had set Willie Elliot
at once at his ease.

"According to Mr. Shortreed, this good man
of Millburnholm was the great original of
Dandie Dinmont." * * "They dined at
Millburnholm ; and, after having lingered over
Willie Elliot's punch-bowl, until, in Mr. Short-
reed's phrase, they were ' half-glowrin,' mount-
ed their steeds again, and proceeded to Dr. El-
liot's at Cleughhead where (' for,' says my Me-
morandum, ' folk were na very nice in those
days,') the two travellers slept in one and the
same bed — as, indeed, seems to have been the
case with them throughout most of their excur-
sions in this primitivedistrict. Dr. Elliot (acler-
gyman) had already a large MS. collection of
the ballads Scott was in quest of." * * »
" Next morning they seem to have ridden a
long way for the purpose of visiting one 'auld
Thomas o' Tuzzilehope,' another Elliot, I sup-
pose, who was celebrated for his skill on the
Border pipe, and in particular for being in pos-
session of the real lilt* of Dick o' the Cow. Be-
fore starting, that is, at six o'clock, the ballad
hunters had, ' just to lay the stomach, a devil-
led duck or twae, and some London porter.'
Auld Thomas found them, nevertheless, well
disposed for ' breakfast' on their a.-rival at
Tuzzilehope ; and this being over, he delighted
them with one of the most hideous and un-
earthly of all specimens of ' riding music,'
and, moreover, with considerable libations of
whisky-punch, manufactured in a certa.u
wooden vessel, resembling a very small milk-
pail, which he called ' Wisdom,' because it
' made' only a few spoonfuls of spirits —
though he had the art of replenishing it so
adroitly, that it had been celebrated for fil\y
years as more fatal to sobriety than any bowl
in the parish. Having done due honour tu
'.Wisdom,' they again mounted, and proceeded

♦ Loud tune : Geriiian. lallen.

520

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

over moss and moor to some other equally
hospitable master of the pipe. ' Ah me,' says
Shorlreed, ' sic an endless fund o' humour and
drollery as he then had wi' him ! Never ten
yards but we were either laughing or roaring
and singing. Wherever we stopped, how braw-
lie he suited himsell to every body! He aye
did as the lave did; never made himsell the
great man, or took ony airs in the company.
I've seen him in a' moods in these jaunts,
grave and gay, daft and serious, sober and
drunk — (this, however, even in our wildest
rambles, was rare) — but, drunk or sober, he
was aye the gentleman. He lookit excessive-
ly heavy and stupid when he was /jm, but he was
never out o' gude-humour.'"

These are questionable doings, questionably
narrated; but what shall we say of the follow-
ing, wherein the element of whisky plays an
extremely prominent parti We will say that
it is questionable, and not exemplary, whisky
mounting clearly beyond its level ; that indeed
charity hopes and conjectures, here may be
some aggravating of features for effect's sake !

" On reaching, one evening, some Charlies-
hojie or other (I forget the name) among those
wildernesses, they found a kindly reception, as
usual; but, to their agreeable surprise after
some days of hard living, a measured and
orderly hospitality as respected liquor. Soon
after supper, at which a bottle of elderberry
wine alone had been produced, a young student
of divinity, who happened to be in the house,
was called upon to take the 'big ha' Bible,' in
the good old fashion of 'Burns's Saturday
Night;' and some progress had been already
made in the service, when the good man of
the farm, whose 'tendency,' as Mr. Mitchell
says, ' was soporific,' scandalized his wife and
the dominie by starting suddenly from his
knees, and, rubbing his eyes, with a stentorian

exclam.ation of ' By , here's the keg at

last!' and in tumbled, as he spoke the word, a
couple of sturdy herdsmen, whom, on hearing
a day before of the advocate's approaching
visit, he had despatched to a certain smug-
gler's haunt, at some considerable distance, in
quest of a supply of run brandy from the Sol-
way Frith. The pious 'exercise' of the house-
hold was hopelessly interrupted. With a
thousand apologies for his hitherto shabby
entertainment, this jolly Elliot, or Armstrong,
had the welcome keg mounted on the table
without a moment's delay, and gentle and
simple, not forgetting the dominie, continued
carousing about it until daylight streamed in
upon the party. Sir Walter Scott seldom
failed, when I saw him in company with his
Liddesdale companion, to mimic with infinite
humour the sudden outburst of his old host
on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he
knew to indicate the arrival of the keg — the
consternation of the dame — and the rueful des-
pair with which the young clergyman closed
the book." — Vol. i. pp. 195—199.

From which Liddesdale raids, which Ave
here, like the young clergyman, close not
without a certain rueful despair, let the reader
draw what nourishment he can. They evince
satisfactorily, though in a rude manner, that
<n those days young advocates, and Scott, like

the rest of them, were alive and alert, — whisky
sometimes preponderating. But let us now
fancy that the jovial young advocate has
pleaded his first cause; has served in yeo-
manry drills; been wedded, been promoted
sherilf, without romance in either case; dab-
bling a little the while, under guidance of Monk
Lewis, in translations from the German, in
translation of "Goethe's GiJlz with the Iroa
Hand;" — and we have arrived at the thresh-
old of the " Minstrelsy of ihe Scoitish
Border," and the opening of a new century.

Hitherto, therefore, there has been made
out, by nature and circumstance working
together, nothing unusually remarkable, yet
slill something very valuable; a siout effec-
tual man of thirty, full of broad sagacity and
good humour, with faculties in him fit for any
burden of business, hospitality, and duty, legal
or civic: — with what otiier faculties in him no
one could yet say. As indeed, who, alter life-
long inspection, can say what is in any man]
The uttered part of a man's life, let us always
repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious
part a small unknown proportion ; he himself
never knows it, much less do others. Give
him room, give him mijiule ; he reaches down
to the infinite with that so straiily-imjirisoned
soul of his ; and cm do miracles if need be !
It is one of the comfurlablest truths that great
men abound, though in the unknown state.
Nay as above hinted, our greatest, being also
by nature our quid est, are perhaps those that
remain unknown ! Philosopher Fichte took
comfort in this belief, when from all pulpits
and editorial desks, and publications, periodi-
cal and stationary, he could hear nothing but
the infinite chattering and twittering of com
monplace become anibiiii;us ; and in the
infinite stir of motion nowhither, and of din
which should have been silence, all seemed
churned into one tempestuous yesty froth, and
the stern Fichte almost desired "taxes on
knowledge" to allay it a little; — he comforted
himself, we say, by the unshaken belief that
Thought did still exist in Germany; that
thinking men, each in his own corner, were
verily doing their work, though in a silent
latent manner.* Walter Scott, as a latent
Waller, had never amused all men for a score
of years in the course of centuries and eterni-
ties, or gained and lost, say a hundred thou-
sand pounds Stirling by literature; but he
might have been a happy and by no means a
useless, — nay, who knows at bottom whether
not a still usefuller Walter ! However that
was not his fortune. The Genius of rather a
singular age, — an age at once destitute of faith
and terrified at skepticism, with little know-
ledge of its whereabout, with many sorrows to
bear or front, and on the whole with a life to
lead in these new circumstances, — had said to
himself: What man shall be the temporary
comforter, or were it but the spiritual comfit-
malv-er, of this my poor singular age, to solace
its dead tedium and manifold sorrows a little'?
So had the Genius said, looking over all the
world, what man 1 and found him walicing the
dusty outer parliament-house of Edinbutgh,

* Fichte, Ueber das IP'esen des Gelehrten.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

•521

with hfs advocate-gdwn on his back; and ex-
claimed, That is he!

The "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border"
proved to be a well, from which flowed one
of the broadest rivers. Metrical romances,
(which in due time pass into prose romances ;)
the old life of men resuscitated for us; it
is a mighty word ! Not as dead tradition,
but as a palpable presence, the past stood be-
fore us. There they were, the rugged old
fighting men ; in their doughty simplicity and
strength, with their heartiness, their healthi-
ness, their stout self-help, in their iron bas-
nets, leather jerkins, jack-boots, in their
quaintness of manner and costume; there as
thoy looked and lived; it was lilce a new dis-
covered continent in literature; for the new
century, a bright El Dorado, — or else some fat
beatific land of Cockaigne, and Paradise of
Donolhings. To the opening nineteenth cen-
tury, it is languor and paralysis; nothing could
have been welcomer. Most unexpected, most
refreshing, and exhilarating; behold our new
El Dorado; our fat beatific Lubberland, where
one can enjoy and do nothing! It was the
time for such a new literature ; and this Wal-
ter Scott was the man for it. The Layf, the
Marrnions, the Ladys and Lords of Lake and
Isles, followed in quick succession, with ever-
widening profit and praise. How many thou-
sands of guineas were paid down for each
new Lay; how many thousands of copies
(fifty and more sometimes) were printed off
then and subsequently ; what complimenting,
reviewing, renown, and apotheosis there was;
all is recorded in these seven volumes, which
will be valuable in literary statistics. It is a
history, brilliant, remarkable ; the outlines of
which are known to all. The reader shall re-
call it, or conceive it. No blaze in his fancy
is likely to mount higher than the reality did.
At this middle period of his life, therefore,
Scott, enriched with copyrights, with new
official incomes and promotions, rich in money,
rich in repute, presents himself as a man in
the full career of success. "Health, wealth,
and wit to guide them," (as his vernacular
proverb says,) all these three are his. The
field is open for him, and victory there : his
own faculty, his own self, unshackled, victori-
ously unfolds itself, — the highest blessedness
that can befall a man. Wide circle of friends,
personal loving admirers : warmth of domes-
tic joys, vouchsafed to all that can true-heart-
edly nestle down among them; light of radi-
ance and renown given only to a few: who
would not call Scott happy 1 But the happi-
est circumstance of all is, as we said above,
that Scott had in himself a right healthy soul,
rendering him little dependent on outward cir-
cumstances. Things showed themselves to
him not in distortion or borrowed light or
gloom, but as they were. Endeavour lay in
him and endurance, in due measure; and
clear vision of what was to be endeavoured
after. Were one to preach a Sermon on
Health, as really were worth doing, Scott
(lUght to be the text. Theories are demon-
strably true in the way of logic; and then in
the wav of practice, they prove true or else
uot true: but here is the grand experiment,
66

Do they turn out well? What boots it that a
man's creed is the wisest, that his system of
principles is the superfinesi, if, when set to
work, the life of him does nothing but jar, and
fret itself into holes ' They are untrue in that,
were it in nothing else, these principles of
his; openly convicted of untruth; — fit only,
shall we say, to be rejected as counterfeits,
and flung to the dogs "? We say not that ; but
we do say that ill-health, of body or of iniiid,
is defeat, is battle (in a good or in a bad cause)
with bad success ; that health alone is victory.
Let all men, if they can manas:e it, contrive to
be healthy ! He who in what cause soever
sinks into pain and disease, let him take
thought of it; let him know well that it is not
good he. has arrived at yet, but surely evil, —
may, or may not be, on the way towards good.
Scott's healthiness showed itself decisively
in all things, and nowhere more decisively
than in this: the way in which he took his
fame; the estimate he from the first formed of
fame. Money will buy money's worth; but
the thing men call fame what is it"! A gaudy
emblazonry, not good for much, — exceptindeed
as it too may turn to money. To Scott it wa!i
a profitable pleasing superfluity, no necessary
of life. Not necessary, now or ever 1 Seem-
ingly without much effort, but taught by nature,
and the instinct which instructs the sound
heart what is good for it and what is not, he
felt that he could always do without this same
emblazonry of reputation ; that he ought to
put no trust in it; but be ready at any time
to see it pass away from him, and to hold on
his way as before. It is incalculable, as we
conjecture, Avhat evil he escaped in this
manner; what perversions, irritations, mean
agonies wnthout a name, he lived wholly apart
froin, knew nothing of. Happily before fame
arrived, he had reached the mature age at
which all this was easier to him. What a
strange Nemesis lurks in the felicities of men !
In thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey, in thy
belly it shall be bitter as gall ? Some weakly-
organized individual, we will say at the age
of five-and-twenty, whose main or whole talent
restson some prurientsusceptivity,and nothing
under it but shallowness and vacuum, is
clutched hold of by the general imagination, is
whirled aloft to the giddy height; and taught
to believe the divine-seeming message that he
is a great man : such individual seems the
luckiest of men : and is he not the unluck iesti
Swallow not the Circe-drought, O weakly
organized individual ; it is fell poison ; it will
dry up the fountains of thy whole existence,
and all will grow withered and parched; thou
shalt be wretched under the sun ! Is there, for
example, a sadder book than that "Life of
Byron." by Moore? To omit mere prurient
susceptivities that rest on vacuum, look at
poor Byron, who really had much substance
in him. Sitting there in his self-exiie, wMih a
proud heart striving to persuade itself that it
despises the entire created universe; and afar
off, in foggy Babylon, let any pitifullest whip-
ster draw pen on him, your proud Byron
writhes in torture, — as if the pitiful wbijjster
were a magician, or his pen a galvanic
wire struck into the Bi'ron's spinal marrow 1
3x3

522

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Lamentable", despicable, — one had rather be a
kitten and cry mew! O, son of Adam, great
or lillle, according as thou art loveable, those
thou livest with will love thee. Those thou
livest not wilh, is it of moment that the}' have
the alphabetic letters of thy name engraved on
their memory with some signpost likeness of
thee (as like as I to Hercules) appended to
them 1 It is not of moment; in sober truth,
not of any moment at all ! And yet, behold,
there is no soul now whom thou canst love
freely, — from one soul only art thou always
sure of reverence enough ; in presence of no
soul is it rightly well wilh thee ! How is thy
w^orld become desert; and thou, for the sake
of a little babblement of tongues, art poor,
bankrupt, insolvent not in purse, but in henrt
and mind. "The golden calf of self-love,"
says Jean Paul, "has grown into a burning
Phalari?' bull, to consume its owner and wor-
shipper." Ambition, the desire of shining and
outshining, was the beginning of sin in this
world. The man of letters who founds upon
his fame, does he not thereby alone declare
himself a follower of Lucifer (named Satan,
the Enemy,) and member of the Satanic

school ]

It was in this poetic period that Scott formed
his connection with the Ballantynes; and em-
barked, though under cover, largely in trade.
To those who regard him in the heroic light,
and will have vafcs to signify prophet as well
as poet, this portion of his biography seems
somewhat incoherent. Viewed as it stood in
tlie reality, as he was and as it was, the enter-
prise, since it proved so unfortunate, may be
called lamentable, but cannot be called un-
natural. The practical Scott, looking towards
practical issues in all things, could not but
find hard cash one of the most practical. If,
by any means, cash could be honestly pro-
duced, were it by writing poems, were it by
printing them, why not? Great things might
he done ultimately; great difficulties were at
once got rid of, — manifold higglings of book-
sellers, and contradictions of sinners hereby
fell away. A printing and bookselling specu-
lation was not so alien for a maker of books.
Voltaire, who indeed got no copyrights, made
much money by the war commissariat, in his
time; 'we believe by the victualling branch of
it. Saint George himself, they say, was a
dealer in bacon in Cappadocia. A thrifty man
will help himself towards his object by such
steps as lead to it. Station in society, solid
power over the good things of this world, was
Scott's avowed object ; towards which the pre-
cept of precepts is that of lago: Put money in
thy ymrse.

Here, indeed, it is to be remarked, that, per-
haps no literary man of any generation has
less value than Scott for the immaterial part
of his mission in any sense; not only for the
fantasy called fame, with the fantastic miseries
attendant thereon ; but also for the spiritual
purport of his wori^, whether it tended hither-
ward or thitherward, or had any tendency
whatever; and indeed for all purports and re-
sults of his working, except such, we may say,
as offered themselves to the eye, and could, in
one sense or the other be handled, looked at,

and buttoned into the breeches-pocket. Some*
what too little of a fantast, this vales of ours!
But so it was: in this nineteenth century, our
highest luerary man, who immeasurably be-
yond all others commanded the world's ear,
had, as it were, no message whatever to de-
liver to the world; wished not the world to
elevate itself, to amend itself, to do this or to
do that, except simply pay him for the books
he kept writing. Very remarkable ; fittest, per-
haps, for an nge fallen languid, destitute of
faith and terrified at skepticism 1 Or, perhaps,
for quite another sort of age, an age all in
peaceable triumphant motion? But, indeed,
since Shakspeare's time there has been no
greater speaker so unconscious of an aim in
speaking. Equally unconscious these two
utterances ; equally the sincere complete pro-
ducts of the minds they came from: and now
if they were equally deep? Or, if the one was
living fire, and the other was futile phosphores-
cence and mere resinous fireworlc ? It will
depend on the relative worth of the minds ; for
both were equally spontaneous themselves,
unencumbered by an ulterior aim. Beyond
drawing audiences to the Globe Theatre,
Shakspeare contemplated no result in those
plays of his. Yet they have had results !
IJtler with free heart what thy own damon
gives thee: if fire from heaven it shall be
well ; if resinous firework, it shall be — as well
as it could be, or better than otherwise! The
candid judge will, in general, require that a
speaker, in so extremely serious a universe as
this of ours, have something to speak about.
In the heart of the speaker there ought to be
some kind of gospel-tidings burning till it be
uttered; otherwise it were better for him that
he altogether held his peace. A gospel some-
what more decisive than this of Scott's, —
except to an age altogether languid, without
either skepticism or faith ? These things the
candid judge will demand of literary men ; yet
withal will recognise the great worth there is
in Scott's honesty, if in nothing more, in his
being the thing he was with such entire good
faith. Here is a something not a nothing. If
no sky born messenger, heaven looking through
his eyes; then neither is it a chimera with his
systems, crotchets, cants, fanaticisms, and " last
infirmity of noble minds," — full of misery, un-
rest, and ill-will ; but a substantial, peaceable,
terrestrial man. Far as the Earth is under the
Heaven, does Scott stand below the former sort
of character; but high as the cheerful flowery
Earth is above waste Tartarus does he stand
above the latter. Let him live in his own
fashion, and do honour to him in that.

It were late in the day to write criticisms
on those Metrical Romances: at the same
time, the great popularity they had seems na-
tural enough. In the first place, there was
the indisputable impress of worth, of genuine
human force, in them. This, which lies in
some degree, or is thought to lie, at the bottom
of all popularity, did to an unusual degree,
disclose itself in these rhymed romances of
Scott's. Pictures were actually painted and
presented; human emotions conceived f.ni
sympathized with. Considering that wretched
Della-Cruscan and other vamping-up oi old

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTl.

523

worn-out tatters was the staple article then, it
may he granted that Scott's excellence was
superior and supreme. When a Hayley was
the main singer, a Scott might well be hailed
with warm welcome. Consider whether the
Loves of the Plants, and even the Loves of the
trianoles, could be worth the loves and hates
of men and women ! Scott was as preferable
to what he displaced, as the substance is to
wearisomely repeated shadow of a substance.
But, in the second place, we may say that
the kind of worth which Scott manifested
was f.t'ied especially for the then temper of
men. We have called it an age fallen into
spiritual languor, destitute of belief, yet terri-
tied at skepticism; reduced to live a stinted
half-life, under strange new circumstances.
Now vigorous whole-life, this was what of all
things these delineations offered. The reader
was carried back to rough strong times, where-
in those maladies of ours had not yet arisen.
Brawny fighters, all cased in buff and iron,
their hearts too sheathed in oak and triple
brass, caprioled their huge war-horses, sho«k
their death-doing spears ; and went forth in
the most determined manner, nothing doubt-
ing. The reader sighed, yet not without a
reflex solacement: " 0, that I could have lived
in those times, had never known these logic-
cobwebs, this doubt, this sickliness; and been
and felt myself alive among men alive !" Add
lastly, that in this new-found poetic world there
was no call for effort on the reader's part;
what excellence they had, exhibited itself at a
glance. It was for the reader, not the El Do-
rado only, but a beatific land of a Cockaigne
and Paradise of Donothings ! The reader,
what the vast majority of readers so long to
do, was allowed to lie down at his ease, and
be ministered to. What the Turkish bath-
keeper is said to aim at with his frictions, and
shampooings, and fomenlings, more or less
effectually, that the patient in total idleness
may have the delights of activity, — was here
to a considerable extent realized. The languid
imagination fell back into its rest; an artist
was there who could supply it with high-
painted scenes, with sequences of stirring ac-
tion, and whisper to it. Be at ease, and let thy
tepid element be comfortable to thee. " The
rude man," says the critic, "requires only to
see something going on. The man of more
refinement must be made to feel. The man
of complete refinement must be made to re-
flect."

We named the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border" the fountain from which flowed this
great river of Metrical Romances ; but ac-
cording to some they can be traced to a still
higher, obscurer spring; to Goethe's " Gotz
von Berlichingen M'ith the Iron Hand ;" of
which, as we have seen, Scott in his earlier
days executed a translation. Dated a good
many years ago, the following words in a cri-
ticism on Goethe are found written ; which
probably are still new to most readers of this
Review:

"The works just mentioned, Gbiz and Wcr-
ter, though noble specimens of youthful talent,
are still not so much distinguished by their
intrinsic merits as by their splendid fortune.

It would be difficult to name two books which
have exercised a deeper influence on the sub-
sequent literature of Europe than these two
performances of a young author; bis first-
fruits, the pn duce of his twenty-fourth year.
Werler appeared to seize the hearts of men in
all quarters of the world, and to utter for them
the word which they had long been waiting to
hear. As usually happens, too, this same
word, once uttered, was soon abundantly re-
peated ; spoken in all dialects, and chaunted
through all notes of the gamut, till the sound
of it had grown a weariness rather than a
pleasure. Skeptical sentimentality, view-hunt-
ing, love, friendship, suicide, and desperation,
became the staple of literary ware ; and
though the epidemic, after a long course of
years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared
with various modifications in other countries,
and everywhere abundant traces of its good
and bad effects are still to be discerned. The
fortune of Berlvhingen ivilh the Iron Hand,
though less sudden, was by no means less
exalted. In his own country, Gotz, though he
now stands solitary and childless, became the
parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry
plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-anti-
quarian performances: which, though long
ago deceased, made noise enough in their day
and generation : and with ourselves his influ-
ence has been perhaps still more remarkable.
Sir Walter Scott's first literary enterprise was
a translation of Gulz von Berlichingen : and, if
genius could be communicated like instruc-
tion, we might call this work of Goethe's the
prime cause of Marmion and the Laily of the
Lake, with all that has followed from the same
creative hand. Truly, a gram of seed that
has lighted in the right soil ! For if not
firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and
broader than any other tree ; and all the na-
tions of the earth are still yearly gathering of
its fruit."

How far " Gotz von Berlichingen " actually
affected Scott's literary destination, and whe-
ther without it the rhymed romances, and
then the prose romances of the Author of
Waverly, would not have followed as they
did, must remain a very obscure question;
obscure, and not important. Of the fact, how-
ever, there is no doubt but these two tenden-
cies, which may be named Cotzism and IVet'
terism, of the former of which Scott was re-
presentative with us, have made, and are still
in some quarters making the tour of all Eu-
rope. In Germany, too, there was this affec-
tionate half-regretful looking back into the
past ; Germany had its buff-belted watch-
tower period in literature, and had even got
done with it, before Scott began. Then as to
\Verlerist7i, had not we English our Byron and
his genius 1 No form of Werierism in any
other country had half the potency : as our
Scott carried chivalry literature to the ends
of the world, so did our Byron Werterism.
France, busy with its Revolution and Napo-
leon, had little leisure at the moment for Gotz-
ism or Werterism ; but it has had them both
since, in a shape of its own : witness 'he
whole "Literature of Desperation" in our
own days, the beggarliest form of Werterism

524

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

yet seen, probably its expiring final form :
witness also, at the other extremity of the
scale, a noble-gifted Chateaubriand, GiJtz and
Werter, both in one. — Curious : how all Eu-
rope is but like a set of parishes of the same
county: participant of the self-same influ-
enc2s, ever since the Crusades, and earlier; —
and these glorious wars of ours are but like
parish-brawls, which begin in mutual igno-
rance, intoxication, and boastful speech: which
end in broken windows, damage, waste, and
bloody noses ; and which one hopes the gene-
ral good sense is now in the way towards put-
ting down, in some measure !

But, however, leaving this to be as it can,
what it concerned us here to remark was, that
British Werterism, in the shape of those Byron
Poems,so potent and poignant, produced on the
languid appetite of men a mighty effect. This
too was a "class of feelings deeply important
to modern minds ; feelings which arise from
passion incapable of being converted into action,
which belong to an age as indolent, cultivated,
and unbelieving as our own !" The " languid
age without either faith or skepticism" turned
towards Byronism with an interest altogether
peculiar: here, if no cure for its miserable
paralysis and languor, was at least an indig-
nant statement of the misery; an indignant
Ernulphus' curse read over it, — which all
men felt to be something. Half-regretful look-
ings into the Past gave place, in many quar-
ters, to Ernulphus' cursings of the Present.
Scott was among the first to perceive that the
day of Metrical Chivalry Romances was de-
clining. He had held the sovereignty for some
half-score of years, a comparatively long lease
of it; and now the time seemed come for de-
thronement, for abdication; an unpleasant bu-
siness* which however he held himself ready,
as a brave man will, to transact with compo-
sure and in silence. After all. Poetry was not
his staff of life ; Poetry had already yielded
him much money; this at least it would not
take back from him. Busy always with editing,
with compiling, with multiplex official, com-
mercial business, and solid interests, he beheld
the coming change with unmoved eye.

Resignation he was prepared to exhibit in
this matter; — and now behold there proved to
be no need of resignation. Let the Metrical
Romance become a Prose one ; shake off its
rhyme-fetters, and try a wider sweep ! In the
spring of 1814 appeared " Waverly ;" an event
memorable in the annals of British literature;
in the annals of British book-selling thrice and
four times memorable. Byron sang, but Scott
narrated; atu^. when the song had sung itself
out through all variations onwards to the " Don-
Juan" one, Scott was still found narrating, and
carrying the whole world along with him. All
bygone popularity of chivalry lays was swal-
lowed up in a f'ar greater. What "series"
followed out of" Waverly," and how and with
what result, is known to all men ; was wit-
nessed and watched with a kind of rapt as-
tonishment by all. Hardly any literary re-
putation ever rose so high ir our Island ; no
reputation at all ever spread so wide. Walter
Scott became Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, of Ab-
botsford; on >vhom fortune seemed to pour her

whole cornucopia of wealth, honour, and
worldly good; the favourite of Princes and
of Peasants, and all intermediate men. His
" Waverly series," swift-following one on the
other apparently without end, was the universal
reading, looked for like an annual harvest, by
all ranks in all European countries. A curious
circumstance superadded itself, that the author
though known was unknown. From the first,
most people suspected, and soon after the first
few intelligent persons much doubted, that the
Author of " Waverly" was Walter Scott. Yet
a certain mystery was still kept up; rather
piquant to the public; doubtless very pleasant
to the author, who saw it all; who probably
had not to listen, as other hapless individuals
often had, to this or the other long-drawn " clear
proof at last," that the author was not Walter
Scott, but a certain astonishing Mr. So-and-so ;
— one of the standing miseries of human life
in that time. But for the privileged author, it
was like a king travelling incognito. All men
know that he is a high king, chivalrous Gustaf
or Kaiser Joseph; but he mingles in their
meetings without cumber of etiquette or lone-
some ceremony, as Chevalier du Nord, or Count
of liorraine: he has none of the weariness of
royalty, and yet all the praise, and the satisfac-
tion of hearing it with his own ears. In a word,
the Waverly Novels circulated and reigned
triumphant; to the general imagination the
"'Author of Waverly' " was like some living
mythological personage, and ranked among the
chief wonders of the world.

How a man lived and demeaned himself in
such unwonted circumstances is worth seeing
We would gladly quote from Scott's corre-
spondence of this period; but that does not
much illustrate the matter. His letters, as
above stated, are never without interest, yet also
seldom or never very interesting. They are full
of cheerfulness, of wit, and ingenuity; but they
do not treat of aught intimate ; without im-
peaching their sincerity, what is called sin-
cerity, one may sa}'^ they do not, in any case
whatever, proceed from the innermost parts
of the mind. Conventional forms, due consi-
derations of your own and your correspondent's
pretensions and vanities, are at no moment
left out of view. The epistolary stream runs
on, lucid, free, glad-flowing; but always, as it
were parallel to the real substance of the mat-
ter, never coincident with it. One feels it hol-
lowish under foot. Letters they are of a most
humane man of the world, even exemplary in
that kind! but with the man of the world al-
ways visible to them ; — as indeed it was little
in Scott's way to speak perhaps even with him-
self in any other fashion. We select rather some
glimpses of him from Mr. Lnckhart's recoj \
The first is of dining with Royalty or Prince
Regentship itself; an almost official matter:

" On hearing from Mr. Croker (then Secte-
tary to the Admirality) that Scott was to be in
town by the middleof March, (1815,) the Prince
said — ' Let me know when he comes, and I'll
get up a snug little dinner that will suit him ;'
and, after he had been presented and graciously
received at the levee, he was invited to dinner
accordingly, through his excellent friend Mr.
Adam, (now Lord Chief Commissioner of 'he

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

635

Jur)'- Court in Scotland,) who at that time held
a confidential office in the royal household.
The Regent had consulted with Mr. Adam also
as to the composition of the party. 'Let us
have,' said he, 'just a few friends of his own,
and the more Scotch the better;' and both the
Commissioner and Mr. Croker assure me that
the party was the most interesting and agreea-
ble one in their recollection. It comprised, I
believe, the Duke of York — the Dnke of Gor-
don (then Marquess of Hnntly) — the Marquess
of Hertford (then Lord Yarmouth) — the Earl
of Fife — and Scott's early friend Lord Melville.
' The IVince and Scott,' says Mr. Croker, ' were
the Iw) most brilliant story-tellers, in their
several ways, that I have ever happened to
meet; Ihey weve both aware of their forte, and
both exerted themselves that evening with de-
lightful effect. On going home, I really could
not decide which of them had shone the most.(!)
Th« Regent was enchanted with Scott, as Scott
was with him; and on all his subsequent visits
lo London, he was a frequent guest at the royal
tab;.' Tlie Lord Chief Commissicmer remem-
ber, that the Prince was particularly delighted
witn the poet's anecdotes of the old Scotch
judges and lawyers, which his Royal Highness
sometimes rapped by ludicrous traits of certain
ermined sage;-, of his own acquaintance. Scott
told, among others, a story, which he was fond
oi" telling, of his old friend the Lord Justice-
Clerk Braxfield ; and the commentary of his
Royal Highness on hearing it amused Scott,
who often mentioned it afterwards. The anec-
dote is this : — Braxfield, whenever he went on
a particular circuit, was in the habit of visiting
a gentleman of good fortune in the neighbour-
hood of one of the assize towns, and staying
at least one night, which, being both of them
ardent chess-players, they usually concluded
with their favourite game. One Spring circuit
the batiL; was not decided at daybreak; so the
Justice-Clerk said, — ' Weel, Donald, I must
e'en C(nne back this gate, and let the game lie
ower for the present;' and back he came in
October, but not to his old friend's hospitable
house; for that gentleman had in the interim
been apprehended on a capiial charge, (of for-
gery,) and his name stood on the For eons Roll,
or li>t of those who M-ere about to be tried
under his firmer guest's auspices. The laird
was ind'cted and tried accordingly, and the
jury returned a verdict of nmVy. Braxfield
forthwith put on his cocked hat, (which an-
swers to the black cap in England,) and pro-
nounced the sentence of the law in the usual
terms — 'To be hanged by the neck until you
be dead ; and may the Lnrd have mercy upon
yonr unhappy soul!' Having ccmcluded this
awful fcH'uiula in his most sonorous cadence,
Braxfield, dismounting his formidable beaver,
gave a familiar nod lo his unfortunate ac-
quaintance, and said to him in a sortof chuck-
Img wh sper — 'And now Donald, my man. I
think I've checkmated you for ance.' The
Regent laughed heartily at this specimen of
Macqueen's brutal humour; and 'I'faith, Wal-
ter,' said he, ' this old big-wig seems to have
taken things as coolly as my tyrannical self.
Don't yon remember Tom Moore's description
of me a. breakTast —

'"The tnble spread with tea and toast.
Death-warrants and the Muriiiiig Post?'

"Towards midnight, the Prince called fo»
'a bumper, with all the honours, to the Author
ofWaverley ;' and looked significantly, as he
was charging his own glass, to Scott. Scot,
seemed somewhat puzzled for a moment, bu
instantly recovering himself, and filling hi„
glass to the brim, said, 'Your Royal Highness
looks as if you thought I had some claim to
the honours of this toast. I have no such pre-
tensions, but shall take good care that the real
Simon Pure hears of the high compliment that
has now been paid him.' He then drank off
his claret; and joined with a stentorian voice
in the cheering, which the Prince himsejf
timed. But before the company could resume
their seats his Royal Highness, ' Another of
the same, if you please, to the Author of Mar-
mion, — and now, Walter, my man, I have
checkmated you for ance.' The second bumper
was followed by cheers still more prcdonged:
and Scott then rose, and returned thanks in a
short address, which struck the Lord Chief
Commissioner as ' alike grave and graceful.'
This story has been circulated in a very per-
verted shape." * * * "Before he left town
he again dined at Carlton House, when the
party was a still smaller one than before, and
the merriment if possible still more free. That
nothing might be wanting, the Prmce sang
several capital songs." — Vol. iii. pp. 340 — 343.

Or take, at a very great interval in many
senses, this glimpse of another dinner, alto-
gether ?(.«officially and much better described.
It is James Ballantyne the printer and publish-
er's dinner, in Saint-John Street, Canongate,
Edinburgh, on the birtheve of a Waverley
Novel :

"The feast was, to use one of James's own
favorite epithets, eorgwi/s ; an aldermanic dis-
play of turtle and venison, with the suitable
accompaniments of iced punch, potent ale, and
generous Madeira. When the cloth v.'as drawn,
the burly prceses arose, with all he could mus-
ter of the port of John Kemble, and spouted
with a sonorous voice the formula of Mac-
beth—

'Fill full !
1 drink to the general joy of the whole table !'

This was followed by 'The King, God b'es3
him !' and second came — ' Gentlemen, there is
another toast which never has been nor shall
be omitted in this house of mine: I give you
the health of Mr. Waller Scott, with three
times three!' All honour having been done
to this health, and Scott having briefly thanked
the company, with scnne expressions of warm
affection to their host, Mrs. Ballantyne retired;
— the bottles passed round twice or thrice in
the usual way ; and then James rose once
more, every vein on his brow distended: his
eyes solemnly fixed on vacancy, to propose,
not as before in his stentorian key, but with
' 'bated breath,' in the sort of whi-per by which
a stage conspirator thrills the gallery — ^ Gen-
ileiiieii, II blunder to I he inunorUil j3iilhorof Wnver-
lei/.'^ — The uproar of cheering, in which Scott
made a fiishion of joining, was succeeded by
deep silence ; and then Ballantyne proceeded-

526

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

'In his Lord-Burleigh look, serene and serious,
A something of imposing and mysterious'—
to lament the obscurity in which his illustrious
but too modest correspondent still chose to
conceal himself from the plaudits of the world ;
to thank the company for the manner in which
the nominis umbra had been received ; and to
assure them that the Author of ' Waverley'
would, when informed of the circumstance,
feel highly delighted — 'the proudest hour of
his life,' &c. &c. The cool, demure fun of
Scott's features during all this mummery was
perfect; and Erskine's attempt at a gay rion-
chahivce was still more ludicrously meritorious.
Aldiborontiphoscophornio, however, bursting
as he was, knew too well to allow the new
Novel to be made the subject of discussion.
Its name was announced, and success to it
crowned another cup; but after that, no more
of Jedediah. To cut the thread, he rolled out
unbidden some one of his many theatrical
songs, in a style that would have done no dis-
honour to almost any orchestra — The Maid nf
Lodi, or perhaps The Bay of Biscay, ohJ — or
The sweet little cherub that sits up alnft. Other
toasts followed, interspersed with ditties from
other performers; old George Thomson, the
friend of Burns, was ready, lor one, with The
Moorland Weddiyig, or Willie brewed a peck o'
maut ; — and so it went on, until Scott and Ers-
kine, with any clerical or very staid personage
that had chanced to be admitted, saw fit to
withdraw. Then the scene was changed. The
claret and olives made way for broiled bones
and a mighty bowl of punch; and when a few
glasses of the hot beverage had restored his
powers, James opened o?-e rotunda on the merits
of the forthcoming romance. ' One chapter —
one chapter only !' was the cry. After 'Nay,
by^r Lady, nay !' and a few more coy shifts, the
proof-sheets were at length produced, and
James, with many a prefatory hem, read aloud
what he considered as the most striking dia-
logue they contained.

" The first I heard so read was the interview
between Jeanie Deans, the Duke of Argyle,
and Queen Caroline, in Richmond Park; and,
notwithstanding some spice of the pompous
tricks to which he was addicted, I must say he
did the inimitable scene sreat justice. At all
events, the effect it produced was deep and
memorable ; and no wonder that the exulting
typographer's one bumper more to Jedediah Clcish-
botham preceded his parting-stave, which was
uniformly The Last Words of Marmiun, execwied
certainly with no contemptible rivalry of Bra-
ham."— Vol. iv. pp. 166—168.

Over at Abbotsford, things wear a still more
prosperous aspect. Scott is building there, by
the pleasant banks of the Tweed ; he has
bought and is buying land there; fast as the
new gold comes in for a new Waverly Novel,
or even faster, it changes itself into moory
acres, into stone, and hewn or planted wood:

About tHe middle of February" (1820) —
says Mr. Lockhart, " it having been ere that
♦irne arranged that I should marry his eldest
uaughcer in the course of the spring — I accom-
panied him and part of his family on one of
those tlying visits to Abbotsford, with which
he oiten indulged himself on a Saturday during

term. Upon such occasions, Scott appeared
at the usual hour in Court, but wearing, in-
stead of the official suit of black, his country
morning-dress, green jacket, and so forth,
under the clerk's gown." — "At noon, when the
Court broke up, Peter Mathieson was sure to
be in attendance in the Parliament Close ; and,
five minutes after, the gown had been tossed
off; and Scott, rubbing his hands for glee,
was under weigh for Tweedside. As we pro-
ceeded," &c.

"Next morning there appeared at breakfast
John Ballantyne, who had at this time a shoot-
ing or hunting-box a few miles off, in the vale
of the Leader, and with him Mr. Cimstable, his
guest; and it being a fine clear day, as soon
as Scott had read the church service and one
of Jeremy Taylor's sermons, we all sallied out
before noon on a perambulation of his upland
territories; Maida (the hound) and the rest of
the favourites accompanying our march. At
starting we were joined by the constant hench-
man, Tom Purdie, — and I may save myself
the trouble of any attempt to describe his ap-
pearance, for his master has given us an
inimitably true one in introducing a certain
personage of his Rcdgauntlet: — 'He was, per-
haps, sixty years old ; yet his brow was not
much furrowed, and his jet-black hair was
only grizzled, not whitened, by the advance of
age. All his motions spoke strength unabated ;
and, though rather under-sized, he had very
broad shoulders, was square made, thin-flank-
ed, and apparently combined in his frame
muscular strength and activity ; the last some-
what impaired, perhaps, by years, but the first
remaining in full vigour. A hard and harsh
countenance; eyes far sunk under projecting
eyebrows, which were grizzled like his hair;
a wide mouth, furnished from ear to ear with
a range of unimpaired teeth of uncommon
whiteness, and a size and breadth which
might have become the jaws of an ogre, com-
pleted this delightful portrait.' Equip this
figure in Scott's cast-off green jacket, white
hat, and drab trousers; and imagine that years
of kind treatment, comfort, and the honest
consequence of a confidential grieve* had soft-
ened away much of the hardness and harsh-
ness originally impressed on the visage by
anxious penury, and the sinister habits of a
blarL--fisher .—and the Tom Purdie of 1820
stands before us.

"We were all delighted to see how com-
pletely Scott had recovered his bodily vigour,
and none more so than Constable, who, as
he puffed and panted after him, up one ravine
and down another, often stopped to wipe
his forehead, and remarked, that 'it was
not every author who should lead him such a
dance.' But Purdie's face shone with rapture
as he observed how severely the swagbellied
bookseller's activity was tasked. Scott ex-
claimed exultingly, though, perhaps, for the
tenth time, 'This will be a glorious spring for
our trees, Tom !' — 'You may say that. Sheriff,'
quoth Tom, — and then lingering a moment for
Constable — ' My certy,' he added, scratching
his head, 'and I think it will be a grand

♦ Overseer; German, ffraf.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

63''

season for our bulks too.' But indeed Tom
always talked of our buiks as if they had been
as regular products of the soil as our ails and
our birks. Having threaded first the Hexil-
cleugh and then the Rhymer's Glen, we arrived
at Huntly Burn, where the hospitality of the
kind Weird sisters, as Scott called the Miss
Fergusons, reanimated our exhausted biblio-
poles, and gave them courage to extend their
walk a little further down the same famous
brook. Here there was a small cottage in a
very sequestered situation," (named Chiefs-
wood,) " by making some little additions to
which Scott thought it might be converted
into a suitable summer residence for his
daughter and future son-in-law." * * " As we
walked homeward, Scott, being a little fatigued,
laid his left hand on Tom's shoulder, and leaned
heavily for support, chatting to his ' Sunday
pony,' as he called the affectionate fellow, just
as freely as with the rest of the party ; and Tom
put in his word shrewdly and manfully, and
grinned and grunted whenever the joke chanced
to be within his apprehension. It was easy to
see that his heart swelled within him from the
moment the Sheriff got his collar in his gripe."
—Vol. iv. p. 349, 353.

That Abbotsford became infested to a great
degree with tourists, wonder-hunters, and all
that fatal species of people, may be supposed.
Solitary Eitrick saw itself populous : all paths
were beaten with the feet and hoofs of an end-
less miscellany of pilgrims. As many as
"sixteen parties" have arrived at Abbotsford
in one day; male and female; peers, Socinian
preachers, whatsoever was distinguished, what-
soever had love of distinction in it ! Mr.
Lockharl thinks there was no literary shrine
ever so bepilgrimed, except Ferney in Vol-
taire's time, who, however, was not half so
accessible. A fatal species ! These are M'hat
Schiller calls " the flesh-flies ;" buzzing swarms
of bluebottles, who never fail where any taint
of human glory or other corruptibility is in
the wind. So has Nature decreed. Scott's
healthiness, bodily and mental, his massive
solidity of character, nowhere showed itself
more decisi\cly than in his manner of encoun-
tering this part of his fate. That his bluebot-
tles were blue, and of the usual tone and
quality, may be judged. Hear Captain Basil
Hall, (in a very compressed state:)

" We arrived in good time, and found several
other guests at dinner. The public rooms are
lighted with nil-gas, in a style of extraordinary
splendour. The," &c. — "Had I a hundred pens,
each of which at the same time should sepa-
rately write down an anecdote, I could not
hope to record one-half of those which our
host, to use Spenser's expression, ' welled out
alway.' " — " Entertained us all the way with an
endless string of anecdotes;" — "came like a
stream of poetry from his lips;" — "path muddy
and scarcely passable, yet I do not remember
ever to have seen any place so interesting as
the skill of this mighty magician had rendered
this narrow ravine." — " Imposs-ible to touch on
any theme, but straightway he has an anecdote
to fit it." — "Thus we strolled along, borne, as
it were, on the stream of song and storv." — " In
Ihe eife>ning we had a great feast indeed. Sir

Walter asked us if we had ever read Chrijta*
bel." — " Interspersed with these various read-
ings, were some hundreds of stories, some
quaint, some pathctical." — " At breakfast to-
day we had, as nsual, some 1.50 stories — God
knows how they came in." — "In any man so
gifted — so qualified to take the loftiest, proudest
line at the head of the literature, the taste, the
imagination of the whole world!" — "For in-
stance, he never sits at any particular place at
table, but takes," &c., &c. — Vol. v. p. 37.5—402.

Among such worshippers, arriving in "six-
teen parties a-day," an ordinary man migh.
have grown buoyant; have felt the god, begun
to nod, and seemed to shake the spheres. A
slightly splenetic man, possessed of Scott's
sense, would have swept his premises clear
of them : Let no bluebottle approach here, to
disturb a man in his work, — under pain of
sugared squash (called quassia) and king's yel-
low ! The good Sir Walter, like a quiet brave
man, did neither. He let the matter take its
course; enjoyed what was enjoyable m it:
endured what could not well be helped ; per-
sisted meanwhile in writing his daily portion
of romance-fo;)?/, in preserving his composure
of heart ; — in a word, accommodated himself
to this loud-buzzing environment, and made it
serve him, as he would have done (perhaps
with more ease) to a silent, poor, and solitary
one. No doubt it affected him too, and in the
lamentablest way fevered his internal life, —
though he kept it well down; but it affected
him less than it would have done almost any
other man. For his guests were not all of the
bluebottle sort; far from that. Mr. Lockhart
shall furnish us with the brightest aspect a
British Ferney ever yielded, or is like to yield :
and therewith we will quit Abbotsford and
the dominant and culminant period of Scott's
life:

"It was a clear, bright, September morning,
with a sharpness in the air that doubled the
animating influence of the sunshine, and dll
was in readiness for a grand coursing match
on Newark Hill. The only guest who had
chalked out other sport for himself was the
stanchest of anglers, Mr. Rose; but he, too
was there on his shelly, armed with his salmon
rod and landing-net, and attended by lii«
Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom,,
in those days the most celebrated fishern'an
ofthfe district. 'J'his little group of Waltoniuns,
bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, re-
mained lounging about to witness the start tif
the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on
Sibvl, was marshalling the order of procession
with a huge hunting-whip; and among a
dozen frolicsome youths and maidens, who
seemed disposed to lauijh at all discipline, ap-
peared, each on horseback, each as eager
as the youngest sportsman in the troop, Sir
Humphry Davy, Dr. WoUaston, and tl'.e pa
triarch of Scottish belles-lettres, Henry Macken-
zie. The Man of Feeling, however, was per-
suaded with some ditFiculty to resign his steed
for the present to his faithful negro follower,
and to join Lady Scott in the sociable, until
we should reach the ground of our Ixi'ine.
Laidlaw, on a long-tailed wiry Highlander,
yclept Hoddin Grey, which carried him nimbly

628

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

and stoutly, although his feet almost touched
the ground as he sat, was the adjutant. But the
most picturesque figure was the illustrious in-
ventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for
his favourite sport of angling, and had been
practising it successfully with Ruse, his travel-
ling companion, for two or three days preceding
this; but lie had not prepared for coursing
fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for
Sir Walter's on a sudden thought, and his
fisherman's costume — a brown hat with flexi-
ble brim, surrounded with line upon line of
catgut, and innumerable fly-hooks — jack-boots
worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian sur-
tout dabbled with the blood of salmon, made a
fine contrast with the smart jackets, white-cord
breeches, and well polished jockey-boots of
the less distinguished cavaliers about him.
Dr. WoUaston was in black, and, with his noble
serene dignity of countenance, might have
passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Macken-
zie, at this time in the 76th year of his age,
with a white hat turned up with green, green
spectacles, green jacket, and long brown
leathern gaiters buttoned upon his nether
anatomy, wore a dog-whistle round his neck,
and had, all over, the air of as resolute a
devotee as the gay captain of Huntly Burn.
Tom Purdie and his subalterns had preceded
us by a few hours with all the greyhounds
that could be collected at Abbotsford, Darnick,
and Melrose ; but the giant Maida had remained
as his master's orderly, and now gambolled
about Sibyl Grey, barking for mere joy like a
spaniel puppy.

" The order of march had been all settled,
and the sociable was just getting under weigh,
when the Lady Anne broke from the line,
screaming wiih laughter, and exclaimed, 'Papa,
papa, I knew you could never think of going
without your pet.' Scott looked round, and I
rather think there was a blush as well as a
smile upon his face, when he perceived a little
black pig frisking about his pony, and evi-
dently a self-elected addition to the party of the
day. He tried to look stern, and cracked his
whip at the creature, but was in a moment
obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor
piggy soon found a strap round its neck, and
was dragged into the background; — Scott,
watching the retreat, repeated with mock
pathos the first verse of an old pastoral song —

' Wtiat will I do gin iriy hoggie die 1
My joy, my pride, my lioggie !
My only beiist, 1 had n;i niae,
And wow ! but I was vogie !'

— the cheers were redoubled — and the squadron
moved on.

"This pig had taken, nobody could tell how,
a most sentimental attachment to Scott, and
was constantly urging its pretensions to be
admitted a regular member of his tail along
with the greyhounds and terriers ; but, indeed,
* remember him sutfering another summer
under the same sort of pertinacity on the part
of an affectionate hen. I leave the explanation
fiir philosophers — but such were the facts. I
have loo much respect for the vulgarly calum-
niated donkey, to name him in the same cate-
jfoty of pets w'th the pij^ ai ^ the hen ; but a

year or two after this time, my wife used U
drive a couple of these animals in a little
garden chair, and whenever her father appeared
at the door of our cottage, we were sure to see
Hannah More and Lady Morgan (as Anne
Scott had wickedly christened them^ trotting
from their pasture, to lay their noses over the
paling, and, as Washington Irving says of the
old white-haired hedger with the Parisian snuff-
box, 'to have a pleasant crack wi' the laird.*"
—Vol. V. p. 7— 10.*

" There (at Chiefswood) my wife and I spent
this summer and autumn of I82I — the first of
several seasons which will ever dwell on my
memory as the happiest of my life. We were
near enough Abbotsford to partake as often as
we liked of its brilliant and constantly varying
society; yet could do so without being exposed
to the worry and exhaustion of spirit which
the daily reception of new comers entailed
upon all the family, except Sir Walter himself.
But, in truth, even he was not always proof
against the annoyances connected with such
a style of open house-keeping. Even his
temper sank sometimes under the solemn
ajaplauses of learned dulness, the vapid rap-
tures of painted and perriwigged dowagers, the
horseleech avidity with which underbred fo-

* On this subject let us report an anecdote furnished
by a cmrrespondent of our own, whose accuracy we can
depend on: — '• I myself was acquainted with a little
Blenheim cocker, one of the snrallesl, beautifullest, and
wisest of lapdogs, or dosrs, which, though Sir Walter
knew it not, wns very sinirubir in its behaviour towards
him. Shandi/, so liight this remarkable cocker, was
extremely shy of strangers: promenading on Prince's
street, wiiich in fine weather used to be crowded iti those
days, he seemed to live in perpetual fear of being stolen ;
if any one but looked at him admiritiu'ly, he would draw
back with angry timidity, and crouch towards Lis own
lady-mistress. One day a tall, irregular, busy-looking
man came halting by ; the little dog ran towards him,
began fawning, frisking, licking at his feet: it was Sir
Waller Scott ! Had Shandy been the most e.vtensive
reader of Reviews, he could not have done better.
Every time he saw Sir Walter afterwards, which was
some three or four times in the course of visiting Edin-
burgh, he repeated his demonstrations, ran leaping,
frisking, licking the Author of ' Waverly's' feet. The
good Sir Walter endured it with good-humour; looked
down at the little wise face, at the silky shag-coat of
snow-while and chestnut-brown; smiled, and avoided
hitting him as they went on, — till a new division of
streets or some other obstacles put an end to the inter-
view. In fact he was a strange little fellow, this Shandy.
He has been known to sit for hours looking out at the
summer moon, with the saddest wistfiillest expression
of countenance ; altogether like a Werlerean Poet. He
would have been a Poet, I dare say, if he could have
found a piMislier. But his moral tact was the most
amazing. Without reason shown, wiilioiit word spoken
or act done, he took his likings and dislikings; unalter-
able; really almost unerring. His chief aversion, I
should say, was to the genus quack, above all to the
genus acrid,- quack; these, though never so clear-starched,
bland-smiling, anil beneficent, he absolutely would have
no trade with. Their very sugar-cake was unavailing.
He said with emphasis, as clearly as barking could say
it: 'Acrid-quack, av:iunt!' Would to Heaven many
a prime minister and high person in authority had such
an invaluable talent! On the whole, there is UKjre in
tills universe than our philosophy has dreamt of. A
dog's instinct is a voice of Nature too ; and farther, it
has never babbled itself away in idle jargon and hy-
pothesis, but always adhered to the practical, and irrown
in silence by continual communion with fact. We do
Ihe animals injustice. Their body resembles our body,
Buffon says ; with its four limbs, w iih its spinal marrow,
main organs in the head, anil su forth: but have they
not a kind of s^oul, equally the rude draught and imper-
fect imitation of ours ! It is a strange, an almost
solemn and pathetic thing to see an intelligence impri-
soned in that dumb rude form ; strug:;ling to express it-
self out of that ;— even as we do out of our imprison-
ment; and succeed very imperfectly!"

MEMOIRS OF THE IIFE OF SCOTT.

529

rei^ners urged heir questions, and the pompous
simpers of coodescending magnates. When
sore beset at home in this way, he would every
now and then discover that he had some very
particular business to attend to on an outlying
part of his estate; and, craving the indulgence
of his guests over night, appear at the cabin
in the glen before its inhabitants were astir in
the morning. The clatterof Sibyl Grey's hoofs,
the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and his own
joyous shout of reveiUee under our windows,
were the signal that he had burst his toils, and
meant for that day to 'take his ease in his
inn.' On descending, he was to be found
seated with all his dogs and ours about him.
under a spreading ash that overshadowed half
the bank between the cottage and the brook,
pointing the edge of his woodman's-axe, and
listening to Tom Purdie's lecture touching the
plantation that most needed thinning. After
breakfast he would take possession of a dress-
ing-room up stairs, and write a chapter of The
Pirate; and then, having made up and des-
patched his packet for Mr. Ballantyne, away
to join Purdie wherever the foresters were at
work — and sometimes to labour among them
as strenuously as John Swanston, — until it was
time either to rejoin his own party at Abbots-
ford, or the quiet circle of the cottage. When
his guests were few and friendly, he often made
them come over and meet him at Chiefswood
in a body towards evening ; and surely he never
appeared to more amiable advantage than when
helping his young people with their little
arrangements upon such occasions. He was
ready with all sorts of devices to supply the
wants of a narrow establishment; he used to
delight particularly in sinking the wine in a
well under the brae ere he went out, and haul-
ing up the basket just before dinner was an-
nounced— this primitive device being, he said,
what he had always practised when a young
housekeeper, and in his opinion far superior
in its results to any application of ice; and in
the same spirit, whenever the weather was
sutTiciently genial, he voted for dining out of
doors altogether, which at once got rid of the
incenvenience of very small rooms, and made
it natural and easy for the gentlemen to help
the ladies, so that the paucity of servants went
for nothing."— Vol. v. pp. 123, 124.

Surely all this is very beautiful; like a
picture of Boccaccio : the ideal of a country
life in our time. Why could it not lastl In-
come was not wanting: Scott's ofKcial perma-
nent income was amply adequate to meet th^.'
expense of all that was valuable in it; nay, of
all that was not harassing, senseless, and des-
picable. Scott had some £2,000 a year with-
out writing books at all. Why should he
manufacture and not create, to make more
money; and rear mass on mass for a dwelling
to himself, till the pile toppled, sank, crashing,
and buried him in its ruins, when he had a
safe pleasant dwelling ready of its own accord 1
Alas, Scott, with all his health, was infcrled :
sick of the fearfullest malady, that of AmlDition !
To such length had the King's baronetcy, the
world's favour, and "sixteen parties a-day,"
brought it with him. So the inane racket rpust
be kept up, and rise ever higher. So mascms
67

labour, ditchers delve ; and there is endless,
altogether deplorable correspondence about
marble-slabs for tables, wainscotting of rooms,
curtains with the trimmings of curtains, orange-
coloured or fawn-coloured: Walter Scott, one
of the git^ted of the world, whom his admirers
called the most gifted, must kill himself that he
may be a country gentleman, the founder of a
race of Scottish lairds. It is one of the
strangest, most tragical histories ever enacted
under this sun. So poor a passion can lead so
strong a man into such mad extremes. Surely,
were not man a fool always, one might say
there was something eminently distracted in
this, end as it would, of a Walter Scott writing
daily with the ardour of a steam-engine, that
he might make £1.5,000 a year, and buy up-
holstery with it. To cover the walls of a stone
house in Selkirkshire with knicknacks, ancient
armour, and genealogical shields, what can we
name it but a being bit with delirium of a kind ?
That tract after tract of moorland in the shire
of Selkirk should be joined together on parch-
ment and by ring-fence, and named after one's
name, — why, it rs a shabby small-type edition
of your vulgar Napoleons, Alexanders, and
conquering heroes, not counted venerable by
any teacher of men ! —

" The whole world was not half so wide
To Alexander when he cried
Because he had but one to subdue,
As was a narrow paltry tub to
Diogenes ; who neVr was said,
For aufiht that ever I could read,
To whine, put fineer i' the eye and sob.
Because he had ne'er another tub."

Not he ! And if, " looked at from the Moon,
which itself is far from Infinitude," Napoleon's
dominions were as small as mine, what, by
any chance of possibility, could Abbotsfor-?
landed-property ever have become"! As the
Arabs say, there is a black speck, were it no
bigger than a bean's eye, in every soul; which
once set it a-working, will overcloud the whole
man into darkness and qnasi-madness, and
hurry him balefully into Night!

With respect to the literary character of
these "Waverly Novels," so extraordinary in
their commercial character, there remains,
after so much reviewing, good and bad, little
that it were profitable at present to say. The
great fact about them is, that they were faster
written and better paid for than any other
books in the world. It must be granted, more-
over, that they have a M^orth far surpassing
what is usual in such cases ; nay, that if litera-
ture had no task but that of harmlessly amus-
ing indolent, languid men, here was the very
perfection of literature; that a man, here more
emphatically than ever elsewhere, might iling
himself back, exclaiming, "Be mine to lie on
this sofa, and read everlasting N^veIs of Wal-
ter Scott !" The composition, slight as it often
is, usually hangs together in some measure,
and is a composition. There is a free flow of
narrative, of incident and sentiment; an easy
master-like coherence throughout, as if it were
the free dash of a master's hand, "round as
the O of Giotto."* It is the perfection of

* " Venne a Firenze, (il cortisiano del Papa,) e andalo

una multina in bottega di Giotto, che lavorava, gli

2 Y

630

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

extemporaneous writing. Farthermore, surely
he was a blind critic who did not recognise
here a certain genial sunshiny freshness and
picturesqueness ; paintings both of scenery
and figures, very graceful, brilliant, occasion-
ally full of grace and glowing brightness,
blended in the softest composure; in fact, a
deep sincere love of the beautiful in nature
and man, and the readiest faculty of express-
ing this by imagination and by word. No
fresher paintings of nature can be found than
Scott's; hardly anywhere a wider sympathy
with man. From Davie Deans up to Richard
Coeur-de-Lion ; from Meg Merrilies to Die
Vernon and Queen Elizabeth ! It is the ut-
terance of a man of open soul; of a brave,
large, free-seeing man, who has a true brother-
hood with all men. In joyous picturesque-
ness and fellow-feeling, freedom of eye and
heart; or to say it in a word, in general healthi-
ness of mind, these novels prove Scott to have
been amongst the foremost writers.

Neither in the higher and highest excel-
lence, of drawing character, is he at any time
altogether deficient; though at no lime can we
call him, in the best sense, successful. His
Bailie Jarvies, Dinmonts, Dalgettys (for their
name is legion) do look and talk like what
they give themselves out for; they are, if not
created and made poetically alive, yet decep-
tively enacted as a good player might do them.
What more is wanted then 1 For the reader
lying on a sofa, nothing more ; yet for another
sort of reader, much. It were a long chapter
to unfold the difference in drawing a character
between a Scott, a Shakspeare, and a Goethe?
Yet it is a difference literally immense: they
are of different species; the value of the one
is not to be counted in the coin of the other.
We might say in a short word, which means
a long matter, that your Shakspeare fashions
his characters from the heart outwards; your
Scott fashions them from the skin inwards,
never getting near the heart of them ! The
one set became living men and women ; the
other amount to little more than mechanical
cases, deceptively painted automatons. Com-
pare Fenella with Goethe's Mignon, which, it
was once said, Scott had " done Goethe the
honour" to borrow. He has borrowed what
he could of Mignon. The small stature, the
climbing talent, the trickiness, the merhanicnl
case, as we say, he has borrowed; hut the soul
of Mignon is left behind. Fenella is an unfa-
vourable specimen for Scott; but it illustrates,
in the aggravated state, what is traceable in
all the characters he drew. To the same pur-
port, indeed, we are to say that these famed
books are altogether addressed to the every-
day mind; that for any other mind, there is

ellipse un poco di disecno per mandarlo a sua Santiti.
Giotto, die garliatissimo era, prese >in fn?lio. ed in
quello roil iin pi'nnello tinto di rosso, ferinato il hrarcio
al financo per fiirne compnsso, e girato la ninno face un
tondo si pari di sesto e di profilo, ctie fu a vederlo una
iraraviglia. Cif) fatto gliignando disse al cortigiauo,
Eccovi il disegno." .... " Onde il Papa, e tnolli
cortigiani inteiidenti connbbero pcrcio, ijuanlo (Jiotto
avanzasse d'ercelenia tiitti gli allri pittori del stio
tempo. Divolgalasi [>oi questa cosa, ne nacque il pro-
verl)io, che ancora 6 in uso dirsi a gli noniiiii di grnssa
pasta: Tn sei piti tondo che I' O di Giotto." — Vasari,
Viu (Roma, 1759), i. 46.

next to no nourishment in them. Opinions,
emotions, principles, doubts, beliefs, beyond
what the intelligent country gentleman can
carry along with him, are not to be found. It
is orderly, customary, it is prudent, decent;
nothing more. One would say, it lay not in
Scott to give much more ; getting out of the
ordinary range, and attempting the heroic,
which is but seldom the case, he falls almost
at once into the rose-pink sentimental, — des-
cries the Minerva Press from afar, and hasti-
ly quits that course; for none better than he
knew it to lead nowhither. On the whole,
contrasting Waverly, which was carefully
written, with most of its followers, which were
written extempore, one may regret the extem-
pore method. Something very perfect in its
kind might have come from Scott; nor was it
a low kind : nay, who knows how high, with
studious self-concentration, he might have
gone; what wealth nature had implanted in
him, which his circumstances, most unkind
while seeming to be kindest, had never im-
pelled him to unfdldl

But after all, in the loudest blaring and
trumpeting of popularity, it is ever to be held in
mind, as a truth remaining true for ever, that
literature has other aims than that of harmless-
ly amusing indolent, languid men : or if litera-
ture have them not, then literaiure is a very
poor affair ; and something else must have
them, and must accomplish them, with thanks
or without thanks; the thankful or thankless
world were not long a world otherwise ! Under
this head there is little to be sought or found
in the " Waverley Novels." Not profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for edification, for build-
ing up or elevating, in any shape ! The sick
heart will find no healing here, the darKly strug-
gling heart no guidance: the Heroic that is in
all men no divine awakening voice. We say,
therefore, that they do not found themselves
on deep interests, but on comparatively trivial
ones; not on the perennial, perhaps not even
on the lasting. In fact, much of the interest
of these novels results from what may be
called contrasts of costume. The phraseolo-
gy, fashion of arms, of dress and life, belong-
ing to one age, is brought suddenly, with singu-
lar vividness, before the eyes of another. A
great efl^ecl this; yet, by the very nature of it,
an altogether temporary one. Consider, breth-
ren, shall not we too one day be antiques, and
grow to have as quaint a costume as the resti
The stuffed dandy, only give him time, will be-
come one of the wonderfullest mummies. In
antiquarian museums, only two centuries
hence, the steeple-hat will hang on the next
peg to Franks and Company's patent, antiqua-
rians deciding which is uglier: and the Stullz
swallow-tail, one may hope, will seem as in-
credible as any garment that ever made ridicu-
lous the respectable back of man. Not by
slashed breeches, steeple-hats, buff-belts, or an-
tiquated speech, can romance heroes continue
to interest us; but simply and solely, in the
long run, by being men. Buff-belts and all
manner of jerkins and costumes are transito-
ry; man alone is perennial. He that has gone
deeper into this than other men, will be re-
membered longer than they; he that has not

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

531

not. Tried under this category, Scott with his
clear practical insight, joyous temper, and other
sound faculties, is not to be accounted little,
• — among the ordinary circulating library he-
roes he might well pass for a demi-god. Not
Utile ; yet neither is he great ; there were great-
er, more than one or two in his own age :
among the great of all ages, one sees no like-
lihood of a place for him.

What then is the result of these Waverley
romances 1 Are they to amuse one generation
only ] One or more. As many generations
as thi'y can, but not all generations : ah no,
•^lien our swallow-tail has become fantastic as
trunk-hose, they will cease to amuse ! — Mean-
while, as we can discern, their results have
been several-fold. First of all, and certainly
not least of all, have they not perhaps had this
result : that a considerable portion of man-
I'find has hereby been sated with mere amuse-
ment, and set on seeking something better 1
Amusement in the way of reading can go no
farther, can do nothing better, by the power of
man; and men ask. Is this what it can do"!
8cott, we reckon, carried several things to their
ultimatum and crisis, so that change became
inevitable: a great service, though an indi-
rect one. Secondly, however, we may say,
these historical novels have taught all men this
truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was
as good as unknown to writers of history and
others, till so taught : that the by-gone ages
of the world were actually filled by living men,
not by protocols, state-papers, controversies,
and abstractions of men. Not abstractions
were they, not diagrams and theorems; but
men, in buff or other coats and breeches, with
colour in their cheeks, with passions in their
stomach, and the idioms, features, and vitali-
ties of very men. It is a little word this ; in-
clusive of great meaning! History will hence-
forth have to take thought of it. Her faint
hearsays of " philosophy teaching by experi-
ence" will have to exchange themselves every-
where for direct inspection and imbodyment:
this, and this only, will be counted experience ;
and till once experience have got in, philoso-
phy will reconcile herself to wait at the door.
It is a great service, fertile in consequences,
this that Scott has done ; a great truth laid
open by him; — correspondent indeed to the
substantial nature of the man ; to his solidity
and veracity even of imagination, which,
with all his lively discursiveness, was the
characteristic of him.

A word here as to the extempore style of
writing, which is getting much celebrated in
these days. Scott seems to have been a high
proficient in it. His rapidity was extreme, and
the matter produced was excellent considering
that : the circumstances under which some of
his novels, when he could not himself write,
were dictated, are justly considered wonderful.
It is a valuable faculty this of ready writing;
nay fiirther, for Scott's purpose it was clearly
the only good mode. By much labour he could
not have added one guinea to his copy-right;
nor could the reader on the sofa have lain a
whit more at ease. It was in all ways neces-

Giotto's 0. But indeed, in all things, writing
or other, which a man engages in, there is the
indispensablest beauty in knowing how to get
done, A man frets himself to no purpose; he
has not the sleight of the trade; he is not a
craftsman, but an unfortunate borer and bun-
gler, if he know not when to have done. Per-
fection is unattainable: no carpenter ever
made a mathematically accurate right-angle
in the world; yet all carpenters know when it
is right enough, and do not botch it, and lose
their wages by making it too right. Too much
pains-taking speaks disease in one's mind, as
well as too little. The adroit sound-minded
man will endeavour to spend on each business
approximately what of pains it deserves; and
with a conscience void of remorse will dis-
miss it then. All this in favour of easy writ-
ing shall be granted, and, if need were, en-
forced and inculcated. And yet, on the other
hand, it shall not less but more strenuously be
inculcated, that in the way of writing no great
thing was ever, or will ever be done with ease,
but with difficulty ! Let ready writers, with
any faculty in them, lay this to heart. Is it
with ease, or not with ease, that a man shall
do his best, in any shape ; above all, in this
shape, justly named of " soul's travail," work-
ing in the deep places of thought, imbodying
the true out of the obscure and possible, envi-
roned on all sides with the uncreated false'?
Not so, now or at any time. The experience
of all men belies it ; the nature of things con-
tradicts it. Virgil and Tacitus, were they ready
writers 1 The whole Prophecies of Tsainh are
not equal in extent to this cobweb of a review
article. Shakspeare, we may fancy, wrote
with rapidity; but not till he had thought with
intensity : long and sore had this man thought,
as the seeing eye may discern well, and had
dwelt and wrestled amid dark pains and throes,
— though his great soul is silent about all that.
It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals,
being ready to do it. And herein truly lies the
secret of the matter: such swiftness of mere
writing, after due energy of preparation, is
doubtless the right method; the hot furnace
having long worked and simmered, letthe pure
gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakspeare's
plan ; no easy writer he, or he had never been
a Shakspeare. Neither was Milton one of the
mob of gentlemen that write with ease; he
did not attain Shakspeare's faculty, one per-
ceives, of even writing fast after long prepara-
tion, but struggled while he wrote. Goethe
also tells us he "had nothing sent him in his
sleep ;" no page of his but he knew well how
it came there. It is reckoned to be the best
prose, accordingly, that has been written by
any modern. Schiller, as an unfortunate and
unhealthy man, "konnte nie ferti^ uvrrlen, never
could get done ;" the noble genius of him
struggled not wisely but too well, and wore
his life itself heroically out. Or did Petrarcn
write easily! Dante sees himself " growing
gray" over his Divine Comedij : in stern solita-
ry death-wrestle with it, to prevail over it, and
do it, if his uttermost faculty may: hence, tou,
it is done and prevailed over, and the fiery life

sary that these works should be produced of it endures for evermore among men. No:
xipidly ; and, round or not, be thrown ot^ like creation, one would think, cannot be easy,

632

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRinNGS.

your Jove has severe pains and fire-flames in
the head, out of which an armed Pallas is
struggling! As for manufacture, that is a dif-
ferent matter, and may become easy or not
easy, according as it is taken up. Yet of manu-
facture, too, the general truth is that, given the
manufacturer, it will be worthy in direct pro-
portion to the pains bestowed upon it ; and
worthless always, or nearly so, with no pains.
Cease, therefore, O ready-writer, to brag open-
ly of thy rapidity and facility; to thee (if thou
be in the manufacturing line) it is a benefit,
an increase of wages ; but to me it is sheer
loss, worsening of my pennyworth: why wilt
thou brag of it to me ? Write easily, by steam
if thou canst contrive it, and canst sell it; but
hide it like virtue ! "Easy writing," said Sheri-
dan, "is sometimes d d hard reading."

Sometimes ; and always il is sure to be rather
useless reading, which indeed (to a creature
of few years and much work) may be reckon-
ed the hardest of all.

Scott's productive facility amazed every-
body; and set Captain Hall, for one, upon a
very strange method of accounting for it with-
out miracle; — for which see his "journal,"
above quoted from. The Captain, on count-
ing line for line, found that he himself had
written in that journal of his almost as much
as Scott, at odd hours in a given number of
days; "and as for the invention," says he, "it
is known that this costs Scott nothing, but
comes to him of its own accord." Conveni-
ent indeed! — But for us too Scott's rapidity is
great, is a proof and consequence of the solid
health of the man, bodily and spiritual ; great,
but unmiraculous; not greater than that of
many others besides Captain Hall. Admire
it, yet with measure. For observe always,
there are two conditions in work: let me fix
the quality, and you. shall fix the quantity!
Any man may get through work rapidly who
easily satisfies himself about it. Print the talk
of any man, there will be a thick octavo
volume daily; make his writing three times
as good as his talk, there will be the third part
of a volume daily, which still is good work.
To write with never such rapidity in a pass-
able manner is indicative, not of a man's ge-
nius, but of his habits ; it will prove his sound-
ness of nervous system, his practicability of
mind, and in fine, that he has the knack of
his trade. In the most flattering view, ra-
pidity will betoken health of mind : much also,
perhaps most of all, will defend on health of
body. Doubt it not, a faculty of easy writing
is' attainable by man ! The human genius,
once fiiirly set in this direction, will carry it
far. William Cobbett, one of the healthiest
of men, was a greater improviser even than
"W'alter Scott: his writing, considered as to
quality and quantity, of Rural Rides, Registers,
Grammars, Sermons, Peter Porcupines, His-
Sories of Reformation, ever-fresh denounce-
ments of Potatoes and Papermoney, — seems
to us still more wonderful. Pierre Bayle
wr'^te enormous folios, one sees not on what
motive-principle; he flowed on for ever, a
mighty tide of ditch-water; and even died
(lowing, with the pen in his hand. But indeed
the most unaccountable ready-writer of all is,

probably, the common Editor of a Daily News-
paper. Consider his leading-articles; what
they treat of, how passably they are done.
Straw that has been thrashed a hundred times
without wheat; ephemeral sound of a sound;
such portent of the hour as all men have seen
a hundred times turn out inane; how a man,
with merely human faculty, buckles himself
nightly with new vigour and interest to this
thrashed straw, nightly thrashes it anew
nightly gets up new thunder about it; and s(
goes on thrashing and thundering for a con
siderable series of years ; this is a fact re
maining still to be accounted for, in human
physiology. The vitality of man is great.

Or shall we say, Scott, among the many
things he carried towards their ultimatum and
crisis, carried this of ready-writing too, that so
all men might better see what was in it? It
is a valuable consummation. Not without
results ; — results, at some of which Scott as a
Tory politician would have greatly shuddered.
For if once Printing have grown to be as Talk,
then Democuagy (if we look into the roots of
things) is not a bugbear and probability, but
a certainty, and event as good as come!
"Inevitable seems it me." But leaving this,
sure enough the triumph of ready-writing ap-
pears to be even now; everywhere the ready-
writer is found bragging strangely of his readi-
ness. In a late translated "Don Carlos," one
of the most indifferent translations ever done
with any sign of ability, a hitherto unknown
individual is found assuring his reader, "The
reader will possibly think it an excuse, whea
I assure him that the whole piece was com-
pleted within the space of ten weeks, that is to
say, between the sixth of January and th»
eighteenth of March of this year, (inclusive of
a fortnight's interruption from over exertion ;>
that I often translated twenty pages a-day, anf
that the fifth act was the work of five days."*
O hitherto unknown individual, what is it to
me what time it was the work of, whether fivj
days or five decades of years] The only
question is. How hast thou done it? — So,
however, it stands: the genius of Extempore
irresistibly lording it, advancing on us like
ocean-tides, like Noah's deluges — of ditch-
water! The prospect seems one of the la-
mentablest. To have all Literature swum
away from us in watery Extempore, and a
spiritual time of Noah supervene 1 Thai
surely is an awful reflection, worthy of dys-
peptic Matthew Bramble in a London fog!
Be of comfort, O splenetic Matthew; it is not
Literature they are svi'imming away; it is
only Book-publishing and Book-selling. Was
there not a Literature bffore Printing or Faust
of Mentz. and yei men wrote extempore? Nay,
before Writing or Cadmus of Thebes, and yet
men spoke extempore? Literature is the
Thought of thinking Souls ; this, by the bless-
ing of God, can in no generation be swum
away, but remains with us to the end.

Scott's career, of writing impromptu novels
to buy farms with, was not of a kind to termi-
nate voluntarily, but to accelerate itself more

♦ " Don C.irtns," a Dramatic Poem, from the German
of Schiller, Mannheim and London, 1837.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT.

533

and more; and one sees not to what wise goal
it could, in any case, have led him. Book-
seller Constable's bankruptcy was not the ruin
of Scott ; his ruin was that ambition, and even
false ambition, had laid hold of him ; that his
way of life was not wise. Whither could it
leadl Where could it stop 1 New farms there
remained ever to be bought, while new novels
could pay for them. More and more success
but gave more and more appetite, more and
more audacity. The impromptu writing must
have waxed even thinner; declined faster and
faster into the questionable category, into the
condemnable, into the general condemned.
Already there existed, in secret, everywhere a
considerable opposition party; witnesses of
the Waverley miracles, but unable to believe
in them, forced silently to protest against them.
Such opposition party was in the sure case to
grow; and even, with the impromptu process
ever going on, ever waxing thinner, to draw
the world over to it. Silent protest must at
length come to words ; harsh truths, backed
by harsher facts of a world-popularity over-
wrought and worn out, behoved to have been
spoken ; — such as can be spoken now without
reluctance when they can pain the brave
raan's heart no more. Who knows 1 Per-
haps it was better ordered to be all olltcnris^e.
Otherwise, at any rate, it was. One day the
Constable mountain, which seemed to stand
strong like the other rock mountains, gave
suddenly, as the ice-bergs do, a loud-sounding
crack; suddenly, with huge clangor, shivered
itself into ice-dust; and sank, carrying much
along with it. In one day Scott's high-heaped
money-wages became fairy-money and non-
entity; in one day the rich man and lord of
land saw himself penniless, landless, a bank-
rupt among creditors.

It was a hard trial. He met it proudly,
bravely, — like a brave proud man of the world.
Perhaps there had been a prouder way still ;
to have owned honestly that he urns unsuccess-
ful then, all bankrupt, broken, in the world's
good's and repute ; and to have turned else-
whither f(jr some refuge. Refuge did lie else-
where ; but it was not Scott's course, or fash-
ion of mind, to seek it there. To say, Hither-
Jo I have been all in the wrong, and this my
fame and pride, now broken, was an empty
delusion and spell of accursed witchcraft! It
was difficult fur flesh and blood ! He said, I
will retrieve myself, and make my point good
yet, or die for it. Silently, like a proud strong
man, he girt himself to the Hercules' task, of
removing rubbish-mountains, since that was
it; of paying large ransoms by what he could
still write and sell. In his declining years too ;
misfcirtune is doubly and trebly unfortunate
that befalls us then. Scott fell to his Hercules'
task like a very man, and went on with it un-
weariedly; with a noble cheerfulness, while
his lifestrings were cracking, he grappled with
it, and wrestled with it, years long, in death-
grips, strength to strength; — and it proved the
stronger; and his life and heart did crack and
break: the cordage of a most strong heart!
Over these last writings of Scott, his Napoleons,
Dcinonologies, Scotch Histories, and the rest, criti-
cism, finding still much to wonder at, much to

commend, will utter no word of blame; this
one word only. Wo is me! The noble war-
horse that once laughed at the shaking of the
spear, how is he doomed to toil himself dead,
dragging ignoble wheels ! Scott's descent was
like that of a spent projectile; rapid, straight
down ; — perhaps mercifully so. It is a tragedy,
as all life is ; one proof more that Fortune
stands on a restless globe : that Ambition,
literary, warlike, politic, pecuniary, never yet
profited any man.

Our last extract shall be from Volume Sixth ;
a very tragical one. Tragical, yet still beauti-
ful ; waste Ruin's havoc borrowing a kind of
sacredness from a yet sterner visitation, that
of Death ! Scott has withdrawn into a solitary
lodging-house in Edinburgh, to do daily the
day's work there ; and had to leave his wife at
Abbotsford in the last stage of disease. He
went away silently ; looked silently at ths
sleeping face he scarcely hoped ever to see
again. We quote from a Diary he had begun
to keep in those months, on hint from Byron's
Ravenna Journal: copious sections of it render
this sixth volume more interesting than any
of the former ones : —

'^ Abbotsford, May U,i\^2&.)— * * » It
withers my heart to think of it, and to recollect
that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence
and counsel from that ear, to which all might
be safely confided. But in her present lethargic
state, what would my attendance have availed ]
— and Anne has promised close and constant
intelligence. I must dine with James Ballan-
tyne to-day f»i fainillc. I cannot help it; but
would rather be at home and alone. However,
I can go out too. I will not yield to the barren
sense of hopelessness which struggles to in
vade me."

" Edinburgh, — Mrs. Brown^s lodgings. North St.
David Street — May 12. — I passed a pleasant day
with kind J. B., which was a great relief from
the black dog, which would have worried me
at home. He was quite alone.

"Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say
with Touchstone, ' When I was in a better
place;' I must, when there is occasion, draw
to my own Baillie Nicol Jarvie's consolation
— 'One cannot carry the comforts of the Saut
Market about with one.' Were I at ease in
mind, I think the body is very well cared for.
Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr.
Shandy — a clergyman ; and, despite his name,
said to be a quiet one."

" Maxj 14. — A fair good-morrow to you, Mr.
Sun, who are shining so brightly on these
dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were
looking as bright on the banks of the Tweed;
but look where you will, Sir Sun, you look
upon sorrow and suffering. — Hogg was here
yesterday in danger, from having obtained an
accommodation of £100 from James Ballan-
tyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I am
unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged
to borrow myself."

" May 15. — Received the melancholy intelli-
gence that all is over at Abbotsford."

" Mbotsford, May 16. — She died at nine in

the morning, after being very ill for two days

— easy at last. I arrived here late last night.

Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics, which

2t2

534

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

returned on my arrival. Her broken accents
were like those of a child, the language as well
as the tones broken, but in the most gentle
voice of submission. "Poor mamma — never
return again — gone for ever — a belter place."
Then, when she came to herself, she spoke
with sense, freedom, and strength of mind, till
her weakness returned. It would have been
inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger —
What was it then to the father and the hus-
band? For myself, I scarce know how I feel ;
sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, some-
times as weak as the water that breaks on it.
I am as alert at thinking and deciding as I
ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast
what this place now is, with what it has been
not long since, I think my heart will break.
Lonely, aged, deprived of my family — all but
poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed
man, deprived of the sharer of my thoughts
and counsels, who could always talk down my
sense of the calamitous apprehensions which
break the heart that must bear them alone. —
Even her foibles were of service to me, by
giving me things to think of beyond my weary
self-reflections.

" I have seen her. The figure I beheld is,
and is not my Charlotte — my thirty years' com-
panion. There is the same symmetry of form,
though those limbs are rigid which were once
so gracefully elastic — but that yellow mask,
"with pinched features, which seems to mock
life rather than emulate it, can it be the face
that was once so full of lively expression ] I
will not look on it again. Anne thinks her
little changed, because the latest idea she had
formed of her mother is as she appeared under
circumstances of extreme pain. Mine go back
to a period of comparative ease. If I write
long in this way, I shall write down my reso-
lution, which I should rather write up, if I
could."

" May 18. — * * Cerements of lead and of
■wood already hold her; cold earth must have
her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not
the bride of my youth, the mother of my chil-
dren, that will be laid among the ruins of Dry-
burgh, which we have so often visited in gaye-
t/ and pastime. No, no."

« May 22. — * » Well, I am not apt to
shrink from that which is n>y duty, merely be-
cause it is painful ; but I wish this funeral-
day over. A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs
about me, as if ail were unreal that men seem
to be doing and talking."

" May 26. — * * Were an enemy coming
upon my house, would I not do my best to
fight, although oppressed in spirits ; and shall
a similar despondency prevent me from menta.
exertion ? It shall not, by Heaven !"

" Edinburgh, May 30. — Returned to town last
night with Charles. This morning resume
ordinary habits of rising early, working in the
morning, and attending the Court." * * "J
finished correcting the proofs for the Quarter-
ly; it is but a flimsy article, but then the cir-
cumstances were most untoward. — This has
been a melancholy day — most melancholy. I
am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. I
do not know what other folks feel, but with me
the hysterical passion that impels tears is a
terrible violence — a sort of throttling sensa-
tion— then succeeded by a state of dreaming
stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte
can actually be dead." — Vol. vi. pp. 297, 307.

This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other
scenes, in that Seventh Volume, must come,
which will have no beauty, but be tragical only-
It is better that we are to end here.

And so the curtain falls; and the strong
Walter Scott is with us no more. A posses-
sion from him does remain ; widely scattered;
yet attainable ; not inconsiderable. It can be
said of him, "when he departed he took a
Man's life along with him." No sounder piece
of British manhood was put together in that
eighteenth century of time. Alas, his fine
Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity,
and goodness, when we saw it latterly on the
Edinburgh streets, was all worn with care, the
jcy all fled from it; — ploughed deep with la-
bour and sorrow. We shall never forget it ;
we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Wal-
ter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud aud
sad farewell.

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.

996

VAENHAGEN YON ENSE^S MEMOIHS.*

[London and Westminster Review, 1838.]

The Lady Rahel, or Rachel, sumamed Levin
m her maiden days, who died some five years
ago as Madam Varnhagen von Ense, seems to
be still memorable and notable, or to have be-
come more than ever so, among our German
friends. The widower, long known in Berlin
and Germany for an intelligent and estimable
man, has here published successively, as
author, or as editor and annotator, so many
volumes, nine in all, about her, about himself,
and the things that occupied and environed
them. Nine volumes, properly, of German
Memoirs ; of letters, of miscellanies, biographi-
cal and autobiographical; which we have read
not without zeal and diligence, and in part
with great pleasure. It seems to us that such
of our readers as take interest in things Ger-
man, ought to be apprized of this publication ;
and withal that there are in it enough of
things European and universal to furnish out
a few pages for readers not specially of that
class.

One may hope, Germany is no longer to any
person that vacant land, of gray vapour and
chimeras, which it was to most Englishmen,
not many years ago. One may hope that, as
readers of German have increased a hundred-
fold, some partial intelligence of Germany,
some interest in things German, may have in-
creased in a proportionably higher ratio. At
all events, Memoirs of men, German or other,
will find listeners among men. Sure enough,
Berlin city, on the sandy banks of the Spree,
is a living city, even as London is, on the
muddy banks of Thames. Daily, with every
rising of the blessed heavenly light, Berlin
sends up the smoke of a hundred thousand
kindled hearths, the fret and stir of five hun-
dred thousand new-awakened human souls;
— marking or defacing with such smoke-cloud,
material or spiritual, the serene of our com-
mon all-embracing Heaven. One Heaven, the
same for all, embraces that smoke-cloud too,
adopts it, absorbs it, like the rest. Are there
not dinner-parties, "sesthetic teas;" scandal-
mongeries, changes of ministry, police cases,
literary gazettes? The clack of tongues, the
sound of hammers, mount up in that corner
of the planet too, for certain centuries of time.
Berlin has its royalties and diplomacies, its
tra(fickings,travailings; literatures, sculptures,
cultivated heads, male and female; and boasts
itself to be "the intellectual capital of Ger-

*1. Rahel. Ein Buchdes JIndenkev/t filr ihre Freiinde.
(Uahel. A Book of Memorial for tier Friends.) 3 vols.
Berlin, 1834.

2. Otillrrie von Bildnissen avs RnheVs Ihnstnrt/r uvd
Briefinerhsel. (Gallery of Portraits from Rahel's Cir-
cle of Society and Correspondence.) Edited by K. A.
Varnliaijen von Ense. 2 vols. Leipsic, 1836.

3. DevkwVirdiakeiten und rerviischte Schriften. (Me-
moirs and Miscellaneous Writin'is.) By K. A. Varnha-
gen von Ense. 4 vols. Mannheim, J837-38.

many." Nine volumes of Memoirs cut of
Berlin will surely contain something for us.

Samuel Johnson, or perhaps another, used
to say, there was no man on the streets whose
biography he would not like to be acquainted
with. No rudest mortal walking there who
has not seen and known experimentally some-
thing, which, could he tell it, the wisest would
hear willingly from him! Nay, after all that
can be said and celebrated about poetry, elo-
quence, and the higher forms of composition
and utterance; is not the primary use of
speech itself this same, to uUer 7?iemoirs, that is,
memorable experiences to our fellow-crea-
tures? A fact is a fact; man is for ever the
brother of man. That thou. Oh my brother,
impart to me truly how it stands with thee in
that inner man of thine, what lively images of
things passed thy memory has painted there;
what hopes, what thoughts, afl^ections, know-
ledges, do now dwell there: for this and for no
other object that I can see, was the gift of
speech and of hearing bestowed on us two. I
say not how thou feignest. Thy fictions, and
thousand and one Arabian Nights, promul-
gated as fictions, what are they also at. bottom
but this, things that are in thee, though only
images of things? But to bewilder me with
falsehoods, indeed; 1o ray out error and dark-
ness,— mi&intelligence, which means misat-
tainment, otherwise failure and sorrow; to go
about confusing worse our poor world's con-
fusion, and, as a son of Nox and Chaos, propa-
gate delirium on earth: not surely with this
view, but with a far diflferent one, was that
miraculous tongue suspended in thy head, and
set vibrating there ! In a word, do not two
things, vernrily and mcmoir-writmg, seem to be
prescribed by Nature herself and the very con-
stitution of man ? Let us read, therefore, ac-
cording to opportunity, — and, with judicious
audacity, review!

Our nine printed volumes we called Ger-
man Memoirs. They agree in this general
character, but are otherwise to be distinguished
into kinds, and differ very much in their worth
for us. The first book on our list, entitled
"Rahel," is a book of private letters; three
thick volumes of Letters written by that lady:
selected from her wide correspondence ; with
a short introduction, with here and there a
short note, and that on Varnhagen's part all.
Then follows, in two volumes, the work named
"Gallery of Portraits;" consisting princi})ally
of Letters to Rahel, by various persons, mostly
persons of note; to which Varnhagen, as edi-
tor, has joined some slight commentary, some
short biographical sketch of each. Of thesi,
five volumes of German Letters we will say,
for the present, that they seem to be calculated
for Gerinany, and even for some special circle
there, rather than for England or us. A glance

838

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

at them afterwards, we hope, will be possible.
But the third work, that of Varnhagen himself,
is the one we must chiefly depend on here; the
four volumes of " Memoirs and Miscellanies ;"
lively pieces; which can be safely recom-
mended as altogether pleasant reading to
every one. They are " Miscellaneous Writ-
ings," as their title indicates; in part col-
lected and reprinted out of periodicals, or
wherever they lay scattered; in part sent forth
now for the first time. There are criticisms,
notices literary or didactic ; always of a praise-
worthy sort, generally of small extent. There
are narrations; there is a long personal nar-
rative, as it might be called, of service in the
"Liberation War," of 1814, wherein Varnha-
gen did duty, as a volunteer officer, in Tetten-
born's corps, among the Cossacks : this is the
longest piece, by no means the best. There
is farther a curious narrative of Lafayette's
escape (brief escape with recapture) from the
Prison of Olmiitz. Then also there is a cu-
rious biography of Doctor Bollmann, the brave
young Hanoverian, who aided Lafayette in
that adventure. Then other biographies not
so curious; on the whole, there are many
biographies: Biography, we might say, is the
staple article; an article in which Varnhagen
has long been known to excel. Lastly, as basis
for the whole, there are presented, fitfully,
now here, now there, and with long intervals,
considerable sections of Autobiography; — not
confessions, indeed, or questionable work of
the Rousseau sort, but discreet reminiscences,
personal and other, of a man who having
looked on much, may be sure of willing audi-
ence in reporting it well. These are the four
volumes written by Varnhagen von Ense ;
those are the five edited by him. We shall
regard his autobiographic memorials as a
general substratum, upholding and uniting
into a certain coherence the multifarious con-
tents of these publications : it is Varnhagen
von Ense's passage through life ; this is what
it yielded him ; these are the things and per-
sons he took note of, and had to do with, in
travelling thus far.

Beyond ascertaining for ourselves what
manner of eyesight and way of judgment
this our memoir-writer has, it is not necessary
to insist much on Varnhagen's qualities or
literary character here. He seems to us a
man p-eculiarly fitted, both by natural endow-
ment and by position and opportunity, for
writing memoirs. In the space of half a cen-
tury that he has lived in this world, his course
has been what we might call erratic in a high
degree: from the student's garret in Halle or
Tubingen to the Tuileries hall of audience
and the Wagram battle-field, from Chamisso
the poet to Napoleon the Emperor, his path
has intersected all manner of paths of men.
He has a fine intellectual gift; and what is
the foundation of that and of all, an honest,
sympathizing, manfully patient, manfully cou-
rageous heart. His way of life, too erratic
we should fear for happiness or ease, and sin-
gularly checkered by vicissitude, has had this
considerable advantage, if no other, that it
has trained him, and could not but train him,
to a certain Catholicism of mind. He has

been a student of literature, an author, a stu-
dent of medicine, a soldier, a secretary, a
diplomatist. A man withal of modest, affec-
tionate nature; courteous and yet truthful;
of quick apprehension, precise in utterance ;
of just, extensive, occasionally of deep and
fine insight, — this is a man qualified beyond
most to write memoirs. We should call him
one of the best memoir-writers we have met
with ; decidedly the best we know of in these
days. For clearness, grace of method, easy
comprehensibility, he is worthy to be ranked
among the French, who have a natural turn
for memoir-writing; and in respect of honesty,
valourous gentleness, and simplicity of heart,
his character is German, not French.

Such a man, conducting us in the spirit of
cheerful friendliness, along his course of life,
and delineating what he has found most me-
morable in it, produces one of the pleasantest
books. Brave old Germany, in this and ihe
other living phasis, now here, now there, from
Rhirieland to the East-sea, from Hamburg and
Berlin to Deuisch-Wafjram and the March-
field, paints itself in the colours of reality;
with notable persons, with notable events
For consider withal in what a time this man's
life has lain : in the thick of European things,
while the Nineteenth Century was opening
itself. Amid convulsions and revolutions, out-
ward and inward, — with Napoleons, Goethes,
Fichtes; while prodigies and battle-thunder
shook the world, and, "amid the glare of con-
flagrations, and the noise of falling towns and
kingdoms," a new era of thought was also
evolving itself: one of the wonderfullest times!
On the whole, if men like Varnhagen were to
be met with, why have we not innumerable
Memoirs ? Alas, it is because the men like
Varnhagen are 7iot to be met with ; men with
the clear eye and the open heart. Without
such qualities, memoir-writers are but a nui-
sance ; which so often as they show them-
selves, a judicious world is obliged to sweep
into the cesspool, with loudest possible prohi-
bition of the like. If a man is not open-minded,
if he is ignorant, perverse, egoistic, splenetic;
on the whole, if he is false and stupid, how
shall he write memoirs 1 —

From Varnhagen's young years, especially
from his college years, we could extract man}'
a lively little sketch, of figures partially known
to the reader; of Chamisso, La Motte Fouque,
Raumer, and other the like; of Platonic
Schleiermacher, sharp, crabbed, shrunken,
with his wire-drawn logic, his sarcasms, his
sly malicious ways; of Homeric Wolf, with
his biting wit, with his gr.m earnestness and
inextinguishable Homeric laugh, the irascible
great-hearted man. Or of La Fontaine, the
sentimental novelist, over whose rose-coloured
moral-sublime what fair eye has not wej^t 1
Varnhagen found him "in a pleasant house
near the Saale-gate" of Halle, with an ugly
good-tempered wife, with a pretty niece, which
latter he would not allow to read a word of his
romance stuff, but "kept it locked from her
like poison ;" a man jovial as Boniface, swol-
len out on booksellers' profit, church, prefer-
ments, and fat things, " to the size of a hogs-

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.

53*

hea<i ;" for the rest, -writing with such velocity
(he did some hundred and fifty weeping vo-
lumes in his time) that he was obliged to hold
in, and "write only two days in the week;"
this was La Fontaine, the sentimental novelist.
But omitting all these, let us pick out a fa-
mily-picture of one far better worth looking
at, Jean Paul in his little home at Bai-
reuih, — "little city of my habitation, which I
belong to on this side the grave !" It is Sun-
day, the 23d of October, 1808, according to
Varnhagen's note-book. The ingenious youth
of four-and-twenty, as a rambling student,
passes the day of rest there, and luckily for
us has kept memorandums :

" Visit to Jean Paul Fi-icdrich Richter. — This
forenoon I went to Jean Paul's. Friend Har-
scher was out of humour, and would not go,
say what I would. I too, for that matter, am
but a poor, nameless student: but what of
that]

"A pleasant, kindly, inquisitive, woman,
who had opened the door to me, I at once re-
cognised for Jean Paul's wife by her likeness
to her sister. A child was sent off to call its
father. He came directly : he had been for-
warned of my visit by letters from Berlin and
Leipsic; and received me with great kindness.
As he seated himself beside me on the sofa, I
had almost laughed in his face, for in bending
down somewhat he had the very look our
Neumann, in his 'Versuchen und Hindernis-
sen,' has jestingly given him, and his speaking
and what he spoke confirmed that impression.
Jean Paul is of stout figure ; has a full, well-
ordered face ; the eyes small, gleaming out on
you with lambent fire, then again veiled in
soft dimness; the mouth friendly, and with
some slight motion in it even when silent. His
speech is rapid, almost hasty, even stuttering
somewhat here and there ; not without a cer-
tain degree of dialect, difficult to designate,
but which probably is some mixture of Frank-
ish and Saxon, and of course is altogether
kept down within the rules of cultivated lan-
guage.

" First of all I had to tell him what I was
charged with in the shape of messages, then
whatsoever I could tell in any way, about his
Berlin friends. He willingly remembered the
time he had lived in Berlin, as Marcus Herz's
neighbour, in Leder's house where I, seven
years before, had first seen him in the garden
by the Spree, with papers in his hand, which
it was privately whispered were leaves of
'Hesperus.' This talk about persons, aiid
then still more about Literature growing out
of that, set him fairly underway, and soon he
had more to impart than to inquire. His con-
versation was throughout amiable and good-
natured, always full of meaning, but in quite
simple tone and expression. Though I knew
beforehand that his wit and humour belonged
only to his pen, that he could hardly write the
shortest note without these introducing them-
selves, while on the contrary his oral utterance
seldom showed the like, — yet it struck me
much that, in this continual movement and
vivacity of mood to which he yielded himself,
I observed no trace of these qualities. His
demeanour otherwise was like his speaking;
68

nothing forced, nothing studied, nothing that
went beyond the burgher tone. His courtesy
was the free expression of a kind heart; his
way and bearing were patriarchal, considerate
of the stranger, yet for himself too altogether
unconstrained. Neither in the animation to
which some word or topic would excite him,
was this fundamental temper ever altered;
nowhere did severity appear, novvhere any ex-
hibiting of himself, any watching or spying of
his hearer; everywhere kindheartedness, free
movement of his somewhat loose-ftowing na-
ture, open .course for him, with a hundred
transitions from one course to the other, how-
soever or whithersoever it seemed good to
him to go. At first he praised everj^ thing that
was named of our new appearances in Litera-
ture ; and then when we came a little closer
to the matter, there was blame enough and to
spare. So of Adam Miiller's Lectures, of
Friedrich Schlegel, of Tieck and others. He
said, German writers ought to hold by the
people, not by the upper classes, among whom
all was already dead and gone; and yet he had
just been praising Adam Miiller, that he had
the gift of speaking a deep word to cultivated
people of the world. He is convinced that,
from the opening of the old Indian world,
nothing is to be got for us, except the adding
of one other mode of poetry to the many modes
we have already, but no increase of ideas : and
yet he had just been celebrating Friedrich
Schlegel's labours with the Sanscrit, as if a
new salvation were to issue out of that. He
was free to confess that a right Christian in
these days, if not a Protestant one, was incon-
ceivable to him ; that changing from Protest-
antism to Catholicism seemed a monstrous;
perversion; and with this opinion great hope
had been expressed, a few minutes before,
that the Catholic spirit in Friedrich Schlegel,
combined with the Indian, would produci;
much good ! Of Schleiermacher he spoke
with respect ; signified, however, that he did
not relish his 'Plato' greatly; that in Jacobi's,
in Herder's soaring flight of soul he traced far
more of those divine old sages than in the
learned acumen of Schleiermacher; a deliver
ance which I could not let pass without pro-
test. Fichte, of whose ' Addresses to the Ger-
man Nation,' held in Berlin under the sound
of French drums, I had much to say, was not
a favourite of his; the decisiveness of that
energy gave him uneasiness; he said he could
only read Fichte as an exercise, 'gymnastic-
ally,' and that with the purport of his Philo-
sophy he had now nothing more to do.

"Jean Paul was called out, and I staid
awhile alone with his wife. I had now to
answer many new questions about Berlin ; her
interest in persons and things of her native
town was by no means sated with what she
had already heard. The lady pleased me ex-
ceedingly; soft, refined, acute, she united witti
the loveliest expression of household goodness
an air of higher breeding and freer manage-
ment than Jean Paul seemed to manifest. Vet,
in this respect too, she willingly held herself
inferior, and looked up to her gifted husband.
It was apparent every way that their life toge-
ther was a. right happy one. Their three

538

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

children, a boy and two girls, are beautiful,
healthy, well-conditioned creatures. I had a
hearty pleasure in them; they recalled other
dear children to my thoughts, whom I had
lately been beside [ * * *

"With continual copiousness and in the
best humour, Jean Paul (we were now at
table) expatiated on all manner of objects.
Among the rest, I had been charged with a
salutation from Rahel Levin to him, and the
modest question, 'Whether he remembered
her stilir His face beamed with joyful satis-
faction: 'How could one forget such a per-
son V cried he impressively. ' That is a woman
alone of her kind: I liked her heartily well, and
more now than ever, as I gain in sense an ap-
prehension to do it; she is the only woman in
whnm I have found genuine humour, the one
woman of this world who had humour!' He
called me a lucky fellow to have such a friend;
and asked, as if proving me and measuring
ir^y value, ' How I had deserved that]'

"Monday, 24//i October. — Being invited, I
went a second time to dine. .lean Paul had
just returned from a walk; his wife, with one
of the children, was still out. We came upon
his writings; that questionable string with
most authors, which the one will not have you
touch, which another will have you keep
jingling continually. He was here what I ex-
pected him to be ; free, unconstrained, good-
natured, and sincere with his whole heart.
His 'Dream of a Madman,' just published by
Cotta, was what had led us upon this. He
said he could write such things at anytime;
the mood for it, when he was in health, lay in
his own power; he did but seat himself at the
harpsichord, and fantasying for a while on it,
in the wildest way, deliver himself over to the
feeling of the moment, and then write his ima-
ginings,— according to a certain predetermined
course, indeed, which however he would often
alter as he went on. In this kind he had once
undertaken to write a ' Hell,' such as mortal
never heard of; and a great deal of it is actu-
ally done, but not fit for print. Speaking of
descriptive composition, he also started as in
fright when I ventured to say that Goethe was
less complete in this province; he reminded
me of two passages in 'Werter,' which are in-
deed among the finest descriptions. He said
that to describe any scene well the poet must
make the bosom of a man his camera obsnira,
and look at it through this, then would he see
it poetically. * *

"The conversation turned on public occur-
rences, on the condition of Germany, and the
oppressive rule of the French. To me discus-
sions of that sort are usually disagreeable ; but
it was delightful to hear Jean Paul express, on
such occasion, his noble patriotic sentiments;
and for the sake of this rock-island I willingly
swam through the empty tide of uncertain
news and wavering suppositions which envi-
roned it. What he said was deep, considerate,
hearty, valiant, German to the marrow of the
bone. I had to tell him much; of Napoleon,
whom he knew only by portraits ; of Johannes
von Miiller; of Fichte, whom he now as a
patriot admired cordially; of the Marquez de
la Romana and his Spaniards, whom I had

seen m Hamburgh. Jean Paul said he at no
moment doubted, but the Germans, like the
Spaniards, would one day rise, and Prussia
would avenge its disgrace, and free the coun-
try; he hoped his son would live to see it, and
did not deny that he was bringing him up for
a soldier. * » *

" October ioih. — I staid to supper, contrary
to my purpose, having to set out next morning
early. The lady was so kind, and Jean Paul
himself so trustful and blithe, I could not with-
stand their entreaties. At the neat and well-
furnished table (reminding you that South
Germany was now near) the best humour
reigned. Among other things we had a good
laugh at this, that Jean Paul offered me an in-
troduction to one of what he called his dearest
friends in Stuttgart, — and then was obliged to
give it up, having irrevocably forgotten his
name I Of a more serious sort again was our
conversation about Tieck, Friednch and Wil-
helm Schlegel, and others of the romantic
school. He seemed in ill humour with Tieck
at the moment. Of Goethe he said": 'Goethe
is a consecrated head; he has a place of his
own, high above us all.' We spoke of Goethe
afterwards for some tirne : Jean Paul, with
more and more admiration, nay, with a sort of
fear and awe-struck reverence.

"Some beautiful fruit was brought in for
dessert. On a sudden, Jean Paul started up,
gave me his hand, and said : ' Forgive me, I
must go to bed ! Stay you here in God's name,
for it is still early, and chat with my wife;
there is much to say, between you, which my
talking has kept back. I am a Spiessbvrger,'
(of the Club of Odd Fellows,) ' and m}' hour is
come for sleep.' He took a candle, and said,
good night. We parted with great cordiality,
and the wish expressed on both sides, that 1
mitjht stay at Baireuth another time."

These biographic phenomena ; Jean Paul's
loose-flowing talk, his careless variable judg
meats of men and things ; the prosaic basis
of the free-and-easy in domestic life with the
poetic Shandean, Shakspearean, and. even
Dantesque, that grew from it as its public out-
come; all this Varnhagen had to rhyme and
reconcile for himself as he best could. The
loose-flowing talk and variable judgments, the
fact that Richter went along, "looking only
right before him as with blinders on," seemed
to Varnhagen a pardonable, nay, an amiable
peculiarity, the mark of a trustful, spontane-
ous, artless nature ; connected with whatever
was best in Jean Paul. He found him on the
whole (what we at a distance have always
done) " a genuine and noble man: no decep-
tion or impunity exists in his life: he is alto-
gether as he writes, loveable, hearty, robust,
and brave. A valiant man I do believe : did
the cause summon, I fancy he would be rea-
dier with his sword too than the most." And
so we quit our loved Jean Paul, and his sim-
ple little Baireuth home. The lights are blown
out there, the fruit platters swept away, a do-
zen years ago. and all is dark now, — swal-
lowed in the long night. Thanks to Varnha-
gen that he has, though imperfectly, rescued
any glimpse of it, one scene of it, still visible
to eyes, by the magic of pen and ink

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.

539

The next picture that strikes us is not a
family-piece, but a battle-piece: Dentsch-Wag-
ram, in the hot weather of 1809; whither
Varnhagen, with a great change of place and
plan, has wended, proposing now to be a sol-
dier, and rise by fighting the tyrannous French.
It is a fine picture ; with the author's best ta-
lent in it. Deutsch-Wagram village is filled
with soldiers of every uniform and grade; in
all manner of movements and employments ;
Archduke Karl is heard " fantasying for an
hour on the piano-forte," before his serious ge-
neralissimo duties begin. The Marchfeld has
its camp, the Marchfeld is one great camp of
many nations — Germans, Hungarians, Italians,
Madshars; advanced sentinels walk steadily,
drill Serjeants bustle, drums beat ; Austrian
generals gallop, " in blue-gray coat and red
breeches " — combining " simplicity with con-
spicuousness." Faint on our south-western
horizon appears the Stephans-thurm (St. Ste-
phen's Steeple) of Vienna; south, over the
Danube, are seen endless French hosts defiling
towards us, with dust and glitter, along the
hill-roads ; one may hope, though with mis-
givings, there will be work soon.

Meanwhile, in every regiment there is but
one tent, a chapel, used also for shelter to the
chief officers ; you, a subaltern, have to lie
on the ground, in your own dug trench, to
which, if you can contrive it, some roofing
of branches and rushes may be added. It
is burning sun and dust, occasionally it is
thunder-storm and water-spouts ; a volunteer,
if it were not for the hope of speedy battle,
has a poor time of it: your soldiers speak
little, except unintelligible Bohemian Sclavo-
nic ; your brother ensigns know nothing of
Xenophon, Jean Paul, of patriotism, or the
higher philosophies; hope only to be soon
back at Prague, where are billiards and things
suitable. "The following days were heavy
and void : the great summer-heat had withered
the grass and grove ; the willows of the Russ-
bach were long since leafless, in part bark-
less ; on the endless plain fell nowhere a sha-
dow; only dim dust-clouds, driven up by
sudden whirlblasts, veiled for a moment the
glaring sky, and sprinkled all things with a
hot rain of sand. We gave up drilling as im-
possible, and crept into our earth-holes." It
is feared, too, there will be no battle : Varnha-
gen has thoughts of making off to the fighting
Duke of Brunswick-Oels, or some other that
will fight. "However," it would seem, "the
worst trial was already over. After a hot,
wearying, wasting day, which promised no-
thing but a morrow like it, there arose on the
30lh of June, from beyond the Danube, a
sound of cannon-thunder ; a solacing refresh-
ment to the languid soul ! A party of French,
as we soon learned, had got across from the
Lobau, by boats, to a little island named Miihle-
ninsel, divided only by a small arm from our
side of the river; they had then thrown a
bridge over this too, with defences ; our bat-
teries at Esslingen were for hindering the ene-
my's passing there, and his nearest cannons
about the Lobau made answer." On the fourth
day after,

" Archduke John got orders to advance

again as far as Marcheck ; that, in the event
of a battle on the morrow, he might act on the
enemy's right tiank. W^ith us too a resolute
engagement was arranged. On the 4th of
July, in the evening, we were ordered, if there
was cannonading in the night, to remain quiet
till daybreak ; but at daybreak to be under
arms. Accordingly, so soon as it was dark,
there began before us, on the Danube, a vio«
lent fire of artillery ; the sky glowed ever and
anon with the cannon flashes, with the courses
of bombs and grenadoes : for nearly two hours
this thunder-game lasted on both sides; for
the French had begun their attack almost at
the same time with ours, and while we were
striving to ruin their works on the Lobau,
they strove to burn Enzersdorf town, and ruin
ours. The Austrian cannon could do little
against the strong works on the Lobau. On
the other hand, the enemy's attack began to
tell ; in his object was a wider scope, more
decisive energy; his guns were more nume-
rous, more effectual : in a short time Enzers-
dorf burst out in flames, and our artillery
struggled without eflfect against their superi-
ority of force. The region round had been
illuminated for some time with the conflagra-
tion of that little town, when the sky grew
black with heavy thunder: the rain poured
down, the flames dwindled, the artillery fired
seldomer, and at length .^ell silent altogether.
A frightful thunder-storm, such as no one
thought he had ever seen, now raged over the
broad Marchfeld, which shook with the crash-
ing of the thunder, and, in the pour of rain-
floods and howl of winds, was in such a roar,
that even the artillery could not have been
heard in it."

On the morrow morning, in spite of Austria
and the war of elements. Napoleon, with his
endless hosts, and "six hundred pieces of ar-
tillery" in front of them, is across, advancing
like a conflagration, and soon the whole March-
feld, far and wide, is in a blaze.

"Ever stronger batteries advanced, ever
larger masses of troops came into action ; the
whole line blazed with fire, and moved for-
ward and forward. We, from our higher po-
sition, had hitherto looked at the evolutions
and fightings before us, as at a show; but now
the battle had got nigher ; the air over us sang
with cannon-balls, which were lavishly hurled
at us, and soon our batteries began to bellow
in answer. The infantry got orderi to lie flat
on the ground, and the enemy's bails at first
did little execution ; however, as they kept in-
cessantly advancing, the regiments ere long
stood to their arms. The Archduke General-
issimo, with his staff", came galloping along,
drew bridle in front of us ; he gave his com-
mands; looked down into the plain, wheie tbo
French still kept advancing. You saw by his
face that he heeded not danger or death, thai
he lived altogether in his work ; his whole
bearing had got a more impressive aspect, a
loftier determination, full of joyous courage,
which he seemed to diff'use round him; ".he
soldiers looked at him with pride and trust,
many voices saluted him. He had ridden a
little towards Baumersdorf, when an adjutant
came galloping back, and cried: "Volunteers

540

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

forward!" In an instant, almost the whole
company of Captain Marais slept out as vo-
lunteers : we fancied it was to storm the ene-
my's nearest battery, which was advancing
through the corn-fields in front; and so, cheer-
ing with loud shout, we hastened down the de-
clivity, when a second adjutant came in with
the order that we were but to occupy the
Russbach, defend the passage of it, and not to
fire till the enemy was quite close. Scattering
ourselves into skirmishing order, behind wil-
low-trunks, and high corn, we waited with
firelocks ready; covered against cannon-balls,
but hit by musket shots and howitzer grenades,
which the enemy sent in great numbers to our
quarter. About an hour we waited here, in
the incessant roar of the artillery, which shot
both ways over our heads ; with regret we soon
remarked that the enemy's were superior, at
least, in number, and delivered twice as many
shots as ours, which, however, was far better
served; the more did we admire the active
zeal and valorous endurance by which the
unequal match was nevertheless maintained.

"The Emperor Napoleon meanwhile saw,
with impatience, the day passing on without a
decisive result; he had calculated on striking
the blow at once, and his great accumulated
force was not to have directed itself all hilher-
ward in vain. Rapidly he arranged his troops
for storming. Marshal Bernadotte got orders
to press forward, over Atterkla, towards Wa-
gram ; and, by taking this place, break the
middle of the Austrian line. Two deep storm-
ing columns were at the same time to advance,
on the right and left, from Baumersdorf over
the Russbach ; to scale the heights of the Aus-
trian position, and sweep away the troops
there. French infantry had, in the mean while,
got up close to where we stood; we skirmish-
ers were called back from the Russbach, and
again went into the general line ; along the
whole extent of which a dreadful fire of mus-
ketry now began. This monstrous noise of
the universal, never-ceasing crack of shots,
and still more, that of the infinite jingle of iron,
in handling more than twenty thousand mus-
kets, all crowded together here, was the only
new and entirely strange impression that I, in
these my first experiences in war, could say I
had got; all the rest was in part conformable
to my preconceived notion, in part even below
it: but every thing, the thunder of artillery
never so numerous, every noise, I had heard
or figured, was trifling, in comparison with
this continuous storm-tumult of the small
arms, as we call them — that weapon by which
indeed our modern battles do chiefly become
deadly."

What boots itT Ensign Varnhagen and
Generalissimo Archduke Karl are beaten ;
have to retreat in the best possible order. —
The sun of Wagram sets as that of Austerlitz
had done; the war has to end in submission
and marriage; and, as the great Atlantic tide-
stream rushes into every creek and alters the
current there, so for our Varnhagen too a new
chapter opens — the diplomatic one, in Paris
first of all. Varnhagen's experiences "At the
Court of Napoleon," as one of his sections is
Beaded, are extremely entertaining. They are

tragical, comical, of mixed character; alwayi
dramatic, and vividly given. We have a
grand Schwartzenberg Festival, and the Em-
peror himself, and all high persons present in
grand gala, with music, light, and crowned
goblets, in a wooden pavilion, with upholstery
and draperies: a rag of drapery flutters the
wrong way athwart some wax-light, shrivels
itself up in quick fire, kindles the other drape-
ries, kindles the gums and woods, and all
blazes into swift choking ruin; a beautiful
Princess Schwartzenberg, lost in the mad tu-
mult, is found on the morrow as ashes amiJ
the ashes ! Then also there are soirees of Im-
perial notabilities; "the gentlemen walking
about in varied talk, wherein you detect a cer-
tain cautiousness; the ladies all solemnly
ranged in their chairs, rather silent for ladies."
Berthier is a "man of composure," vo! without
higher capabilities. Denon, in spite of his
kind speeches, produces an ill effect on one ;
and in his hubu habile, with court-rapier and
lace-cufl^s, " looks like a dizened ape" Car-
dinal Maury in red stockings, he that was
once Abbe Maury, " pet son of the scarlet
woman," whispers diplomatically in your ear,
in passing. Nous avons beaucoup de joie de vous
voir id. But the thing that will best of all suit
us here, is the presentation to Napoleon him-
self:

"On Sunday, the 22d of Ju./, (1810,) was
to be the Emperor's first levee after that fatal
occurrence of the fire; and we were told it
would be uncommonly fine and grand. In
Berlin I had often accidentally seen Napoleon,
and afterwards at Vienna and Schonbrunn;
but always too far off" for a right impression
of him. At Prince Schwartzenberg's festival,
the look of the man, in that whirl of horrible
occurrences, had efllaced itself again. I as-
sume, therefore, that I saw him for the first
time now, when I saw him risjitly, near at
hand, with convenience, and a sufficient length
of time. The frequent opportunities I after-
wards had, in the Tuileries and at St. Cloud,
(in the latter place especially, at the brilliant
theatre, open only to the Emperor and his
guests, where Talma, Fleury, and La Raucourt
figured,) did but confirm, and, as it were, com-
plete that first impression.

" We had driven to the Tuileries, and ar-
rived through a great press of guards and
people at a chamber, of which I had already
heard, under the name of Salle des Ambassn-
deurs. The way in which, here in this narrow
ill-furnished pen, so many high personages
stood jammed together, had something ludi-
crous and insulting in it, and was indeed the
material of many a Paris jest. — The richest
uniforms and court dresses were, with diffi-
culty and anxiety, struggling hitherward and
thitherward; intermixed with Imperial liveries
of men handing refreshments, who always, by
the near peril, suspended every motion of
those about them. The talk was loud and vi-
vacious on all sides; people seeking acquaint-
ances, seeking more room, seeking better light.
Seriousness of mood, and dignified concentra-
tion of oneself, seemed foreign to all ; and what
a man could not bring with him, there was
nothing here to produce. The whole matter

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.

541

had a distressful, ofTensive air; you found
yourself ill off, and waited out of humour. My
look, however, Qwelt with especial pleasure on
the members of our Austrian Embassy, whose
tearing and demeanour did not discredit the
dignity of the old Imperial house. — Prince
Schwartzenberg, in particular, had a stately
aispect; ease without negligence, gravity with-
out assumption, and over all an honest good-
ness of expression ; beautifully contrasted
with the smirking saloon-activity, the perked
up courtierism and pretentious nullity of many
here. * * *

"At last the time came for going up to au-
dience. On the first announcement of it, all
rushed without order towards the door; you
squeezed along, you pushed and shoved your
neighbour without ceremony. Chamberlains,
pages, and guards, filled the passages and
ante-chamber; restless, overdone officiousness
struck you here too; the soldiers seemed the
only figures that knew how to behave in their
business, — and this, truly, they had learned,
not at Court, but from their drill-sergeants.

"We had formed ourselves into a half-cir-
cle in the Audience Hall, and got placed in
several croM'ded ranks, when the cry of
' L'Eiiipenuf J' announced the appearance of
Napoleon, who entered from the lower side of
the apartment. In simple blue uniform, his
little hat under his arm, he walked heavily to-
wards us. His bearing seemed to me to ex-
press the contradiction between a will that
would attain something, and a contempt for
those by whom it was to be aitained. An im-
posing appearance he would undoubiedly have
liked to have; and yet it seemed to him not
worth the trouble of acquiring; acquiring, I
may say, for by nature he certainly had it not.
Thus there alternated in his manner a negli-
gence and a studiedness, which combined
themselves only in unrest and dissatisfaction.
He turned first to the Austrian Embassy,
which occupied one extremity of the half-
circle. The consequences of the unlucky fes-
tival gave occasion to various questions and
remarks. The Emperor sought to appear
sympathetic, he even used words of emotion;
but thif tone by no means succeeded with him,
and accordingly he soon let it drop. To the
Russian Ambassador, Kurakin, who stood
next, his manner had already changed into a
rougher; and in his farther progress some face
or some thought must have stung him, for he
got into violent anger; broke stormfully out on
some one or other, not of the most important
there, whose name has now escaped me;
could be pacified with no answer, but demand-
ed always new; rated and threatened, and held
the poor man, for a good space, in tormenting
annihilation. Those who stood nearer, and
were looking at this scene, not without anx-
ieties of thrir own, declared afterwards that
there was no cause at all for such fury; that
the Emperor had merely been seeking an op-
portunity to vt-nt his ill humour, and had done
30 oven inientionally on this poor wight, that
all the rest might be thrown into due terror,
and everv 'ipposilion beforehand beaten down.

"As he walked on, he again endeavoured to
speak more mildly; but his jarred humour

still sounded through. His words were shori,
hasty, as if shot from him, and on the most in-
different matters had a passionate rapidity;
nay, when he wished to be kindly, it still
sounded as if he were in anger. Such a raspy,
untamed voice as that of his I have hardly
heard.

"His eyes were dark, overclouded, fixed on
the ground before him; and only glanced
backwards in side-looks now and then, swift
and sharp, on the persons there. When he
smiled, it was but the mouth and a part of the
cheeks that smiled; brow and eyes remained
gloomily motionless. If he constrained these
also, as I have subsequently seen him do, his
countenance took a still more distorted expres-
sion. This union of gloom and smile had
something frightfully repulsive in it. I know
not what to think of the people who have
called this countenance gracious, and its kind-
liness attractive. Were not his features,
though undeniably beautiful in the plastic
sense, yet hard and rigourous like marble;
foreign to all trust, incapable of any hearti-
ness ■?

"What he said, whenever I heard him
speaking, was always trivial both in purport
and phraseology ; without spirit, without wit,
without force, nay, at limes, quite poor and
ridiculous. Faber, in his 'Notices sur I'ln-
terieur de la France,' has spoken expressly
of his questions, those questions which Na-
poleon was wont to prepare before-hand for
certain persons and occasions, to gain credit
thereby for acuteness and special knowledge.
This is literally true of a visit he had made a
short while before to the great Library : all
the way on the stairs he kept calling out about
that passage in Josephus where Jesus is made
mention of; and seemed to have no other task
here but that of showing off this bit of learn-
ing; it had altogether the air of a question got
by heart. * * * His gift lay in saying things
sharp, or at least unpleasant; nay, when he
wanted to speak in another sort, he often made
no more of it than insignificance: thus it be-
fel once, as I myself witnessed in Saint-Cloud,
he went through a whole row of ladies, and
repeated twenty times merely these three
words, " I! fait chaurl." * * *

" At this time there circulated a song on his
second marriage ; a piece composed in the
lowest popular tone, but which doubtless had
originated in the higher classes. Napoleon
saw his power and splendour stained by a
ballad, and breathed revenge; but the police
could no more detect the author than they
could the circulators. To me among others a
copy, written in a bad hand and without name,
had been sent by the city post; I had privately
with friends amused myself over the bur-
lesque, and knew it by heart. Altogether at
the wrong time, exactly as the Emperor,
gloomy and sour of humour, was now passing
me, the words and tune of that song came into
my head ; and the more I strove to drive then
back, the more decidedly they forced them-
selves forward; so that my imagination, ex-
cited by the very frightfulness of the thing,
was getting giddy, and seemed on the point of
breaking forth into the deadliest offence, •
2Z

54%

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

when happily the audience came to an end;
and deep repeated bows accompanied the exit
of Napoleon; who to me had addressed none
of his words, but did, as he passed, turn on me
one searching glance of the eye, with the de-
parture of which it seemed as if a real danger
had vanished.

"The Emperor gone, all breathed free, as
if disloaded from a heavy burden. By degrees
the company again grew loud, and then went
over altogether into the noisy disorder and
haste which had ruled at the commencement.
The French courtiers especially took pains to
redeem their late downbent and terrified bear-
ing by a free jocularity now; and even in de-
scending the stairs there arose laughter and
quizzing at the levee, the solenmity of which
had ended here."

Such was Varnhagen von Ense's presenta-
tion to Napoleon Bonaparte in the Palace of
the Tuileries. What Varnhagen saw remains
a possession for him and for us. The judg-
ment he formed on what he saw will — depend
upon circumstances. For the eye of the in-
tellect " sees in all objects what it brought
with it the means of seeing." Napoleon is a
man of the sort which Varnhagen elsewhere
calls daivionisch, a "demonic man;" whose
meaning or magnitude is not very measurable
by men ; who, with his own7iess of impulse and
insight, with his mystery and strength, in a
word, with his originality, (if we will under-
.stand that,) reaches down into the region of the
perennial and primeval, of the inarticulate and
unspeakable; concerning whom innumerable
things may be said, and the right thing not
said for a long while, or at all. We will leave
him standing on his own basis, at present;
bullying the hapless, obscure functionary
there ; declaring to all the world the meteoro-
logical fact, // fait chaud.

Varnhagen, as we see, has many things to
write about; but the thing which beyond all
others he rejoices to write about, and would
gladly sacrifice all the rest to, is the memory
of Rahel, his deceased wife. Mysterious indi-
cations have of late years flitted round us, con-
cerning a certain Rahel, a kind of spiritual
queen in Germany, who seems to have lived
in familiar relation to most of the distinguish-
ed persons of that country in her time. Travel-
lers to Germany, now a numerous sect with
us, ask you as they return from aesthetic capi-
tals and circles, "Do you know Rahel 1"
Marquis Cusline, in the "Revue de Paris,"
(treating of this book of " Rahel's Letters,")
says, by experience • "She was a woman as
extraordinary as Madame de Stael, for her
faculties of mind, for her abundance of ideas,
her light of soul, and her goodness of heart:
she had, moreover, what the author of
Corinne' did not pretend to, a disdain for
oratory; she did not write. The silence of
minds like hers is a force too. With more
vanity, a person so superior would have
sought to make a public for herself: but
Rahel desired only friends. She spoke to
communicate the life that was in her; never
'lid she speak to be admired." Goeihe testi-
fies that she is a " right woman ; with the

strongest feelings I have ever seen, and the
corapletest mastery of them." Richter ad-
dresses her by the title grflugclte, " winged
one." Such a Rahel might be worth knowing.

We find, on practical inquiry, that Rahel
was of Berlin ; by birth a Jewess, in easy not
affluent circumstances; who lived, mostlj
there, from 1771 to 1833. That her youth
passed in studies, struggles, disappointed pas-
sions, sicknesses, and other sufferings and vi-
vacities to which one of her excitable organi-
zation was liable. That she was deep in
many spiritual provinces, in poetry, in art, in
philosophy; — the first, for instance, or one of
the first to recognise the significance of
Goethe, and teach the Schlegels to do it. That
she wrote nothing; but thought, did, and
spoke, many things, which attracted notice,
admiration spreading wider and wider. That
in 1814 she became the wife of Varnhagen;
the loved wife, though her age was forty-three,
exceeding his by some twelve years or more,
and she could never boast of beauty. That
without beauty, without wealth, foreign ce-
lebrity, or any artificial nimbus whatsoever,
she had grown in her silently progressive way
to be the most distinguished woman in Berlin;
admired, partly worshipped by all manner of
high persons, from Prince Louis of Prussia
downwards; malcing her mother's, and the-n
her husband's house the centre of an alto-
gether brilliant circle there. This is the
" social phenomenon of Rahel." What farther
could be readily done to understand such a
social phenomenon we have endeavoured to
do; with what success the reader shall see.

First of all, we have looked at the Portrait
of Rahel given in these volumes. It is a face
full of thought, of affection, and energy; with
no pretensions lo beauty, yet loveable and at-
tractive in a singular degree. The strong
high brow and still eyes are full of contempla-
tion ; the long upper lip (sign of genius, some
say) protrudes itself to fashion a curved
mouth, condemnable in academies, yet beauti-
fully expressive of laughter and affection, of
strong endurance, of noble silent scorn; ths
whole countenance looking as with cheerful
clearness through a world of great pain and
disappointment ; one of those faces which the
lady meant when she said, "But are not all
beautiful faces ugly, then, to begin withi]" In
the next place, we have read diligently what-
soever we could anywhere find written about
Rahel ; and have to remark here that the things
written about her, iinlike some things written
by her, are generally easy to read. Varnha-
gcn's account of their intercourse ; of his first
young feelings towards her, his long waiting
and final meeting of her in snowy weather
under the Lindens, in company with a lady
whom he knew, his tremulous speaking to her
there, the rapid progress of their intimacy ;
and so onwards to love, to marriage: all this
is touching and beautiful ; a Petrarcan ro-
mance, and yet a reality withal.

Finally, we have read in these three thick
volumes of Letters, — till in the second thick vo-
lume, tne reading faculty unhappily broke
down, and had to skip largel}' thenceforth,
only diving here and thei^e at a venture wilii

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.

bi3

considerable intervals ! Such is the melan-
choly fact. It must be urged in defence that
these volumes are of the toughest reading;
calculated, as we said for Germany, rather than
for England or us. To be written with such
indisputable marks of ability, nay of genius,
of depth and sincerity, they are the heaviest
business we perhaps ever met with. The truth
is, they do not suit us at all. They are subjec-
tive letters, what the metaphysicians call sub-
jective, not oo;'cca'i'c; the grand material of them
is endless depicturing of moods, sensations,
miseries, joys, and lyrical conditions of the
writer; no definite picture drawn, or rarely
any, of persons, transactions, or events which
the writer stood amidst: a wrong material, as
it seems to us. To what end 1 To what end 1
we always ask. Not by looking at itself, but
by looking at thing; out of itself, and ascer-
taining and ruling these, shall the mind become
known. "One thing above all other," says
Goethe once, "I have never thought about think-
ing." What a thrift almost of itself equal to a
fortune in these days : " hahe nie ans Denken
gedacht !" But how much wastefuller still it is
to fed about Feeling! One is wearied of that ;
the healthy soul avoids that. Thou shalt look
outward, not inward. Gazing inward on one's
own self, — why, this can drive one mad, like
the monks of Athos, if at last too long. Un-
profitable writing this subjective sort does seem ;
— at all events, to the present reviewer, no read-
ing is so insupportable. Nay, we ask, might
not the world be entirely deluged by it, unless
prohibited! Every mortal is a microcosm; to
himself a wiao-ocosm, or universe large as
nature; universal nature would barely hold
what he could say about himself. Not a dys-
peptic tailor on any shopboard of this city but
could furnish all England, the year through,
with reading about himself, about his emotions,
and internal mysteries of wo and sensibility,
if England would read him. It is a course
which leads nowhither ; a course which should
be avoided.

Add to all this, that such self-utterance on the
part of Rahel, in these letters, is in the highest
degree vapourous, vague. Her very mode of
writing is complex, nay, is careless, incondite;
with dashes and splashes, with notes of admi-
ration, of interrogation, (nay, both together
sometimes,) with involutions, abruptness,
whirls, and tortuosities ; so that even the
grammatical meaning is altogether burden-
some to seize. And then when seized, alas, it
is as we say, of due likeness to the phraseo-
logj'; a thing crude, not articulated into pro-
positions, but flowing out as in bursts of inter-
jection and exclamation. No wonder the
reading faculty breaks down! And yet we
do gather gold grains and precious thought
here and there ; though out of large wastes of
sand and quicksand. In fine, it becomes clear,
beyond doubting, both that this Rahel was a
woman of rare gifts and worth, a woman of
true genius; and also that her genius has
passed away, and left no impress of itself
there for us. These printed volumes produce
the effect not of speech, but of multifarious,
confused wind-music. It seems to require
the aid of pantomime, to tell us what it means.

But after all, we can understand how talk of
that kind, in an expressive rijuth, with bright
deep eyes, and the vivacity of social move
ment, of question and response, may hava been
delightful ; and moreover that, for those to
whom they vividly recall such talk, these letters
may still be delightful. Hear Marquis de Cus-
tine a little farther:

" You could not speak with her a quarter
of an hour without drawing from that fountain
of light a shower of sparkles. The comic
was at her command equally with the highest
degree of the sublime. The proof that she
was natural is, that she understood laughter as
she did grief; she took it as a readier means
of showing truth; all had tls resonance in her,
and her manner of receiving the impressions
which you wished to communicate to her mo-
dified them in yourself: 3-ou loved her at first
because she had admirable gifts ; and then,
what prevailed over every tiling, because she
was entertaining. She was nothing for you,
or she was all; and she could be all to several
at a time without exciting jealousy, so much
did her noble nature participate in the source
of all life, of all clearness. When one has lost
in youth such friend," &c., &c. ..." It seems to
me you might define her in one word : she had
the head of a sage and the heart of an apostle,
and in spite of that, she was a child and a
woman as much as any one can be. Her mind
penetrated into the obscurest depths of nature;
she was a thinker of as much and more clear-
ness than our Theosophist Saint Martin, whom
she comprehended and admired ; and she felt
like an artist. Her perceptions were always
double; she attained the sublimest truths by
two faculties which are incompatible in ordi-
nary men, by feeling and by reflection. Her
friends asked of themselves, — Whence lame
these flashes of genius which she threw from
her in conversation] Was it the effect of long
studies? Was it the effect of sudden inspi-
rations 1 It was the intuition granted as re-
compense by Heaven to souls that are tint.
These martyr souls wrestle for the tiuth, which
they have a forecast of; they sufl^er for the God
whom they love, and their whole life is the
school of eternity."*

This enthusiastic testimony of the clever sen-
timental marquis is not at all incredible to u:,,
in its way: yet from these letters we have no-
thing whatever to produce that were adec|uate
to make it good. As was said alreadv, it is
not to be made good by excerpts and written
documents; its proof rest* in the memorv of
living witnesses. Meanwhile, from these same
wastes of sand, and even of quicksand danc;er-
ous to linger in, we will try to gather a few
grains the most likegold, that it may be guessed,
by the charitable, whether or not a Pactolus
once flowed there :

"If there be miracles, they are those that
are in our breast; what we do not know, we
call by that name. How astonished, almost
how ashamed are we, when the inspired nio
ment comes, and we get to know them ;"

" One is late in learning to lie : and late in
learning to speak the truth." — " I caniioi, be-

*" Revue de Paris," Novembre, 1637

644

CARL/LL'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

cause I cannot lie. Fancy not that I take
credit for it: I cannot, just as one cannot play
upon the flute."

"In the meanest hut is a romance, if you
knew the hearts there."

"So long as we do not take even the injus-
tice which is done us, and which forces the
burning tears from us; so long as we do not
».ake even this for just and right, we are in the
thickest darkness, without dawn."

"Manure with despair, — but let it be genu-
ine; and you will have a noble harvest."

"True misery is ashamed of itself: hides
itself, and does not complain. You may know
it by that."

" What a commonplace man ! If he did not
live in the same time with us, no mortal would
mention him."

" Have you remarked that Homer, when-
ever he speaks of the water, is always great;
as Goethe is, when he speaks of the stars."

" If one were to say, 'You think it easy to
be original :' but no, it is difficult; it costs a
whole life of labour and exertion,' — you would
think him mad, and ask no more questions of
him. And yet his opinion would be altogether
true, and plain enough withal. Original, I
grant, every man might be, and must be, if
men did not almost always admit mere undi-
gested hearsays into their head, and fling them
out again undigested. Whoever honestly ques-
tions himself, and laithfully answers, is busied
continually with all that presents itself in life ;
and is incessantly inventing, had the thing been
invented never so long before. Honesty be-
longs as a first condition to good thinking; and
there are almost as few absolute dunces as
geniuses. Genuine dunces would always be
original ; but there are none of them genuine :
they have almost always understanding enough
to be dishonest."

" He (the blockhead) tumbled out on me
his definition of genius ; the trivial old dis-
tinctions of intellect and heart; as if there
ever was, or could be, a great intellect with a
mean heart !"

" Goethe 1 When I think of liim, tears conie
into my eyes: all other men I love with my
own strength; he teaches me to love with his.
My Poet !"

" Slave-trade, war, marriage, working-class-
es : — and they are astonished, and keep clout-
ing and remending V

" The whole world is, properly speaking, a
tragic embarras."

" . . . .1 here, Rahel the Jewess, feel
that I am as unique as the greatest appearance
in this earth. The greatest artist, philosopher
or poer, is not above me. We are of the same
element; in the same rank, and stand together.
Whichever would exclude the other, excludes
only himself. But to me it was appointed not
to write, or act, but to live : I lay in embryo till
my century ; and then was, in outward respects,
so fluHS nway. — It is for this reason that I tell
you. But pain, as I know it, is a life too : and
I think with myself, I am one of those figures
which Humaniiy was fated to evolve, and then
never to use more, never to have more: Me
no one can comfort." — " Why not be beside
f»ne>>elf, dear friend 1 There are beautiful pa- f

rentheses in life, which belong neither to us no!
to others : beautiful I name them, because they
give us a freedom we could not get by sound
sense. Who would volunteer to have a ner-
vous feverl And yet it may save one's life.
I love rage ; I use it, and patronize it." — ''Be
not alarmed; I am commonly calmer. But
when I write to a friend's heart, it comes to pass
that the sultry laden horizon of my soul breaks
out in lightning. Heavenly men love lightning."

" To Varnhagen. . . One thing I must write
to thee ; what I thought of last night in bed,
and for the first time in my life. That J, as a
relative and pupil of Shakspeare, have, from
my childhood upwards, occupied myself much
with death, thou mayest believe. But never
did my own death affect me; nay, I did not
even think of this fact, that I was affected by
it. Now, last night there was something I had
to write ; I said Varnhagen must know this
thing, if he is to think of me after I am dead.
And it seemed tome as if I must die; as if my
heart were flitting away over this earth, and I
must follow it; and my death gave me pity:
for never before, as I now saw, had I thought
that it would give anybody pity : of thee I
knew it would do so, and yet it was the first
time in my life I had seen this, or known that I
had never seen it. In such solitude have I lived :
comprehend it ! I thought, when I am dead,
then first v/ill Varnhagen know what suffer-
ings I had; and all his lamenting will be in
vain ; the figure of me meets him again through
all eternity no more ; swept away am I then, as
our poor Prince Louis is. And no one can be
kind to me then ; with the strongest will, with
the exertion of despair, no one: and this
thought of thee about me was what at last af-
fected me. I must write of this, though it af-
flict thee never so." * * *

'■ To Rose, a younger sister, on her marriage in

Amsterdam. — Paris, 1801 Since thy

last letter I am sore downcast. Gone art thou!
No Rose comes stepping in to me with true foot
and heart, who knows me altogether, knows
all my sorrows altogether. When I am sick of
body or soul, alone, alone thou comest not to
me any more ; thy room empty, quite empty,
for ever empty. Thou art away, to try thy for-
tune. O Heaven ! and to me not even trying
is permitted. Am not /in luck! The garden
in the Lindenstrasse where we used to be with
Hanne and Feu — was it not beautifull I will
call it Rose njw; with Hanne and Hanse will
T go often thither, and none shall know of it.
Dost thou recollect that night when I was to set
out with Fink the time before last ? How
thou hadst to sleep up stairs, and then to stay
with mel O my sister, I might be as ill again
— though not for that cause : and thou too,
what may not lie before thee ! But, no, thy
name is Rose ; thou hast blue eyes, and a far
other life than I with my stars and black ones.
* * * Salute mamma a million times; tell
her I congratulate her from the heart ; the
more so as /can never give her such a plea-
sure ! God willed it not. But I, in her place,
would have great pity for a child so circum-
stanced. Yet let her not lament Cor me. I
know all her goodness, and thank her with my
soul. Tell her I have the fate of nations and

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S ^lEMOIRS.

645

of the greatest men before my e5'es here : they
iv' go tumbling even so on the great sea of
Exih.'^Qce, mounting, sinking, swallowed up.
From or T'ld all men have seemed to me like
spring blossoms, which the wind blows off and
whirls; none knows where they fall, and the
fewest come to fruit."

Poor Rahel ! The Frenchman said above
she was an artist and apn<ile, yet had not
ceased to be a child and woman. But we must
stop short. One other little scene, a scene
from her death-bed by Varnhagen, must end
the tragedy:

" . . . . She said to me one morning, after a
dreadful night, with the penetrating tone of that
lovely voice of hers: '0, I am still happy; I
am God's creature still; He knows of me; I
shall come to see how it was good and needful
forme to suffer: of a surety I had something
to learn by it. And am I not already happy
in this trust, and in all the love that I feel and
meet with V

"In this manner she spoke, one day, among
other things, with joyful heartiness, of a dream
which always from childhood she had remem-
bered and taken comfort from. 'In my seventh
year,' said she, 'I dreamt that I saw God quite
near me; he stood expanded above me, and
his mantle was the whole sky ; on a corner of
this mantle I had leave to rest, and lay there
in peaceable felicity till I awoke. Ever since,
through my whole life, this dream has return-
ed on me, and in the worst times was present
also in my waking moments, and a heavenly
comfort to me. I had leave to throw myself
at God's feet, on a corner of his mantle, and
he screened me from all sorrow there : He per-
mitted it.' * • » The following words,
which I felt called to write down exactly as she
spoke them on the 2d of March, are also re-
markable: 'What a history!' cried she with
deep emotion : ' A fugitive from Egypt and
Palestine am I here; and find help, love, and
kind care among you. To thee, dear August,
was I sent by this guiding of God, and thou to
me; from afar, from the old times of Jacob
and the Patriarchs! With a sacred joy I think
of this my origin, of all this wide web of pre-
arrangement. How the oldest remembrances
of mankind are united with the newest reality
of things, and the most distanttimes and places
are brought together. What for so long a pe-
riod of my life I considered as the worst igno-
miny, the sorest sorrow and misfortune, that I
was born a Jewess, this I would not part with
now for any price. Will it not be even so with
these pains of sickness 1 Shall I not one day
mount joyfully aloft on them, too; feel that I
could not want them for any price? O August,
this is just, this is true; we will try to go on
thus!' Thereupon she said, with many tears,
' Dear August, my heart is refreshed to its in-
most; I have thought of Jesus, and wept over
his sorrows ; I have felt, for the first time felt,
that he is my Brother. And Mary, what must
she have suffered! She saw her beloved Son
in agony, and did not sink; she i^fan/l at the
Cross. That I could not have done ; I am not
strong enough for that. Forgive me, God, I
confess h<iw weak I am.' * ♦ *

" At nightfall, on the 6ih of March, Rahel
69

felt herself easier than for long before, and
expressed an irresistible desire to be new
dressed. As she could not be persuaded from it,
this was done, though with the utmost precau-
tion. She herself was busily helpful in it, and
signified great contentment that she had got it
accomplished. She felt so well she expected
to sleep. She wished me good-night, and bade
me also go and sleep. Even the maid, Dora,
was to go and sleep ; however, she did not.

"It might be about midnight, and I was still
awake, when Dora called me: 'I was to come,
she was much worse,' Instead of sleep, Ra-
hel had found only suffering, one distress added
to another; and now all had combined into
decided spasm of the breast. I found her in a
state little short of that she had passed six days
ago. The medicines left for such an occur-
rence (regarded as possible, not probable) were
tried ; but this time with little effect. The
frightful struggle continued; and the beloved
sufferer, writhing in Dora's arms, cried, several
times, 'This pressure against her breast was
not to be borne, was pushing her heart out:'
the breathing, too, was painfully difficult. She
complained that ' it was getting into her head
now, that she felt like a cloud there ;' she lean-
ed back with that. A deceptive hope of some
alleviation gleamed on us for a moment, and
then went out for ever ; the eyes were dimmed,
the mouth distorted, the limbs lamed! In this
state the doctors found her; their remedies
were all bootless. An unconscious hour and
half, during which the breast still occasionally
struggled in spasmodic efforts — and this noble
life breathed out its last. The look I got then,
kneeling almost lifeless at her bed, stamped
itself, glowing, for ever into my heart."

So died Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, bom
Levin, a singular biographic phenomenon of
this century ; a woman of genius, of true
depth and worth, whose secluded life, as one
cannot but see, had in it a greatness far be-
yond what has many times fixed the public ad-
miration of the whole world ; a woman equal
to the highest thoughts of her century; in
whom it was not arrogance, we do believe, but
a just self-consciousness, to feel that "the
highest philosopher, or poet, or artist was not
above her, but of a like element and rank
with her." That such a woman should have
lived unknown and, as it were, silent to the
world, is peculiar in this time.

We say not that she was equal to De Stael,
nor the contrary ; neither that she might have
written De Stacl's books, nor even that she
might not have written far better books. Sha
has ideas unequalled in De Stael ; a sincerity,
a pure tenderness and genuineness which that
celebrated person had not, or had lost. But what
then ? The subjunctive, the optative are vague
moods : there is no tense one can found on but
the preterite of the indicative. Enough for us,
Rahel did not write. She sat imprisoned, or it
might be sheltered and fosieringly embov/ered,
in those circumstances of hers ; she "was not
appointed to write or to act, but only to live."
Call her not unhappy on that account, call her
not useless; nay, perhaps, call her happier
and usefuller. Blessed are the humble, are
they that are not known. It is written, " Seek
2 z 2

646

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

est thou great things, seek them not;" live
where thou art, onl}'^ live wisely, live diligently.
Rahel's life was not an idle one for herself or
for others : how many souls may " the sparkles
showering from that light-fountain" have
kindled and illuminated ; whose new virtue goes
on propagating itself, increasing itself, under in-
calculable combinations, and will be found in
far places, after many days ! She left no stamp
of herself on paper ; but in other ways, doubt it
not, the virtue of her working in this world will
survive all paper. For the working of the good
and brave, seen or unseen, endures literally
for ever, and cannot die. Is a thing nothing
because the morning papers have not men-
tioned iti Or can a nothing be made some-
thing, by ever so much babbling of it there 1
Far better, probably, that no morning or even-
ing paper mentioned it; that the right hand
knew not what the left was doing ! Rahel might
have written books, celebrated books. And yet,
what of books 1 Hast thou not already a bible
to write, and publish in print, that is eternal;
namely, a Life to lead 1 Silence, too, is great ;
there should be great silent ones, too.

Beautiful it is to see and understand that no
worth, known or unknown, rdu die even in this
earth. The work an unknown good man has
done is like a vein of water flowing hidden

under ground, secretly making the ground
green; it flows and flows, it joins itself with
other veins and veinlets ; one day it will start
forth as a visible perennial well. Ten dumb
centuries had made the speaking Dante ; a
well he of many veinlets. William Burnes, or
Burns, was a poor peasant; could not prosper
in his "seven acres of nursery-ground," nor
any enterprise of trade and toil; had to "thi-b
a factor's snash," and read attorney letters, in
his poor hut, " which threw us all into tears;"
a man of no money-capital at all, of no account
at all ; yet a brave man, a wise and just, in
evil fortune faithful, unconquerable to the
death. And there wept withal among the
others a boy named Robert, with a heart of
melting pity, of greatness and fiery wrath ; and
his voice, fashioned here by this poor father,
does it not already reach, like a great elegy,
like a stern prophecy, to the ends of the world 1
"Let me make the songs, and you shall make
the laws !" What chancellor, king, senator,
begirt with never such sumptuosity, dyed vel-
vet, blaring, and celebrity, could you have
named in England that was so momentous as
that William Burns 1 Courage! —

We take leave of Varnhagen with true good-
will, and heariily thank him for the pleasure
and instruction he has given us.

PETITION ON THE COPY-RIGHT BILL.

[THE (London) Examiner, 1839.]

To the Honourable the Commons of Eng-
land in Parliament assembled, the Petition of
Thomas Cariyle, a Writer of Books,
Humbly showeth.

That your petitioner has written certain
books, being incited thereto by various inno-
cent or laudable considerations, chiefly by the
thought that said books might in the end be
found to be worth something.

That your petitioner had not the happiness
to receive from Mr. Thomas Tegg, or any Pub-
lisher, Republisher, Printer, Bookseller, Book-
buyer, or other the like man or body of men,
any encouragement or countenance in writing
of said books, or to discern any chance of re-
ceiving such ; but wrote them by effort of his
own and the favour of Heaven.

That all useful labour is worthy of recom-
pense; that all honest labour is worthy of the
chance of recompense; that the giving and
assuring to each man what recompense his
labour has actually merited, may be said to be
the business of all Legislation, Polity, Govern-
ment, and Social Arrangement whatsoever
among men; — a business indispensable to at-
tempt, impossible to accomplish accurately,
difiicult to accomplish without inaccuracies
ihat become enormous, unsupportable, and the
parent of Social Confusions which never alto-
gether end.

That your petitioner does not undertake to

say what recompense in money this labour of
his may deserve ; whether it deserve any re-
compense in money, or whether money in any
quantity could hire him to do the like.

That this his labour has found hitherto, in
money or money's worth, small recompense or
none; that he is by no means sure of its ever
finding recompense, but thinks, that, if so, it
will be at a distant time, when he, the laborer,
will probably no longer be in need of money,
and those dear to him will still be in need
of it.

That the law does at least protect all persons
in selling the production of their labour at what
they can get for it, in all market places, to a.l
lengths of time. Much more than this the law
does to many, but so much it does to all, and
less than this to none.

That your petitioner cannot discover him-
self to have done unlawfully in this his said
labour of writing books, or to have become
criminal, or have forfeited the law's protection
thereby. Contrariwise your petitioner believes
firmly that he is innocent in said labour; that
if he be found in the long run to have written
a genuine enduring book, his merit therein,
and desert towards England and English and
other men, will be considerable, not easily esti-
mable in money ; that on the other hand, if iiis
book prove false and ephemeral, he and it will
be abolished and forgotten, and no harm done-

DR. FRAN CIA.

647

1 hat, in this manner, your petitioner plays
no unfair game against the world; his stake
being life itself, so to speak, (for the penalty is
death by starvation,) and the world's stake
nothing till once it see the dice thrown ; so
that in any case the world cannot lose.

That in the happy and long-doubtful event
of the game's going in his favour, your peti-
tioner submits that the small winnings thereof
do belong to him or his, and that no other
mortal has justly either part or lot in them at
all, now, henceforth, or for ever.

May it therefore please your Honourable
House to protect him in said happy and long-
doubtful event; and (by passing your Copy*
Right Bill) forbid all Thomas Teggs and
other extraneous persons, entirely unconcerned
in this adventure of his, to steal from him his
small winnings, for a space of sixty years at
the shortest. After sixty years, unless your
Honourable House provide otherwise, they
may begin to steal.

And your petitioner will ever pray.

Thomas Cakltle.

DE. FRAN CI A.*

[Foreign Quarterly Review.]

The confused South American revolution,
and set of revolutions, like the South American
continent itself, is doubtless a great confused
phenomenon; worthy of better knowledge than
men \et have of iu Several books, of which
we here name a few known to us, have been
■written on the subject ; but bad books mostly,
and productive of almost no effect. The heroes
of South America have not yet succeeded in
picturing any image of themselves, much less
any true image.of themselves, in the Cis-Atlan-
tic mind or memory.

Iturbide, " the Napoleon of Mexico," a great
man in that narrow country, who was he? He
made the thrice-celebrated " Plan of Iguala:"
a constitution of no continuance. He became
Emperor of Mexico, most serene " Augustin
I. :" was deposed, banished to Leghorn, to Lon-
don ; decided on returning; — landed on the
shore at Tampico, and was there met, and shot :
this, in a vague sort, is what the world knows
of (he Napoleon of Mexico, most serene Au-
gustin the First, most unfortunate Augustin
the Last. He did himself publish memoirs or
memorials,-|- but few can read them. Oblivion,
and the deserts of Panama, have swallowed
this brave Don Augustin : vate carnit sacro.

And Bolivar, "the Washington of Colum-
bia," Liberator Bolivar, he too is gone without

* 1. Finicrnl Disrnurse delivered ov orrasinn of eelcbrat-
ivrr the uhseqnifs of his late Eirellency the Perpetual Dic-
tator (if the Republic of Paruffuaij. the Citizen ])r. Jusf.
Gaspar Franciit, hij Citizen the Rei\ Manuel JJntonia
Perez, of the Church of the Inrarnannn, on the 'iOtk of
Oetoher. 1840. In the "British Packet ami Arcentine
News." No. 813. nueiios Ayres : March 19, 1812.

2. F.ssni Nistorique sur la Revolution de Paraguay, ct le
Oourernemenl Dictatorial du Oocteur Francia. Par MM.
Reni:ser et I,oii<rchainp. Sde i-dilion. Paris, 1627.

3. Letters on Paraguay. By .1. P. and W. P. Robertson.
S vols. Second edition. London, 1839.

4. Francia's Rei^n of Terror. By the same. Lon-
don, 1S2'.).

5. Letters on South Jlmerica. By the same. 3 vols.
London. 1813.

6. Travels in Chile and La Plata. By John Miers.
2 vols. London, 1826.

7. Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Re-
public nf Pern. 2 vols. 2d edilion. London.'lMO.

+ .\ i^latenipnt of some of the (irincipul F.vents in the
Puhlic Life of .\nsustin de Iturbide: written by Him-
self London, 1843.

his fame. Melancholy lithographs represent
to us a long-faced, square-browed man ; of
stern, considerate, cnHsciOMs/j/ considerate aspect,
mildly aquiline form of nose ; with terrible
angularity of jaw ; and dark deep eyes, some-
what too close together, (for which latter cir-
cumstance we earnestly hope the lithograph
alone is to blame :) this is Liberator Bolivar : —
a man of much hard fighting, hard riding, of
manifold achievements, distresses, heroisms
and histrionisms in this world; a many-coun-
selled, much-enduring man; now dead and
gone : — of whom, except that melancholy litho-
graph, the cultivated European public knows
as good as nothing. Yet did he not fly hither
and thither, often in the most desperate man-
ner, with wild cavalry clad in blankets, with
War of Liberation, " to the death 1" Clad in
blankets, ponchos the South Americans call
them : it is a square blanket, with a short slit
in the centre, which you draw over your head,
and so leave hanging: many a liberative cava-
lier has ridden, in those hot climates, without
further dress at all ; and fought handsomely
too, wrapping the blanket round his arm, wher
it came to the charge. ,

With such cavalry, and artillery and infant
to match, Bolivar has ridden, fighting all t '
way, through torrid deserts, hot mud swam^>
through ice-chasms beyond the curve of ••■-
petual frost, — more miles than Ulysses /er
sailed: let the con\ing Homers take note it.
He has marched over the Andes more '^n
once; a feat analogous to Hannibal'?, and
seemed to think little of it. Often ^I'en,
banished from the firm land, he always (p'rned
again, truculently fought again. He ; '^d 'i
the Cumana regions the " immortal; ^tofy"
of Carababo and several others; tj, <?•' him
was gained the finishing " immortr-^ij^'ory"
of Ayacucho in Peru, where Old-'^'i. for
the last time, burnt powder in thov> /'''"'^'^s,
and then fled without return. Hf) '-^ Dicta-
tor, Liberator, almost emperor, if '^^ lived.
Some three times over did he " solemn
Columbian parliament, lay down^ Dictator
ship with Wasningion eioquence-'^'^ ^s oltea,

&48

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

on pressing request, take it up again, being a
man indispensable. Thrice, or at least twice,
did he, in different places, painfully construct
a Free Constitution ; consisting of " two chani-
bers, and a supreme governor for life with
liberty to name his successor," the reasonablest
democratic constitution you could well con-
struct; and twice, or at least once, did the
people, on trial, declare it disagreeable. He
■was of old, well known in Paris; in the disso-
lute, the philosophico-political and other cir-
cles there. He has shone in many a gay
Parisian suiree, this Simon Bolivar; and he,
in his later years, in autumn, 1825, rode
triumphant into Potosi and the fabulous Inca
Cities, with clouds of feathered Indians somer-
setting and warwhopping round him* — and
"as the famed Ccrro, metalliferous Mountain,
came in sight, the bells all pealed out, and
there was a thunder of artillery," says General
Miller! If this is not a Ulysses, Polytlas and
Polymetis, a much enduring and many coun-
selled man; where was there one? Truly a
Ulysses whose history were worth its ink, —
had the Homer that could do it, made his ap-
pearance !

Of General San Martin, too, there will be
something to be said. General San Martin,
Then we last saw him, twenty years ago or
^. — through the organs of the authentic
stefamaot Mr. Miers, — -had a handsome house
in Mendoza, and "his own portrait, as I re-
marked, hung up between those of Napoleon
and the Duke of Wellington." In Mendoza,
cheerful, mudbuilt, whitewashed Town, seated
at the eastern base of the Andes, " with iis
shady public walk well paved and swept;"
looking out pleasantly, on this hand, over wide
horizons of Pampa wilderness; pleasantly on
that, to the Rocky-chain. Cordillera they call it,
cf the sky-piercing Mountains, capt in snow,
©r with volcanic fumes issuing from them :
there dwelt General Za-Generalissimo San
Martin, ruminating past adventures over half
the world ; and had his portrait hung up be-
tween Napoleon's and the Duke of Welling-
ton's.

\ Did the reader ever hear of San Martin s
march over the Andes in Chile ? It is a feat
yorth looking at; comparable, most likely, to
Aannibal's march over the Alps, while there
vlfis yet no Simplon or Mont-Cenis highway;
a,y i/ transacted itself in the year 1817.
Scuh American armies think little of picking
ihtV way through the gullies of the Andes ; so
the^uenos-Ayres people, having driven out
theiiown Spaniards, and established the reign
of fi\edom, though in a precarious manner,
thouat ii were now good to drive the Spaniards
out ot^hile, and establish the reign of freedom
there ISO instead: whereupon San Martin,
commalder at Mendoza, was a))pointed to do
it. liyVay of preparation, for he began from
afar, Sa\ Martin, while an army is getting
ready atVenddza, assembles "at the fort of
San Cariy by the Aguanda river," some days'
journey f the south, all attainable tribes of
'.he Pehu0\ie Indians, to a solemn Palaver,
w they na\\ it, and civic entertainment, on

— ■ —\\ -—

* lemoirs of General Miller.

the esplanade there. The ceremonies and de-
liberations, as described by General Miller, are
somewhat surprising; still more the conclud-
ing civic feast, which lasts fir three days, which
consists of horses' llesh for the solid part, and
horses' blood with ardent spirits ad libUum for
the liquid, consumed with such alacrity, with
such results as one may fancy. However, the
women had prudently removed all the arms
beforehand; nay, "five or six of these poor
women, taking it by turns, were always found
in a sober state, watching over the rest;" so
that comparatively little mischief was done,
and only "one or two" deaths by quarrel took
place.

The Pehuenches having drunk their ardent-
water and horses' blood in this manner, and
sworn eternal friendship to San Martin, went
home, and — communicated to his enemies,
across the Andes, the road he meant to take.
This was what San Martin had foreseen and
meant, the knowing man! He hastened his
preparations, got his artillery slung on poles,
his men equipt with knapsacks and haversacks,
his mules in readiness; and, in all stillness,
set forth from Mendoza by another road. Few
things in late war, according to General Mil
ler, have been inore noteworthy than this
march. The long straggling line of soldiers,
six thousand and odd, with their quadrupeds
and baggage, winding through the heart of the
Andes, breaking for a brief moment the old
abysmal solitudes! — For you farre along, on
some narrow roadway, through stony laby-
rinths; huge rock-mountains hanging over
your head, on this hand ; and under your feet,
iin that, the roar of mountain-cataracts, horror
of bottomless chasms ; — the very winds and
echoes howling on you in an almost preter-
natural manner. Towering rock-barriers rise
sky-high before you, and behind you, and
around you ; intricate the outgate ! The road-
way is narrow ; footing none of the best. Sharp
turns there are, where it will behove you to
mind your paces; one false step, and you will
need no second; in the gloomy jaws of the
abyss you vanish, and the spectral winds
howl requiem. Somewhat better are the sus-
pension bridges, made of bamboo and leather,
though they swing like see-saws: men are
stationed with lassos, to gin you dexterously,
and fish you up from the torrent, if you trip
there.

Through this kind of country did San Mar-
tin march; straight towards San lago, to fight
the Spaniards and deliver Chile. For am-
munition wagons he had ^nrrus, sledges, canoe-
shaped boxes, made of dried bull's-hide. His
cannons were carried on the back of mules,
each cannon on two mules judiciously harness-
ed : on the packsaddle of your foremost mule,
there rested with firm girths a long strong
pole; the other end of which (forked end, we
suppose) rested, with like girths, on the pack-
saddle of the hindmost mule ; your cannon
was slung with leathern straps on this pole,
and so travelled, swaying and dangling, yet
moderately secure. In the knapsack of each
soldier was eight days' provender, dried beef
ground into snulT-powder, with a nu:dicum of
pepper, and a slight seasoning of biscuit or

DR. FRANCIA.

549

maizemeal ; " store of onions, of garlic," was
not wanting: Paraguay tea could be boiled at
eventide, by fire of scrub-bushes, or almost
of rock-lichens or dried mule-dung. No further
baggage was permitted : each soldier lay, at
night, wrapt in his pmicho, with his knapsack
for pillow, under the canopy of heaven ; lulla-
bied by hard travail : and sank soon enough
into steady nose-melody, into the foolishest
rough colt-dance of unimaginable Dreams.
Had he not left much behind him in the Pam-
pas,— mother, mistress, what not; and was
like to find somewhat, if he ever got across to
Chile living 1 What an entity, one of those
night-leaguerj of San Martin; all steadily
snoring there, in the heart of the Andes, under
the eternal stars! Wayworn sentries with
difficulty keep themselves awake: tired mules
chew barley rations, or doze on three legs;
the feeble watchfire will hardly kindle a cigar;
Canopus and the Southern Cross glitter down ;
and all snores steadily, begirt by granite
deserts, looked on by the constellations in that
manner! San Martin's improvident soldiers
ate out their week's rations almost in half the
time; and for the last three days, had to rush
on, spurred by hunger: this also the knowing
San Martin had foreseen; and knew that they
could bear it, these rugged Guachos of his ;
nay, that they would march all the faster for it.
On the eighth day, hungry as wolves, swift
and sudden as a torrent from the mountains,
they disembogued ; straight towards San lago,
to the astonishment of men ; — struck the
doubly astonished Spaniards into dire mis-
givings; and then, in pitched fight, after due
manoeuvres, into total defeat on the " Pla'ns
of Maypo," and again, positively for the last
time, on the Plains or Heights of "Chacabuco;"
and completed the "deliverance of Chile," as
was thought, for ever and a day.

Alas, the "deliverance of Chile was vbut
commenced; very far from completed. Chile,
after many more deliverances, up to this hour,
is always but "delivered," from one set of
*;vil doers to another set! San Martin's Ma-
noeuvres to liberate Peru, to unite Peru and
Chile, and become some Washington-Napoleon
of the same, did not prosper so well. The
suspicion of mankind had to rouse itself;
Liberator Bolivar had to be called in ; and
some revolution or two to take place in the
interim. San Martin sees himself peremptorily,
though with courtesy, complimented over the
Andes again; and in due leisure, at Mendoza,
hangs his portrait between Napoleon's and
Wellington's. Mr. Miers considered him a
fairspoken, obliging, if somewhat artful man.
Might not the Chilenos as v/ell have taken
him for their Napoleon ? They have gone
farther, and, as yet, fared little better!

The world-famous General O'Higgins, for
example, he, after some revolution or two,
became Director of Chile; but so terribly ham-
pered by "class-legislation," and the like,
what could he make of it? Almost nothing!
O'Higgins is clearly of Irish breed; and,
though a Chileno born, and " natural son of
Don Ambrosio O'Higgins, formerly the Spa-
nish Viceroy of Chile," carries his Hibernian-
ism ia his very face. A most cheery, jovial,

buxom countenance, radiant with pepticity,
good humour, and manifold effectuality ia
peace and war ! Of his battles and adven-
tures let some luckier epic writer sing oi
speak. One thing we Foreign Reviewers will
always remember: his father's immense merits
towards Chile in the matter of highways.
Till Don Ambrosio arrived to govern Chile,
some half century ago, there probably was not
a made road often miles long from Panama to
Cape Horn. Indeed, except his roads, we fear
there is hardly any yet. One omits the old
Inca causeways, as too narrow (being only
three feet broad) and altogether unfrequented
in the actual ages. Don Ambrosia made,
with incredible industry and perseverance and
skill, in every direction, roads. From San
lago to Valparaiso, where only sure-footed
mules with their packsaddles carried goods,
there can now wooden-axled cars, loud-sound-
ing, or any kind of vehicle, commodiously roll.
It was he that shaped these passes, through the
Andes, for most part; hewed them out from
mule-tracks into roads, certain of them. And
think of his casuclias. Always on the higher
inhospitable solitudes, at every few miles' dis-
tance, stands a trim brick cottage, or cashucha,
into which the forlorn traveller, introducing
himself, finds covert and grateful safety; nay
food and refection, — for there are "iron boxes"
of pounded beef or other provender, iron
boxes of charcoal ; to all which the traveller,
having bargained with the Post-office authori-
ties, carries a key.* Steel and tinder are not
wanting to him, nor due iron skillet, with
water from the stream : there he, striking a
light, cooks hoarded victuals at eventide, amid
the lonely pinnacles of the world, and blesses
Governor O'Higgins. With " both hands,"
it may be hoped, — if there is vivacity of mind
in him :

Had you seen this road before it was made.

You would lift botti your hands and bless General Wade.

It affects one with real pain to hear from
Mr. Miers, that the war of liberty has half
ruined these O'Higgins casuchas. Patriot sol-
diers, in want of more warmth than the char
coal box could yield, have not scrupled to tea
down the door, doorcase, or whatever woodr
thing could be come at, and burn it, on l
spur of the moment. The storm-stayed tra\"
ler, who sometimes, in threatening weat''"»
has to linger here for days, "for fifteen /^
together," does not lift both his hands.^''
bless the Patriot soldier!

Nay, it appears, the O'Higgins roads''^'^
in the plain country, have not, of Iate^''s>
been repaired, or in the least attendr^' ^<»
distressed was the finance departmr .'^''^
are now fast verging towards imp;- ^''''^
and the condition of mule-tracks aga "h^t
a set of animals are men and Chilei '^ an
O'Higgins did not now and then ap) "^f^^ong
them, what would become of the ui ""^'es '
Can you wonder that an 0'Higgin"^'^"™e9
loses temper with them ; snuts th '^'"'^^^'^^
outspread hand, clutching some :P^'^''iide
whip, some terrible swordof just '^ gallows

* Miers.

550

CARLYLE'S MISCELLAINEOUS WRITINGS.

lasso therewith, instead, — and becomes a Dr.
Francia now and then ! Both *hc O'Higgins
and Francia, it seems probal'e, are phases
of the same character; both, :.ne begins to
fear, are indispensable from ti. ve to time, in a
world inhabited by men and ( alenos !

As to O'Higgins the Second ?atriot, Natural
son O'Hiprgins, he, as we sai'?, had almost no
success -wnatever as a governor; being ham-
pered by class-legislation. Alas, a governor
in Chile cannot succeed. A governor there
has to resign himself to the want of success;
and should say, in cheerful interrogative tone,
like that Pope elect, who, shov.ing himself on
the balcony, was greeted with mere howls,
" Non piacemmo alpopolo?" — and thereupon pro-
ceed cheerfully to the next fact. Governing is a
rude business everywhere; but in South Ame-
rica it is of quite primitive rudeness ; they
have no parliamentary way of changing minis-
tries as yet; nothing but the rude primitive
way of hanging the old ministry on gibbets,
that the new may be installed ! Their govern-
ment has altered its name, says the sturdy Mr.
Miers, rendered sulky by wh.vt he saw there:
altered its name, but its nati;,r'i continues as
before. Shameless peculation, malversation,
that is their government: op^ ression formerly
by Spanish officials, now by aative hacienda-
dos, land-proprietors, — the tb^ng called justice
still at a great distance frurj them, says the
sulky Mr. Miers ! — Yes, bu. coming always,
answer we; every new gibbeting of an old in-
effectual ministry bringing justice somevvhat
nearer! Nay, as Miers himself has to admit,
certain improvements are already indisputa-
ble. Trade everywhere, in spile of multiplex
confusions, has increased, is increasing: the
days of somnolent monopoly and the old Ac-
apulco ship are gone, quite over the horizon.
Two good, or partially good measures, the
very necessity of things has everywhere
brought about in those poor countries: clip-
ping of the enormous bat-wings of the clergy,
and emancipating of the slaves. Bat-wings,
\ we say; for truly the South American clergy
had grown to be as a kind of bat-vampires : —
readers have heard of that huge South Ameri-
\an blood-sucker, which fixes its bill in your
\rculating vital-fluid as you lie asleep, and
?re sucks ; waving you with the motion
'^ts detestable leather wings into ever deeper
Sp ; and so drinking till it is satisfied, and
Y'v-do not awaken any more ! The South
•^Hican governments, all in natural feud
wi»he old church-dignitaries, and likewise
^^^ Treat straits for cash, have everywhere
coniUgj jj,g monasteries, cashiered the dis-
obed^ dignitaries, melted the superfluous
chur<3^j^te into piasters; and, on the whole,
shorn\ jj,,-,,gjj q^ iheir vampire; so that if it
still suL,Qy ^jj[ ^j least have a chance of
awakeiY ^^^-^^^ ^^^^^^ '—Then again, the
very wi^f soldiers of liberty led to the
emancipu of blacks, yellows, and other
colouredtgQj^g . yQ^r mulatto, nay your
negro, if \irilled, will stand fire as well as
another. \

Poor ^^VVrnerican emancipators ; they
began wilhYey, Raynal and Company, at
ihat gospel Ycial Contract and the Rights

of Man; under the most unpropilious circnm
stances ; and have hitherto got only to the
length we see ! Nay now, it seems, they do
possess " universities," which are at least
schools with other than monk teachers : they
have got libraries, though as yet almost no-
body reads them, and our friend Miers, re
peatedly knocking at all doors of the Grand
Chile National Library, could never to this
hour discover where the key lay, and had to
content himself with looking in through the
windows.* Miers, as already hinted, deside-
rates unspeakable improvements in Chile; — .
desiderates, indeed, as the basis of all, an im-
mense increase of soap-and-water. Yes, thou
sturdy Miers, dirt is decidedly to be removed,
whatever improvements, temporal or spiritual,
may be intended next? According to Miers,
the open, still more the secret personal nasti-
ness of those remote populations, rises almost
towards the sublime. Finest silks, gold bro-
cades, pearl necklaces, and diamond ear-drops,
are no security against it : alas, all is not gold
that glitters; somewhat that glitters is mere
putrid fish-skin ! Decided, enormously in-
: creased appliance of soap-and-water, in all its
branches, with all its adjuncts ; this, according
to Miers, would be an improvement. He says
also (" in his haste," as is probable, like the
Hebrew Psalmist) that all Chileno rnen are
liars ; all, or in appearance, all I A people
that uses almost no soap, and speaks almost
no truth, but goes about in that fashion, in a
state of personal nastiness, and also of spiritual
nastiness, approaching the sublime ; such peo-
ple is not easy to govern well ! —

But undoubtedly by far the notablest of
all these South American phenomena is Dr.
Francia and his Dictatorship in Paraguay;
concerning whom and which we have now
more particularly to speak. Francia and his
" reign of terror" have excited some interest,
much vague wonder in this country ; and
especially given a great shock to constitution-
al feeling. One would rather wish to know
Dr. Francia; — but unhappily one cannot T Out
of such a murk of distracted shadows and
rumours, in the other hemisphere of the world,
who would pretend at present to decipher the
real portraiture of Dr. Francia and his Life?
None of us can. A few credible features,
wonderful enough, original enough in our
constitutional time, will perhaps to the im-
partial eye disclose themselves ; these, with
some endeavour to interpret these, may lead
certain readers into various reflections, con-
stitution aland other, not entirely without benefit.

Certainly, as we say, nothing could well
shock the constitutional feeling of mankind,
as Dr. Francia has done. Dionysius the tyrant
of Syracuse, and indeed the whole breed of
tyrants, one hoped, had gone many hundred
years ago, with their reward; and here, under
our very nose, rises a new "tyrant," claiming
also his reward from us ! Precisely when
constitutional liberty was beginning to be
understood a little, and we flattered ourselves
that by due ballot-boxes, by due registration

* Travels in Chile.

DR. FRANCIA.

551

courts, and bursts of parliamenlary eloquence,
something like a real National Palaver would
be got up in those countries, — arises this tawny-
visaged, lean, inexorable Dr. Francia ; claps
you an embargo on all that ; says to con-
stitutional liberty, in the most tyrannous man-
ner, Hitherto, and no forther ! It is an un-
deniable, though an almost incredible fact,
that Francia, a lean private individual, Practi-
tioner of Law, and Doctor of Divinity, did,
for twenty or near thirty years, stretch out his
rod over the foreign commerce of Paraguay,
saying to it, Cease ! The ships lay high and
dry, their pitchless seams all yawning on the
clay banks of the Parana; and no man could
trade but by Francia's license. If any person
entered Paraguay, and the Doctor did not like
his papers, his talk, conduct, or even the cut
of his face. — it might be the worse for such
person ! Nobody could leave Paraguay on
any pretext whatever. It mattered not that
you were man of science, astronomer, geo-
loger, astrologer, wizard of the north ; Francia
heeded none of these things. The whole world
knows of M. Aime Bonpland ; how Francia
seized him, descending on his tea-establish-
ment in Entre Rios, like an obscene vulture,
and carried him into the interior, contrary
even to the law of nations ; how the great
Humboldt and other high persons expressly
applied to Dr. Francia, calling on him, in the
name of human science, and as it were under
penalty of reprobation, to liberate M. Bonpland;
and how Dr. Francia made no answer, and M.
Bonpland did not return to Europe, and in-
deed has never yet returned. It is also ad-
mitted that Dr. Francia had a gallows, had
jailers, law-fiscals, ofhcials ; and executed, in
his time, " upwards of forty persons," some of
them in a very summary manner. Liberty
of private judgment, unless it kept its mouth
shut, was at an end in Paraguay. Paraguay
lay under interdict, cut off for above twenty
years from the rest of the world, by a new
Dionysius of Paraguay. All foreign commerce
had ceased; how much more all domestic
constitution-building! These are strange facts.
Dr. Francia, we may conclude at least, was
not a common man but an uncommon.

How unfortunate that there is almost no
knowledge of him procurable at present !
Next to none. The Paraguenos can in many
cases spell and read, but they are not a litera-
ry people ; and, indeed, this Doctor was, per-
haps, too awful a practical phenomenon to be
calmly treated of in the literary way. Your
Breughel paints his sea-storm, not while the
ship is labouring and cracking, but after he
has got to shore, and is safe under cover!
Our Buenos-Ayres friends, again, who are not
without habits of printing, lay at a great dis-
tance from Francia, under great obscurations
of quarrel and controversy with him; their
constitutional feeling shocked to an extreme
degree by the things he did. To them, there
could little intelligence float down, on those
long mu('dy waters, through those vast dis-
tracted countries, that was not more or less of
a distracted nature ; and then from Buenos-
Ayres over into Europe, there is another long-
tract of distance, liable to new distractions.

Francia, Dictator of Paraguay, is, at present,
to the European mind, little other than a
chimera; at best, the statement of a puzzle,
to which the solution is still to seek. As the
Paraguenos, though not a literary people, can
many of them spell and write, and are not
without a discriminating sense of true and
untrue, whj' should not some real "Life of
Francia," from those parts, be still possible I
If a writer of genius arise there, he is hereby
invited to the enterprise. Surely in all places
your writing genius ought to rejoice over an
acting genius, when he falls in with such ;
and say to himself: "Here or nowhere is the
thing for me to write of! Why do I keep pen
and ink at all, if not to apprize men of this
singular acting genius and the like of him!
My fine-arts and aesthetics, my epics, litera-
tures, poetics, if I will think of it, do all at
bottom mean either that or else nothing what-
ever!"

Hitherto our chief source of information as
to Francia is a little book, the second on our
list, set forth in French some sixteen years ago,
by the Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp.
Translations into various languages were exe-
cuted ; of that into English it is our painful duty
to say that no man, except in the case of ex-
treme necessity, shall use it as reading. The
translator, having little fear of human deiection,
and seemingly none at all of divine or diabolic,
has done his work even unusually ill ; with ig-
norance, with carelessness, with dishonesty
prepense; coolly onuttmg whatsoever he saw
that he did not understand: — poor man, if he
yet survive, let him reform in time! He has
made a French book, which was itself but lean
and dry, into the most wooden of English false
books ; doing evil as he could in that matter ; —
and claimed wages for it. as if the feat deserved
iva^aes first of all ! Reformation, even on thu
small scale, is highly necessary.

The Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp were,
and we hope still are, two Swiss Surgeons;
who in the year 1819 resolved on carrying their
talents into South America, into Paraguay, wit'
views towards "natural history," among oth'
things. After long towing and struggling i
those Parana floods, and distracted provinc^»
after much detention by stress of weather 'd
of war, they arrived accordingly in Franks
country; but found that without Frar^'s
leave they could not quit it again. Fr'^'a^
was now a Dionysius of Paraguay. Pav'^'^y
had grown to be, like some mou;etra ^^'^d
other contrivances of art and nature, ''>' 'o
enter, impossible to get out of. Our br- ^"r-
geons, our brave Rengger (for it is hf-'"^ o^
the two that speaks and writes) reconc' '"cm-
selves ; were set to doctoring of Frr "^ ■'' ^o''
diery, of Francia's self; collecied "'^ '^P*'
beetles; and, for six years, endut ^"^''' •'o'
rather handsomely : at length, in ^' '"^ ^'^
bargo was for a time lifted, and tip"' home.
This book was the consequenc '^ "°' *
good book, but at that date the/''*-' °n 'he
subject, no other book at all; -'^ there yet
any other better, or as good, ^o^^siderit to
be authentic, veracious, modf •^ accurate;
though lean and dry, it is intelli^''''^'|""al; in

the French original, not unrc ^* "^^ ^^>'

653

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

say it embraces up to this date, the present date,
all of importance that is yet known in Europe
about the Doctor Despot; add to this its indispu-
table brevity ; the fact that it can be read sooner
by several hours than any other Dr. Fruncia :
these are its excellences, — considerable, though
wholly of a comparative sort.

After all, brevity is the soul of wit! There
is an endless merit in a man's knowing when
to have done. The stupidest man, if he will
be brief in proportion, may fairly claim some
hearing from us: he too, the stupidest man,
has seen something, heard something, which
is his own, distinctly peculiar, never seen or
heard by any man in this world before ; let him
tell us that, — he, brief in proportion, shall be
welcome !

The Messrs. Robertson, with their "Francia's
Reign of Terror," and other books on South
America, have been much before the world of
late; and failed not of a perusal from this re-
viewer; whose next sad duty it now is to say
a word about them. The Messrs. Robertson,
some thirty or five-and-thirty years ago, were
two young Scotchmen, from the neighbourhood
of Edinburgh, as would seem : who, under fair
auspices, set out for Buenos-Ayres, thence for
Paraguay, and other quarters of that remote
continent, in the way of commercial adventure.
Being young men of vivacity and open eye-
sight, they surveyed with attentive view those
convulsed regions of the world ; wherein it was
evident that revolution raged not a little; but
also that precious metals, cowhides, Jesuits'
bark, and multiplex commodities, were never-
theless extant ; and iron or brazen implements,
\ ornaments, cotton and woollen clothing, and Bri-
\ tish manufactures not a kw, were objects of de-
sire to mankind. The brothers Robertson, acting
on these facts, appear to have prospered, to
have extensively flourished in their commerce ;
which they gradually extended up the river
Plate, to the city of the Seven Streams or Cur-
rents, (Corrienlcs so called,) and higher even to
Assumpcion,metropolis of Paraguay; in which
latter place, so extensive did the commercial
interests grow, it seemed at last expedient that
one or both of the prosperous brothers should
take up his personal residence. Personal resi-
dence accordingly they did take up, one or both
of them, and maintain, in afluctuating way, now
in this city, now in that, of the De la Plata,
Parana or Paraguay countr)', for a considera-
ble Gpace of years; how many years, in precise
arithmeticjit is impossible, from these inextrica-
bly com>plicated documents now before us, to as-
certain. In Paraguay itself, in Assumpcion city
itseif, it is very clear, the brothers Robertson did,
successively or simultaneously, in a fluctuating
inextricabi'e manner, live for certain years ; and
occasionally saw Dr. Francia with their own
eyes, — thouisjh to them or others, he had not yet
become notable.

Mountains', of cow and other hides, it would
appear quitted those countries by movement
of the brothers Robertson, to be worn out in
Europe as tanned boots and horse-harness, with
more or less i-.atisfaction, — not without due
profit to the merchants, we shall hope. About
the time of Dr. FVancia's beginning his "reign
cf terror," or ear.Uer it may be, (for there are

no dates in these inextricable documents,) the
Messrs. Robertson were lucky enough to take
final farewell ofParaguay, and carry their com-
mercial enterprises into other quarters of that
vast continent, where the reign was not of
terror. Their voyagings, counter-voyagings.,
comings and goings, seem to have been exten-
sive, frequent, inextricably complex; to Europe,
to Tucuman, to Glasgow, to Chile, to Laswade
and elsewhither; too complex for a succinct
intelligence, as that of our readers has to be at
present. Suflicient for us to know, that the
Messrs. Robertson did bodily, and for good, re-
turn to their own country some few years since;
with what nel result of cash is but dimly
adumbrated in these documents; certainly with
some increase of knowledge — had the unfold-
ing of it but been brief in proportion! Indis-
putably the Messrs. Robertson had somewhat
to tell : their eyes had seen some new things,
of which their hearts and understandings had
taken hold more or less. In which circum-
stances the Messrs. Robertson decided on pub-
lishing a book. Arrangements being made,
two volumes of "Letters on Paraguay" came
out, with due welcome from the world, in 1839.
We have read these "Letters" for the first
tirpe lately: a book of somewhat aguco/fs struc-
ture : immeasurably thinner than one could
have wished ; otherwise not without merit. It
is written in an ofl-hand, free-glowing, very art
less, very incorrect style of language, of thought,
and of ccmception ; breathes a cheerful, eupep-
tic, social spirit, as of adventurous South-.'\me-
rican Britons, worthy to succeed in business;
gives one, here and there, some visible concrete
feature, some lively glimpse of those remote
sun-burnt countries; and has throughout a kind
of bantering humour or quasi-humour, a jovi-
ality and healthiness of heart, which is com-
fortable to the reader, in some measure. A
book not to be despised in these dull times : one
of that extensive class of books which a reader
can peruse, so to speak, " with one eye shut
and the other not open ;" a considerable luxury
for some readers. These "Letters on Para-
guay" meeting, as would seem, a unanimous
approval, it was now determined by the Messrs.
Robertson that they would add a third volume,
and entitle it "Dr. Francia's Reign of Terror."'
They did so, and this likewise the present re-
viewer has read. Unluckily the authors had,
as it were, nothing more whatever to say about
Dr. Francia, or next to nothing; and under this
condition, it must be owned they have done
their book with what success was well possi-
ble. Given a cubic inch of respectable Castile
soap. To lather it up in water so as to fill one
puncheon wine-measure: this is the problem;
let a man have credit (of its kind) for doing
his problem! The Messrs. Robertson have
picked almost every fact of significance from
" Rengger and Longchamp," adding some not
very significant reminiscences of their own;
this is the square inch of soap; you lather it
up in Robertsonian loquacity, joviality, Com-
mercial-Inn banter, Leading-Article philoso-
phy, or other aqueous vehicles, till it fills the
puncheon, the volume of four hundred pages,
and say " There !" The public, it would seem,
did not fling even this in the face of tha

DR. FRANCIA.

553

venders, but bought it as a puncheon filled ; and [
the consequences are already here: Three vo-
lumes more on "South America," from the
same assidious Messrs Robertson ! These also,
in his eagerness, this present reviewer )ias
read ; and has, alas, to say that they are siir ply
the old volumes in new vocables, under a new
figure. Intrinsically all that we did not already
know of these three volumes, — there are crafts-
men oftio great eminence who will undertake
to write it in one sheet! Yet there they stand,
three solid-looking volumes, a thousand printed
pages and upwards; three puncheons more
lathered out of the old square inch of Castile
.soap ! It is too bad. A necessitous ready-
witted Irishman sells you an indifferent grey-
horse ; steals it overnight, paints it black, and
sells it to ytiu again on the morrow; he is
haled before judges, sharply cross-questioned,
tried and almost executed, for such adroitness
in horse-flesh: but there is no law yet as to
books !

M. de la Condamine, about a century ago,
■was one of a world-famous company that went
into those equinoctial countries, and for the
space of nine or ten years did exploits there.
From Quito to Cuenca he measured you de-
grees of the meridian, climbed mountains, took
observations, had adventures ; wild Creoles op-
posing Spanish nescience to human science;
■wild Indians throwing down 3'our whole cargo
of instruments occasionally in the heart of re-
mote deserts, and striking work there.* M. de
la Condamine saw bull-fights at Cuenca, five
days running; and, on the fifth day, saw his
unfortunate too audacious surgeon massacred
by popular tumult there. He sailed the entire
length of the Amazons River, in Indian canoes;
over narrow Pongo rapids, over infinite mud-
■watcrs, the infinite tangled wilderness with its
reeking desolation on the right hand of him
and on the left ; — and had mischances, adven-
tures, and took celestial observations all the
way, and made remarks ! Apart altogether
from his meridian degrees, which belong in a
very strict sense to world-history and the ad-
vancement of all Adam's sinful posterity, this
man and his party saw and suffered many
hundred times as much of mere romance ad-
venture as the Messrs. Robertson did : —
Madame Godin's passage down the Amazons,
and frightful life-in-death amid the howling
forest-labyrinths, and wrecks of her dear
friends, amounts to more adventure of itself
than was ever dreamt of in the Robertsonian
world. And of all this M. de la Condamine
gives pertinent, lucid, and conclusively intel-
ligible and credible account in one very small
octavo volume; not quite the eighth part of
what Messrs. Robertson have already written,
in a not pertinent, not lucid, or conclusively
intelligible and credible manner. And the
Messrs. Robertson talk repeatedly, in their last
volumes, of wriiing still other volumes on
Chilp " if the public will encourage." The
Pub.'^; will be a monstrous fool if it do. The
Public ought to stipulate first that the real
new knowledge forthcoming thereabout Chile
be separated from the knowledge or ignorance

♦ Condamine: Relation d'un 'Voyage dans I'Interieur
4t I'Amferique in^ridionale.
70

already known ; that the preliminary question
be rigorously put. Are several volumes the
space to hold it, or a small fraction of one vo-
lume 7

On the whole, it is a sin, good rearier, though
there is no Act of Parliament against it; an
indubitable malefaction or crime. No mortal
has a rig|lit to wag his tongue, much less to
wag his pen, M-ithout saying something: he
knows not what mischief he does, past compu-
tation ; scattering words without meanii'g, —
to afflict the whole world )'et, before ihey
cease ! For thistle-down flies_ abroad 011 all
winds and airs of wind: idle thistles, idle dande-
lions, and other idle products of Nature or the
human mind, propagate themselves in that
way ; like to cover the face of the earth, did
not man's indignant providence with reap-hook,
with rake, with autumnal steel-and-linder, in-
tervene. It is frighiful to think how every idle
volume flies abroad like an idle globular down-
beard, embryo of new millions; every weird
of it a potential seed of infinite new downbeards
and volumes ; for the mind of man is feracious,
is voracious ; germinative, above all things,
of the downbeard species! Why, the author
corps in Great Britain, every soul of them iyi-
dincd to grow mere dandelions if permitted, is
now supposed to be about ten thousand strong ;
and the reading corps, who read merely to es-
cape from themselves, with one eye shut and
the other not open, and will put up with almost
any dandelion or thing which they can read
without opening both their eyes, amounts to
twenty-seven millions all but a few ! O could
the Messrs. Robertson, spirited, articulate-
speaking men, once know well in what a
comparatively blessed mood you close your
brief, intelligent, conclusive M. de la Conda-
mine, and feel that you have passed your
evening well and nobly, as in a temple of wis-
dom,— not ill and disgracefully, as in brawling
tavern supper-rooms, with fools and noisy per-
sons,— ah, in that case, perhaps the ]\Tessrs. Ro-
bertson would write their new work on Chile
in part of a volume !

But enough of this Robertsonian department ;
which we must leave to the Fates and Supreme
Providences. These spirited, articulate-speak-
ing Robertsons are far from the worst of their
kind; nay, among the best, if you will ; — only
unlucky in this case, in coming across, the
autumnal steel and tinder! Let it cease to
rain angry sparks on them : enough now, and
more than enough. To cure that unfortunate
department by philosophical criticism — the at-
tempt is most vain. Who will dismount on a
hasty journey, with the day declining, to at-
tack musquito-swarms with the horsewhip ?
Spur swiftly through them; breathing perhaps
some pious prayer to heaven. By the horse
whip they cannot be killed. Drain out th«
swamps where they are bred, — Ah,couldst thou
do something towards that ! And in the mean
while: How to get on with this of Dr Francia.

The materials, as our reader sees, are of the
miserablest: mere intricate inanity (if we ex-
cept poor wooden Vi'c^?,?''',) and little more;
not facts, but broken shadows of facts ; cloud:j
of confused bluster and jargon; — the whole
still more bewildered in the iio6«r/sons, by wha*
3A

654

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

we may call a running shriek of constitutional
denunciation, "sanguinary tyrant," and so
forth. How is any picture of Francia to be
fabricated out of that ? Certainly, first of all,
by omission of the running shriek ! This hitter
we shall tolally omit. Francia, the sanguinary
tyrant, was not bound to look at the world
tbrougn Rengger's eyes, through Parish Robert-
son's eyes, but faithfully through his own eyes.
We are to consider that, in all human likeli-
hood, this Dionysius of Paraguay did mean
something; and then ask in quietness, Whatl
The running shriek once hushed, perhaps
many things will compose themselves, and
straggling fractif)ns of information, almost inli-
nilessimally small, may become unexpectedly
luminous !

An unscientific cattle-breeder and tiller of
the earth, in some nameless rlmrra not far from
the city of Assumpcion, was the father of this
remarkable human individual ; and seems to
have evoked h/m into being some time in the
year 17.57. The man's name is not known to
us; his very nation is a point of controversy :
Francia himself gave him out for an immigrant
of French extraction; the popular belief was,
that he had wandered over from Brazil. Por-
tuguese or French, or both in one, he produced
this human individual, and had him christened
by the name of Jose Caspar Rodriguez Fran-
cia, in the year above mentioned. Rodriguez no
doubt had a mother too; but her name also,
nowhere found mentioned, must be omitted in
this delineation. Her name, and all her fond
maternities, and workings, and suflerings,
good brown lady, are sunk in dumb forgetful-
ness ; and buried there along with her, under
the twenty-fifth parallel of Southern Latitude;
and no British reader is required to interfere
with them ! Jose Rodriguez must have been
a loose-made tawny creature, much given to
taciturn reflection ; probably to crying hu-
mours, with fits of vehement ill-nature: such
a subject, it seemed to the parent Francia
cautiously reflecting on it, would, of all attain-
able trades, be suitablest for preaching the gos-
pel, and doing the divine oifices, in a country
like Paraguay. There were other young Fran-
cias ; at least one sister and one brother in ad-
dition ; of whom the latter by and by went
mad. The Francias, with their adust charac-
ter, and vehement French-Portuguese blood,
had perhaps all a kind of aptitude for madness.
The Dictator himself was subject to the terri-
blest fits of hypochondria, as your adust "men
of genius" too frequently are! The lean Rod-
riguez, we fancy, may have been of a devo-
tional turn withal; born half a century earlier,
he had infallibly been so. Devotional or not,
he shall be a priest, and do the divine ofl^ces
in Paraguay, perhaps in a very unexpected
way.

Rodriguez having learned his hornbooks and
elementary branches at Assumpcion, was ac-
cordingly despatched to the University of Cor-
dova in Tucuman, to pursue his curriculum in
that seminary. So far we know, but almost no
farther. What kind of curriculum it" was,
what lessons, spiritual spoon meat, the poor
Jank sallow boy was crammed with, in Cor-

dova High Seminary; and how he took to it,
and pined or throve on it, is entirely uncertain.
Lank sallow boys in the Tucuman and other
high Seminaries are often dreadfully ill-dealt
with, in res))ect to their spiritual spoonmeat,
as tiie times go ! Spoon-poistm you might often
call it rather: as if the object were to make
tliem Mithridateses, abld to live on poison !
Which maybe a useful art, too, in its kind!
Nay, in fact, if we consider it, these high semi-
naries and establishments exist there, in
Tucuman and elsewhere, not for that lank
sallow boy's special purposes, but for their
own wise purposes; they were made and
put together, a long while since, without taking
the smallest counsel of the sallow boy ! Fre-
quently they seem to say to him, all along:
" This precious thing that lies in thee, O sallow
boy, of 'genius,' so called, it may to thee and
to eternal Nature, be precious; but to us and
to temporary Tucuman, it is not precious, but
pernicious, deadly : we require thee to quit this,
or expect penalties !" And yet the poorboy, how
can he quit it ; eternal Nature herself, from
the depths of the Universe, ordering him to go
on with it"! From the depths of the Universe,
and of his own Soul, latest revelatioti of the
Universe, he is, in a silent, imperceptible, but
irrefragable manner, directed to go on with it,
— and has to go, though under penalties. Pe-
nalties of very death, or worse ! Alas, the
poor boy, so willing to obey tempoiary Tucu-
mans, and yet unable to disobey eternal Na-
ture, is truly to be pitied. Thou shah be
Rodriguez Francia ! cries Nature, and the
poor boy to himself. 'J^'hou shall be Ignatius
Loyola, Friar Ponderoso, Don Fatpauncho
Usandwonto! cries Tucuman. The poor crea
ture's whole boyhood is one long lawsuit:
Rodriguez Francia against All Persons in ge-
neral. It is so in Tucuman, so in most places
You cannot advise eflfectually into what high
seminary he had best be sent; the only safe
way is to bargain beforehand, that he have
force born with him suthcient to make itself
good against all persons in general !

Be this as it may, the lean Francia prose-
cutes his studies at Cordova, waxes gradually
taller towards new destinies. Rodriguez Fran-
cia, in some kind of Jesuit scullcap, and black
college serge gown, a lank rawboned creature,
stalking with a down-look through the irregu-
lar public streets of Cordova in those years,
with an infinitude of painful unspeakabilities
in the interior of him, is an interesting object
to the historical mind. So much is unspeak-
able, O Rodriguez; and it is a most strange
Universe this we are born into; and the theo-
rem of Ignatius Loyola and Don Fatpauncho
Usandwonto seems to me to hobble somewhat !
Much is unspeakable; lying within one like a
dark lake of doubt, of Acherontic dread lead-
ing down to Chaos itself. Much is unspeak-
able, answers Francia ; but somewhat also is
speakable, — this for exam])le : That I will not
be a priest in Tucutnan in these circum-
stances; that I should like decidedly to be a
secular person rather, were it even a lawyer!
Francia, arrived at man's years, changes from
Divinity to Law. Some say it was in Divinity
that he graduated, and got his Doctor's hat;

DR. FRANCIA.

555

Rengger says, Divinity ; the Robertsons, like-
lier to be incorrect, call him Doctor of Laws.
To our present readers it is all one, or nearly
so. Kiuiriguez quitted the Tucuman Jlhiia
Maler, wiih some beard on his chin, and reap-
peared in Assumpcion to look out for practice
at the bar.

What had Rodriguez contrived to learn, or
grow to, under this \\\?,Mina Mater in Cordova,
when he quitted her? The answer is a mere
guess ; his curriculum, we again say, is not yet
known. Some faint smattering of Arithmetic,
or the everlasting laws of numbers; faint
smattering of Geometry, everlasting laws of
Shapes ; these things we guess, not altogether
in the dark, Rodriguez did learn, and found
extremely remarkable. Curious enough : That
round Globe put into that round Drum, to
touch it at the ends and all round, it is pre-
cisely as if you clapt 2 into the inside of 3,
not a jot more, not a jot less : wonder at it, 0
Francia; for in fact it is a thing to make one
pause! Old Greek Archimedeses, Pythago-
rases, dusky Indians, old nearly as the hills,
detected such things ; and they have got across
into Paraguay, into this brain of thine, thou
happy Francia. How is it, too, that the Al-
mighty Maker's planets run in those heavenly
spaces, in paths which are conceivable in thy
poor human head as Sections of a cone?
The thing thou conceives! as an Ellipse, the
Almighty Maker has set his Planets to roll in
that. Clear proof, which neither Loyola nor
Usandwonto can contravene, that Thou too art
denizen of this universe; that thou too, in
some inconceivable manner, wert present at
the Conncil of the Gods! — Faint smatterings
of such things Francia did learn in Tucuman.
Endless heavy fodderings of Jesuit theology,
poured on him and round him by the wagon-
load, incessantly, and year after year, he did
not learn ; but left lying there as shot rubbish.
On the other hand, some slight inkling of hu-
man grammatical vocables, especially of
French vocables, seems probable. French
vocables; bodil)'^ garments of the "Encyclo-
pedie" and Gospel according to Volney, Jean
Jacques and Company; of infinite import to
Francia !

Nay, is it not in some sort beautiful to see
the sacred flame of ingenuous human curi-
osity, love of knowledge, awakened, amid the
damp somnolent vapours, real and metaphori-
cal, the damp tropical poison-jungles, and fat
Lethean stupefactions and entanglements, even
in the heart of a poor Paraguay Creole ] Sa-
cred flame, no bigger yet than that of a far-
thing rushlight, and with nothing but second-
hand French class-books in science, and in
politics and morals nothing but the Raynals
and Rousseaus, to feed it: an i^/-fed, lank-qua-
vering, most blue-coloured, almost ghastly-
looking flame; but a needful one, a kind of
sacred one even that! Thou shalt love know-
ledge, search what is the truth of this God's
Universe; thou art privileged and bound to
love it, to search for it, in Jesuit Tucuman, in
all places that the sky covers; and shall try
even Volneys for help, if there be no other
help! This poor blue-coloured inextinguish-
able flame in the soul of Rcxiriguez Francia,

there as it burns better or worse, in many
figures, through the whole life of him, is very
notable to me. Blue flame though it be, it
has to burn up considerable quantities of poi-
sonous lumber from the general face of Para-
guay ; and singe the profound impenetrable
forest-jungle, spite of all its brambles and lia-
nas, into a very black condition, — intimating
that there shall be disease and removal on the
part of said forest-jungle ; peremptory removal;
that the blessed Sunlight shall again look in
upon his cousin Earth, tyrannously hidden
from him, for so many centuries now! Cou-
rage, Rodriguez !

Rodriguez, indifferent to such remote consi-
derations, successfully addicts himself to law-
pleadings, and general private studies, in the
city of Assumpcion. We have always under-
stood he was one of the best advocates, per-
haps the very last, and, what is still more, the
justest that ever took briefs in that country.
This the Robertsonian "Reign of Terror" it-
self is willing to admit, nay repeatedily as-
serts, and impresses on us. He was so just
and true, while a young man; gave such di-
vine prognostics of a life of nobleness ; and
then, in his riper years, so belied all that!
Shameful to think of; he bade fair, at one time,
to be a friend of humanity of the first water;
and then gradually, hardened by political suc-
cess, and love of power, he became a mere
ravenous goul, or solitary thief in the night;
stealing the constitutional palladiums from
their parliament houses — and executed up
ward of forty persons ! Sad to consider what
men and friends of humanity will come to!

For the rest it is not given to this or as yet to
any editor, till a Biography arrive from Para-
guay, to shape out, with the smallest clearness,
a representation of Francia's existence as an
Assumpcion Advocate ; the scene is so distant,
the conditions of it so unknown. Assumpcion
city, near three hundred years old now, lies in
free-and-easy fashion, on the left bank of the Pa-
rana River, embosomed among fruit-forests, rich
tropical umbrage; thick wood round it every-
where,— which serves for defence too against
the Indians. Approach by which of the vari-
ous roads you will, it is through miles of soli-
tary shady avenue, shutting out the sun's glare;
over-canopying, as with grateful green awn-
ing, the loose sand-highway, — where, in the
early part of this century, (date undiscoverable
in those intricate volumes.) Mr. Parish Robert-
son, advancing on horseback, met one cart
driven by a smart brown girl, in red 'iciciJice,
with long black hair, not unattractive to look
upon ; and for a space of twelve miles, no
other articulate-speaking thing whatever.*

The people of that profuse climate live in
a careless abundance, troubling themselves
about few things ; build what wooden carts,
hide-beds, mud-brick houses, are indispens-
able; import what of ornamental lies handiest
abroad ; exchanging it for Paraguay tea in.
sewed goatskins. Riding through the town of
Santa Fe, with Parish Robertson at three in
the afternoon, you will find the entire popula-
tion just risen from its siesta ; slipshod, half-

♦ Letters on Paraguay

656

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

buttoned; sitting in its front verandahs open
to the street, eating pumpkins with voracity, —
bunlf to the ears in pumpkins; imbibing the
grateful saccharine juices, in a free and easy
way. They look up at the sound of your
hoofs, not without good humour. Frondent
trees parasol the streets, — thanks to Nature
and the Virgin. You will be welcome at their
tertuHas, — a kind of " swurriV," as the flunkey
says, "consisting of flirtation and the usual
trimmings : swarrie on the table about seven
o'clock." Before this, the whole population, it
is like, has gone to bathe promiscuously, and
cool and purify itself in the Parana: promis-
cuously, but you have all got linen bathing-
garments and can swash about with some de-
cency; a great relief to the human taberna-
cle in those climates. At your tertulia, it is
said, the Andalusian eyes, still bright to the
tenth or twelfth generation, are distractive,
seductive enough, and argue a soul that would
repay cultivating. The beautiful half-savages ;
full of wild sheet-lightning, which might be
made continuously luminous! Tertulia well
over, you sleep on hide stretchers, perhaps
here and there on a civilized mattrass, within
doors or on the housetops.

In the damp flat country parts, where the
mosquitoes abound, you sleep on high stages,
mounted on four poles, forty feet above the
ground, attained by ladders; so high, blessed
be the Virgin, no mosquito can follow to sting,
— it is a blessing of the Virgin or some other.
You sleep there, in an indiscriminate arrange-
ment, each in his several poncho or blanket-
cloak ; with some saddle, deal-box, wooden
log, or the like, under your head. For bed-
tester is the canopy of everlasting blue: for
night-lamp burns Canopus in his infinite
spaces; mosquitoes cannot reach you, if it
please the Powers. And rosy-fingered Morn,
sufl'usingthe east with sudden red and gold, and
other flame-heraldry of swift-advancing Day,
attenuates all dreams ; and the sun's first level
light-volley sheers away sleep from living
creatures everywhere; and living men do
ihen awaken on their four-post stage there, in
the Pampas, — and might begin with prayer if
they liked, one fancies ! There is an altar
decked on the horizon's edge yonder, is there
not; and a cathedral wide enough 1 — How,
over night, 5'ou have defended yourselves
against vampires, is unknown to this editor.

The Guacho population, it must be owned,
is not yet fit for constitutional liberty. They
are a rude people ; lead a drowsy life, of ease
and sluttish abundance, — one shade, and but
one, above a dog's life, which is defined as
" ease and scarcity." The arts are in their in-
fancy; and not less the virtues. For equip-
ment, clothing, bedding, household furniture,
and general outfit of every kind, those simple
populations depend much on the skin of the
cow; making of it most things wanted, lasso,
bolas, ship-cordage, rimmings of cart-wheels,
epatterdashes, beds, and house-doors. In coun-
try piaces they sit on the skull of the cow :
General Artigas was seen, and spoken with,
|)y one of the Robertsons, sitting among field-
pfficers, all on cow-skulls, toasting stripes of
be<jf, and "dictating to three secretaries at

once."* They sit on the; skull of the cow in
country places ; nay they heat themselves,
and even burn lime, by igniting the carcass of
the cow.

One art they seem to have perfected, and
oneonly — that of riding. Astleys and Ducrows
must hide their head, all glories of Newmarket
and Epsom dwindle to extinction, in compari-
son of Guacho horsemanship. Certainly if
ever Centaurs lived upon the earth, these are
of them. They stick on their horses as if both
were one flesh; galloping where there seems
hardly path foV an ibex; leaping like kan-
garoos, and flourishing their nooses and bolases
the while. They can whirl themselves round
under the belly of the horse, in cases of war-
stratagem, and stick fast, hanging on by the
mere great toe and heel. You think it is a
drove of wild horses galloping up: on a sud-
den, with wild scream, it becomes a troop of
Centaurs with pikes in their hands. Nay, they
have the skill, which most of all transcends
Newmarket, of riding on horses that are not
fed; and can bring fresh speed and alacrity
out of a horse which, with you, was on the
point of lying down. To ride on three horses
with Ducrow they would esteem a small feat:
to ride on the broken-winded fractional part
of one horse, that is the feat!

Their huts abound in beef, in reek also, and
rubbish ; excelling in dirt most places that
human nature has anywhere inhabited. Poor
Guachos ! They drink Paraguay tea, sucking
it up in succession, through the same tin pipe,
from one common skillet. They are hospita-
ble, sooty, leathery, lying, laughing fellows ;
of excellent talent in their sphere. They have
stoicism, though ignorant of Zeno; nay stoic-
ism coupled with real gayety of heart. Amidst
their reek, they laugh loud, in rough jolly
banter; they twang, in a plaintive manner,
rough love-melodies on a kind of guitar;
smoke infinite tobacco ; and delight in gam-
bling and ardent spirits, ordinary refuge of
voracious empty souls. For the same reason,
and a better, they delight also in Corpus-
Christi ceremonies, mass-chantings, and de-
votional performances. These men are fit to
be drilled into something! Their lives stand
there like empty capacious bottles, calling to
the heavens and the earth, and all Dr. Francias
who may pass that way: "Is there nothing to
put into us, then 1 Nothing but nomadic idle-
ness, Jesuit superstition, rubbish, reek, and dry
stripes of tough beef!" Ye unhappy Guachos,
— yes, there is something other, there are
several things other, to put into you! But
withal, you will observe, the seven devils have
first to be put out of you: Idleness, lawless
Brutalness, Darkness, Falseness — seven devils
or more. And the way to put something into
you is, alas, not so plain at present ! Is it-, — •
alas, on the whole, is it not perhaps to lay
good horse- whips lustily upon you, and cast
out these seven devils as a preliminary ?

How Francia passed his days in such a
region, where philosophy, as is too clear, was
at the lowest ebbi Francia, like Quintus
Fixlein, had " perennial fire-proof joys, namely

♦ Letters on Paraguay.

DR. FRANCIA.

557

employments." He had much law-business, a
great and ever-increasing reputation as a man
at once skilful and faithful in the management
of causes for men. Then, in his leisure hours,
he had his Volneys, Raynals; he had second-
hand scientific treatises in French ; he loved
to " interrogate Nature," as they say; to pos-
sess theodolites, telescopes, star-glasses, — any
kind of glass or book, or gazing implement
whatever, through which he might try to catch
a glimpse of Fact in this strange Universe:
poor Francia ! Nay, it is said, his hard heart
was not without inllammability ; was sensible
to those Andalusian eyes still bright in the
tenth or twelfth generation. In such case, too,
it miy have burnt, one would think, like an-
thracite, in a somewhat ardent manner. Ru-
mours to this effect are afloat; not at once in-
credible. Pity there had not been some An-
dalusian pair (if eyes, with speculation, depth
and soul enough in the rear of them to fetter
Dr. Francia permanently, and make a house-
father of him. It had been better; but it be-
fell not. As for that light-headed, smart, brown
girl whom, twenty years afterwards, you saw
polling flowers on the streets of Assumpcion,
and leading a light life, is there any certainty
that she was Dr. Francia's daughter? Any
certainty that, even if so, he could and should
have done something considerable for her 7*
Poor Francia, poor light-headed, smart, brown
girl, — this present reviewer cannot say!

Francia is a somewhat lonesome, down-
looking man,aptto be solitary even in the press
of men ; wears a face not unvisited by laughter,
yet tending habitually towards the sorrowful,
the stern. He passes everywhere for a man
of veracity, punctuality, of iron methodic
rigtiur; of iron rectitude, above all. "The
skilful lawyer," " the learned lawyer," these
are reputations; but the "honest lawyer!"
This law-case was reported by the Robertsons
before they thought of writing a "Francia's
Reign of Terror," with that running shriek,
which so confuses us. We love to believe the
anecdote, even in its present loose state, as
signific.int of many things in Francia :

"It has been already observed that Francia's
reputation, as a lawyer, was not only unsullied
by venalitjs but conspicuous for rectitude.

"He had a friend in Assumpcion of the
name of Domingo Rodriguez. This man had
cast a covetous eye upon a Naboth's vineyard,
and this Naboth, of whom Francia was the
open enemy, was called Estanislao Machain.
Never doubting that the young doctor, like
other lawyers, would undertake his unright-
eous cause, Rodriguez opened to him his case,
and requested, with a handsome retainer, his
advocacy of it. Francia saw at once that
his friend's pretensions were founded in fraud
and injustice; and he not only refused to act
as his counsel, but plainly told him, that much
' as he hated his antagonist Machain, yet if he
(Rodriguez) persisted in his iniquitous suit,
that antasonisi should have his (Francia's)
most zealous support. But covetousness, as
Ahab's story shows us, is not so easily driven
from its pretensions; and in spite of Francia's

* Uobertson.

warning, Rodriguez persisted. As he was a
potent man in point of fortune, all was going
against Machain and his devoted vineyard,

" At this stage of the question, Francia wrap-
ped himself one night in his cloak, and walked
to the house of his inveterate enemy, Machain.
The slave who opened the door, knowing that
his master and the doctor, like the houses of
Montagu and Capulet, were smoke in each
other's eyes, refused the lawyer admittance,
and ran to inform his master of the strange
and unexpected visit. Machain, no less struck
by the circumstance than his slave, for some
time hesitated ; but at length determined to
admit Francia. In walked the silent doctor to
Machain's chamber. All the papers connected
with the law-plea — voluminous enough I have
been assured — \yere outspread upon the de-
fendant's escritoire.

"'Machain,' said the lawyer, addressing
him, 'you know I am your enemy. But I
know that my friend Rodriguez meditates, and
will certainly, unless I interfere, carry against
you an act of gross and lawless aggressicm; I
have come to offer my services in ycur de-
fence.'

"The astonished Machain could scarcely
credit his senses; but poured forth the ebulli-
tion of his gratitude in terms of thankful ac-
quiescence.

"The first ' escrito,' or writing, sent in by
Francia to the Juez de Alzada, or Judge of the
Coiu't of Appeal, confounded the adverse advo-
cates, and staggered the judge, who was in their
interest. 'My friend,' said the judge to the
leading counsel, 'I cannot go forward in this
matter, unless you bribe Dr. Francia to be
silent.' 'I will try,' replied the advocate, and
he went to Naboth's counsel with a hundred
doubloons, (about three hundred and fifty
guineas,) which he offered him as a bribe to
let the cause take its iniquitous course. Con-
sidering, too, that his best introduction would
be a hint that his douceur was offered with
the judge's concurrence, the knavish lawyer
hinted to the upright one that such was the fact.

" ' Saiga Uslerl,' said Francia, ' cna sits viles
pensamuntns, y viUsinto oro de mi rasa.' 'Out
with your vile insinuations and dross- of gold
from my house.'

" Off marched the venal drudge of the unjust
judge; and in a moment putting on his capote,
the offended advocate went to the residence of
the Juez de Alzada. Shortly relating what had
passed between himself and the mvrmidon, —
' Sir,' continued Francia, 'you are a disgrace
to law, and a blot upon justice. You are, more-
over, completely in my power; and unless
to-morrow I have a decision in favour of my
client, I will make your seat upon the bench
loo hot for you, and the insignia of your. judi-
cial office shall become the emblems of your
shame.'

"The morrow f/iV/ bring a decision in favour
of Francia's client. Naboth retained his vine-
yard; the judge lost his reputation; and the
young doctor's fame extended far and wide."

On the other hand, it is admitted that he
quarrelled with his father, in those days; and,
as is reported, never spoke to him more. The
.3 A 2

6S8

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

subject of the quarrel is vaguely supposed to
have been " money matters." Francia is not
accused of avarice ; nay, is expressly acquitted
of loving money, even by Rengger. But he
did hate injustice; — and probably was not in-
disposed to allow himself, among others, " the
height of fair play !" A rigorous, correct man,
that will have a spade be a spade; a man of
much learning in Creole law, and occult
French sciences, of great talent, energy, fide-
lity : — a man of some temper withal : unhap-
pily subject to private " hypochondria ; black
private ihunder-clouds, whence probably the
origin of these ligklnings, when you poke into
him ! He leads a lonesome self-secluded life ;
" interrogating nature" through mere star-
glasses, and Abbe-Raynal philosophies — who
in that way will yield no very exuberant re-
sponse. Mere law-papers, advocate fees, civic
officialities, renowns, and the wonder of As-
sumpcion Guachos ; — not so much as a pair
of Andalusian eyes that can lusso him, except
in a temporary way : this man seems to have
got but a lean lease of nature, and may end in
a rather shrunk condition ! A century ago,
with this attrabiliar earnestness of his, and
such a reverberatory furnace of passions, in-
quiries, unspeakabililies burning in him, deep
under cover, he might have made an excel-
lent monk of St. Dominic, fit almost for canoni-
zation ; nay, an excellent Superior of the
Jesuits, Grand Inquisitor, or the like, had you
developed him in that way. But, for all this,
he is now a day too late. Monks of St.
Dominic that might have been, do now, instead
of devotional raptures and miraculous suspen-
sions in prayer, produce — brown accidental
female infants, to sell flowers, in an indigent
state, on the streets of Assumpcion ! It is
grown really a most barren time; and this
Francia with his grim unspeakabilities, with
his fiery splenetic humours, kept close under
lock and key, what has he to look for in it 1 A
post on the bench, in the municipal Cahildo, —
na)% he has already a post in the Cabildo; he
has already been Alcalde, Lord-Mayor of As-
sumpcion, and ridden in such gilt coach as
they had. He can look for little, one would
say, but barren moneys, barren Guacho world-
celebrilies ; Abbe-Raynal philosophisms also
very barren ; wholly a barren life-voyage of
it, ending — in zero, thinks the Abbe-Raynal]

But no; the world wags not that way in
those days. Far over the waters there have
been federations of the Champ de Mars ; guil-
Jotines, portable-guillotines, and a French
people risen against tyrants; there has been a
Siinsndo'tism, speaking at last in canon-volleys
and the crash of towns and nations over half
the world. Sleek Fatpauncho Usandwonto,
sleek aristocratic Donothingism, sunk as in
doath-sleep in its well-stuff'ed easy chair, or
staggering in somnambulism on the house-
tops, "^eerned to itself to hear a voice say.
Sleep no more, Donothingism ; Donothingism
doth murder sleep ! It was indeed a terrible
explosion, that of Sanscnlottism ; commin-
gling very Tartarus with the old-established
Mars, - fit, such a tumult was it, to awaken all
tut the dead. And out of it there had come
Napoleonisms, Tamerlanisms; and then as a

branch of these, conventions of Aranjuez, soon
followed by Spanish Juntas, Spanish Cortes
and, on the whole, a smiting broad awake of
poor old Spain itself, much to its amazement.
And naturally of New Spain next, — its double
amazement, seeing itself awake ! And so, in
the new hemispliere too, arise wild projects,
angry arguings; arise armed gatherings in
Santa Marguerila I.sland with Bolivars and In-
vasions of Cumana; revolts of La Plata, re-
volts of this and then of that ; the subterranean
electric element, shock on shock, shaking and
exploding, in the new hemisphere too, from
sea to sea. Very astonishing to witness, from
the year 1810 and onwards. Had Dr. Rodriguez
Francia three ears, he would hear; as many eyes
as Argus, he would gaze! He is all eye, he
is all ear. A new, entirely diflerent figure of
existence is cut out for Dr. Rodriguez.

The Paraguay people as a body, lying far
inland, with little speculation in their heads,
were in no haste to adopt the new republican
gospel ; but looked first how it would succeed
in shaping itself into facts. Buenos Ayres,
Tucuman,most of the La Plata provinces, had
made their revolutions, brought in the reign
of liberty, and unluckily driven out the reign
of law and regularity; before the Paraguenos
could resolve on such an enterprise. Perhaps
they are afraid 1 General Belgrano, with a
force of a thousand men, missioned by Buenos
Ayres, came up the river to countenance them,
in the end of 1810; but was met on their fron-
tier in array of war; was attacked, or at least
was terrified, in the night watches, so that his
men all fled ; — and on the morrow, poor Gene-
ral Belgrano fiumd himself not a countenancer,
but one needing countenance; and was in a
polite way sent down the river again !* Not
till a year after did the Paraguenos, by spon-
taneous movement, resolve on a career of free-
dom ; — resolve on getting some kind of Con-
gress assembled, and the old government sent
its waj's. Francia, it is presumable, was active
at once in exciting and restraining them : the
fruit was now drop-ripe, we may say, and fell
by a shake. Our old royal governor went
aside, worthy man, with some slight grimace,
when ordered to do so; National Congress in-
troduced itself: secretaries read papers, com-
piled chiefly out of Rollin's Ancient History,
and we became a Republic : with Don Ful-
gencio Yegros, one of the richest Guachos and
best horsemen of the province, fiir President,
and two assessors with him, called also Vocales,
or Vowels, whose names escape us ; Francia,
as Secretary, being naturally the Consonant, or
motive soul of the combination. This, as we
grope out the date, was in 1811. The Para-
guay Congress, having completed this consti-
tution, went home again to its field-labours,
hoping a good issue.

Feebler light hardly ever dawned for the
histori'-al mind, than this which is shed for us
by Rergger, Robertsons, and Company, on the
birth, cradling, baptismal processes, and early
fortunes of the new Paraguay Republic.
Through long vague, and, indeed, intrinsically

♦ Rengger.

DR. FRANCIA.

659

vacant pages of their books, it lies gray, unde-
cipherable, without form and void. Francia
was secretary, and a republic did take place;
this, as one small clear-burning fact, shedding
far a comfortable visibility, conceivability over
the universal darkness, and making it into con-
ceivable dusk with one rushlight fact in the
centre of it, — this we do know; and, cheerfully
yielding to necessity, decide that this shail
suffice us to know. What more is there ]
Absurd somnolent persons, struck broad awake
by the subterranean concussion of civil and
religious liberty all over the world, meeting
together to establish a republican career of
freedom, and compile olncial papers out of
Rollin, — are not a subject on which the histori-
cal mind ran be enlightened. The historical
mind, thank Heaven, forgets such persons and
their papers, as fast as you repeat them. Be-
sides, these Guacho populations are greedy,
superstitious, vain ; and, as Miers said in his
haste, mendacious every soul of them ! Within
the confines of Paraguay, we know for certain
but of one man who would do himself an in-
jury to do a just or true thing under the sun;
one man who understands in his heart that
this Universe is an eternal Fact, — and not
some huge temporary Pumpkin, saccharine,
absinthian ; the rest of its significance chime-
rical merely! Such men cannot have a his-
tory, though a Thucydides came to write it. —
Enough for us to understand that Don This
was a vapouring blockhead, who followed his
pleasures, his peculations, and Don That an-
other of the same ; that there occurred fatui-
ties, mismanagements innumerable ; then dis-
contents, open grumblings, and, as a running
accompaniment, intriguings, caballings, out-
ings, innings; till the Government House, fouler
than when the Jesuits had it, became a bottom-
less, pestilent inanity, insupportable to any
articulate-speaking soul; till Secretary Francia
should feel that he, for one, could not be Conso-
nant to such a set of Vowels; till Secretary
Francia, one day, flinging down his papers,
rising to his feet, should jerk out with oratori-
cal vivacity his lean right hand, and say, with
knit brows, in a low swift tone, " Adieu, Sen-
hores ; God preserve you many years !"

Francia withdrew to his rhnn-a, a pleasant
country-house in the woods of Ytapua not far
off; there to interrogate Nature, and live in a
private manner. Parish Robertson, much
about this date, which we grope and guess to
have been perhaps in 1812, was boarded with
a certain ancient Donna Juanna, in that same
region; had /rr/jf/ias of unimaginable brillian-
cy ; and often went shooting of an evening.
On one of those — but he shall himself report:

" On one of those lovely evenings in Para-
guay, after the south-west wind has both clear-
ed and cooled the air, I was drawn, in my pur-
suit of game, into a peaceful valley, not far
from Donna Juanna's, and remarkable for fts
combination of all the striking features of the
scenery of the country. Suddenly I came upon
a neat and unpretending cottage. Up rose a
partridge; I fired, and the bird came to the
grouiid A voice from behind called out, ' Bnen
tiro' * a good shot.' I turned rcuind, and be-
held a gentleman of about fifty years of age,

dressed in a suit of black, with a large scarlet
riipote, or cloak, thrown over his shoulders.
He had a mnte-cup in one hand, a cigar in the
other; and a little urchin of a negro, with his
arms crossed, was in attendance by the gentle-
man's side. This gentleman's countenance
was dark, and his black eyes were very pene-
trating, while his jet hair, combed back from
a bold forehead, and hanging in natural ring-
lets over his shoulders, gave him a dignified
and striking air. He wore on his shoes large
golden buckles, and at the knees of his breeches
the same."

"In exercise of the primitive and simple
hospitality common in the country, 1 was in-
vited to sit down under the corridor, and to
take a cigar and mate (cup of Paraguay lea.)
A celestial globe, a large telescope, apd a theo-
dolite were under the little portico; and I im-
mediately inferred that the personage before
me was no other than Doctor Francia."

Yes, here for the first time in authentic his-
tory, a remarkable hearsay becomes a remarka-
ble visuality; through a pair of clear human
eyes, you look face to face on the very figure
(if the man. Is not this verily the exact record
of those clear Robertsonian eyes, and seven
senses; entered accurately, then and not after-
wards, on the ledger of the memory? We will
hope so ; who can but hope so] The figure
of the man will, at all events, be exact. Here
too is the figure of his library; — the conversa-
tion, if any, was of the last degree of insigf-
nificance, and may be left out, or supplied ad
libitum :

" He introduced me to his library, in a con-
fined room, with a very small window, and
that so shaded by the roof of the corridor, as
to admit the least portion of light necessary
for study. The library was arranged on three
rows of shelves, extending across the room,
and might have consisted of three hundred
volumes. There were many ponderous books
on law ; a few on the inductive sciences ; some
in French and some in Latin upon subjects of
general literature, with Euclid's Elements, and
some school-boy treatises on algebra. On a
large table were heaps of law-papers and pro-
cesses. Several folios bound in vellum wpre
outspread upon it; a lighted candle (though
placed there solely with a view to light cigar.-^)
lent its feeble aid to illumine the room ; while
a mate-cup and inkstand, both of silver, stood
on another part of the table. There was
neither carpet nor mat on the brick floor; and
the chairs were of such ancient fashion, size,
and weight, that it required a considerable ef-
fort to move them from one spot to another."

Peculation, malversation, the various forms
of imbecility and voracious dishonesty, went
their due course in the government offices of
Assumpcion, unrestrained by Francia, and
unrestrainable : — till, as we may say, it reach-
ed a height; and, like other suppurations and
diseased concretions in the living system, had
to hiiist, and take itself away. To the eyes
of Paraguay in general, it had become clear
that such a reign of liberty was unendurable;
that some new revolution, or change ^f minis-
try, was indispensable.

Rengger says that Francia withdrf w •' mote

660

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

than once" to his chacra, disgusted with his
colleagues ; who always, by unlimited promises
and protestations, had to flatter him back
again; and then anew disgusted him. Francia
is the Consonant of these absurd "Vowels;"
no business can go on without Francia ! And
the finances are deranged, insolvent; and the
military, unpaid, ineffective, cannot so much
as keep out the Indians ; and there comes
trouble and rumour of warfrom Buenos Ayres ;
— alas, from what quarter of the great conti-
nent come there other than troubles and ru-
mours of war ■? Patriot generals become trai-
tor generals ; get themselves "shot ia market-
places :" revolution follows revolution. Arti-
gas, close on our borders, has begun harrying
the Banda Oriental with fire and sword ; " dic-
tating despatches from cow-skulls." Like
clouds of wolves, — only feller, being mounted
on horseback, with pikes, — the Indians dart in
on us; carrying confliagration and dismay.
Paraguay must get itself governed, or it will
be worse for Paraguay ! The eyes of Para-
guay, we can well fancy, turn to the one man
of talent they have, the one man of veracity
they have.

In 1813 a second Congress is got together:
we fancy it was Francia's last advice to the
Government suppuration, when it flattered him
back for the last time, to ask his advice. That
such suppuration do now dissolve itself, and a
new Congress be summoned ! In the new Con-
gress, the Vomles are voted out ; Francia and
Fulgencioare named joint Consuls: with Fran-
cia for Consul, and Don Fulgencio Yegros for
ConsMi's-cloak, it may be better. Don Fulgen-
cio rides about in gorgeous sash and epaulettes,
a rich man and horse-subduer; good as a Con-
sul's cloak; — but why should the real Consul
have a cloak? Next year in the third Congress,
Francia, "by insidious manoeuvring," by "fa-
vour of the military," and, indeed, also in some
sort, we may say, by law of Nature, — gets him-
self declared Diclulor: "three years," or for
life, may in these circumstances mean much
the same. This was in 1814. Francia never
assembled any Congress more; having stolen
the constitutional palladiums, and insidiously
got his wicked will ! Of a Congress that com-
piled constitutions out of Rollin, who would
not lament such destiny 1 This Congress
should have met again! It was indeed, say
Rengger and the Robertsons themselves, such
a Congress as never met before in the world ;
a Congress which knew not its right hand
from its left; which drank infinite rum in the
taverns; and had one wish, that of gelling on
horseback, home to its field-husbandry and
partridge-shooting. The military mostly fa-
voured Francia; being gained over by him, —
the thief of constitutional palladiums.

With Francia's entrance on the government
as Consul, still more as Dictator, a great im-
provement, it is granted even by Rengger, did
in all quarters forthwith show itself. The fi-
nances were husbanded, were accurately ga-
thered ; every oflicial person in Paraguay had
Xu bethink him, and begin doing his work, in-
stead of merely seeming to do it. The soldiers
Fi'ancia took care to see paid and drilled ; to

see march, with real death-shot and service,
when the Indians or other enemies showed
themselves. Guardias, guardhouses, at short
distances, were established along the river's
bank and all round the dangerous frontiers;
wherever the Indian centaur-troop showed
face, an alarm-cannon went off', and soldiers,
quickly assembling, with actual death-shot and
service, were upon them. These wolf-hordes
had to vanish into the heart of their deserts
again. The land had peace. Neither Artigas,
nor any of the fire-brands and war-plagues
which were distracting South America from
side to side, could get across the border. All
negotiation or intercommuning with Buenos
Ayres, or with any of these war-disiracted
countries, was peremptorily waived. To no
Congress of Lima, General Congress of Pana-
ma, or other general or particular congress
would Francia, by deputy or message, ofl^er
the smallest recognition. All South America
raging and ravening like one huge dog-kennel
gone rabid, we here in Paraguay have peace,
and cultivate our tea-trees: why should we
not let well alone 1 By degrees, one thing act-
ing on another, and this ring of frontier " guard-
houses" being already erected ihere, a rigorous
sanitary Hue, impregnable as brass, was drawn
round all Paraguay ; no communication, im-
port or export trade allowed, except by the
Dictator's license, — given on payment of the
due moneys, when the political horizon seemed
innocuous ; refused when otherwise. The
Dictator's trade-licenses were a considerable
branch of his revenues; his entrance dues,
somewhat onerous to the foreign merchant,
(think the Messrs. Robertson,) were another.
Paraguay stood isolated ; the rabid dog-kennel
raging round it, wide as South America, but
kept out as by lock and key.

These were vigorous measures, gradually
coming on the somnolent Guacho population !
It seems, meanwhile, that, even after the per-
petual dictatorship, andonw^ards to the fifth or
the sixth year of Francia's government, there
was, though the constitutional palladiums
were stolen, nothing very special to complain
of. Paraguay had peace; sat under ils tea-
tree, the rabid dog-kennel, Indians, Artigue-
no and other war-firebrands, all shut out from
it. But in that year 1819, the second year of
the perpetual dictatorship, there arose, not for
the first time, dim indications of "plots," even
dangerous plots ! In that )'ear (he firebrand
Artigas was finally quenched; obliged tt) beg
a lodging even of Francia, his enemy; — and
got it, hospitably though contemptuously. And
nov/ straightway there advanced, from Arti-
gas's lost, wasted country, a certain General
Ramirez, his rival and victor, and fellow-ban-
dit and firebrand. This General Ramirez ad-
vanced up to our very frontier; first, with of-
fers of alliance : failing that, with offers of
war; on which latter offer he was closed with,
was cut to pieces ; and — a letter Avas found
about him, addressed to Don Fulgencio Yegros,
the rich Guacho horseman and Ex-Consul;
which arrested all the faculties of Dr. Fran-
cia's most intense intelligence, there atid then !
A conspiracy, with Don Fulgencio at the head
of it; conspiracy which seems the wid"'

DR. FRANCIA.

661

spread the farther one investigates it; which
has been brewing itself these " two years,"
and now "on Good-Friday next" is to be
burst out; starting with the massacre of Dr.
Francia and others, whatever it may close
with !* Francia was not a man to be trifled
with in plots ! He looked, watched, investigated,
till he got the exact extent, position, nature, and
structure of this plot fully in his eye ; and
then — why, then he pounced on it like a glede-
falcon, like a fierce condor, suddenly from the
invisible blue; struck beak and claws into the
very heart of it, tore it into small fragments,
and consumed it on the spot. It is Francia's
way ! This was the last plot, though not the
first plot, Francia ever heard of during his
perpetual dictatorship.

It is, as we find, over these three or these
two years, while the Fuigencio plot is getting
itself pounced upon and torn in pieces, that
the "reign of terror," properly so called, ex-
tends. Over these three or these two years
only, — though the "running shriek" of it con-
fuses all things to the end of the chapter. It
was in this stern period that Francia executed
above forty persons. Not entirely inexplica-
ble ! " Par Dios, ye shall not conspire against
me; I will not allow it. The career of free-
dom, be it known to all men, and Guachos, is
not yet begun in this country; I am still only
casting out the Seven Devils. My lease of
Paraguay, a harder one than your stupidities
suppose, is for life; the contract is. Thou
must die if thy lease be taken from thee. Aim
not at my life, ye constitutional Guachos, — or
let it be a diviner man than Don Fuigencio,
the horse-subduer, that does .t. By heaven, if
you aim at my life, I will bid you have a care
of your own!" He executed upwards of forty
persons. How many he arrested, flogged,
cross-questioned — for he is an inexorable man !
If you are guilty, or suspected of guilt, it will
go ill with you here. Francia's arrest, carried
by a grenadier, arrives; you are in strait
prison; you are in Francia's bodily presence;
those sharp St. Dominic eyes, that diabolic
intellect, prying into you, probing, cross-
questioning you, till the secret cannot be hid:
till the " three ball cartridges" are handed to a
sentry; — and your doom is Rhadamanthine !

But the plots, as we say, having ceased by
this rough surgery, it would appear that there
was, for the next twenty years, little or no
more of it, little or no use for more. The
" reign of terror," one begins to find, Avas
properly a reign of rigour; which would be-
come " terrible" enough if you infringed the
rules of it, but which was peaceable other-
wise, regular otherwise. Let this, amid the
" running shriek," which will and should run
Us full length in such circumstances, be welU
kept in mind.

It happened too, as Rengger tells lis, in the
same year, (1820, as we grope and gather,)
that a visitation of locusts, as sometimes oc-
curs, destroyed all the crops of Paraguay ; and
there was no prospect but of universal dearth
Dr famine. The crops are done; eaten by
lOcusts; the summer at an end ! We have no

* Rengger.
71

foreign trade, or next to none, and never had
almost any; what will become of Paraguay
and its Guachos 7 In Guachos is no hope, no
help: but in a Dionysius of the Guachos?
Dictator Francia, led by occult French sciences
and natural sagacity, nay, driven by necessity
itself, peremptorily commands the farmnrs
throughout all Paraguay to sow a certain
portion of their lands anew; with or without
hope, under penalties! The result wat a
moderately good harvest still: the result was a
discovery that two harvests were, every year,
possible in Paraguay; that agriculture, a rigor-
ous Dictator presiding over it, could be in-
finitely improved there.* As Paraguay has
about 100,000 square miles of territory mostly
fertile, and only some two souls planted on
each square mile thereof, it seemed to the
Dictator that this, and not foreign trade, might
be a good course for his Paraguenos. This
accordingly, and not foreign trade, in the pre-
sent state of the political horis^on, was the
course resolved on; the course persisted in,
"with evident advantages," says Rengger.
Thus, one thing acting on another, — domestic
plot, hanging on Artigas's country from with-
out; and locust swarms with improvement of
husbandry in the interior; and those guard-
houses all already there, along the frontier, —
Paraguay came more and more to be hermeti-
cally closed; and Francia reigned over it, for
the rest of his life, as a rigorous Dionysius
of Paraguay, without foreign intercourse, or
with such only as seemed good to Francia.

How the Dictator, now secure in possession,
did manage this huge Paraguay, which, by
strange " insidious" and other means, had fallen
in life-lease to him, and was his to do the best
he could with, it were interesting to know.
What the meaning of him, the result of him
actually was 1 One desiderates some Biogra-
phy of Francia by a native! — Meanwhile, in
the " JEsthetische Briefwcchscl" of Herr Professor
Sauerteig, a work not yet known in England,
nor treating specially of this subject, we find,
scattered at distant intervals, a remark or two
which may be worth translating. Professor
Sauerteig, an open soul, looking with clear eye
and large recognizing heart over all accessible
quarters of the world, has cast a sharp sun-
glance here and there into Dr. Francia too.
These few philosophical remarks of his, and
then a few anecdotes gleaned elsewhere, such
as the barren ground yields, must comprise
what more Ave have to say of Francia.

"Pity," exclaims Sauerteig once, "thai a
nation cannot reform itself, as the English are
now trying to do, by what their newspapers
call 'tremendous cheers!' Alas, it cannot be
done. Reform is not joyous but grievous: no
single man can reform himself without stern
suJTering and stern working; how much less
can a nation of men 1 The serpent sheds not
his old skin without rusty disconsolateness : he
is not happy but miserable ! In the Water-cure
itself, do you not sit steeped for months,
washed to the heart in elemental drenchings;
and like Job, are made to curse your day 1

» Rengger, 67, &c.

CAELYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

Reforming of a nation is a terrible business !
Thus, too, Medea, when she made men young
again, was wont (^du Himmd!) to hew them in
pieces, with meat-axes ; cast them into caldrons,
and boil them for a length of time. How
much handier could they but have done it by
• tremendous cheers' alone !"

" Like a drop of surgical antiseptic liquid,
poured (by the benign Po\vers, as I fancy!)
into boundless brutal corruptions ; very sharp,
very caustic, corrosive enough, this tawny
tyrannous Dr. Francia, in the interior of the
South American continent, — he, too, is one of
the elements of the grand phenomenon there.
A monstrous moulting process taking place;
— monstrous gluttonous boa-constrictor (he is of
length from Panama to Patagonia) shedding
his old skin; whole continent getting itself
chopped to pieces, and boiled in the Medea
caldron, to become young again, — unable to
manage it by 'tremendous cheers' alone!"

" What they say about ' love of power'
amounts to little. Power? Love of ' power'
merely to make flunkies come and go for you
is a 'love,' I should think, which enters only
into the minds of persons in a very infantine
state ! A grown man, like this Dr. Francia,
who wants nothing, as I am assured, but three
cigars daily, a cup oi mate, and four ounces of
butchers' meat with brov/n bread; the whole
world and its united flunkies, taking constant
thought of the matter, can do nothing for him
but that only. That he already has, and has
had always ; why should he, not being a minor,
love flunkey ' power 1' He loves to see you
about him, with your flunkey promptitudes,
with your grimaces, adulations, and sham-
loyalty. You are so beautiful, a daily and
hourly feast to the eye and soul? Ye unfortu-
nates, from his heart rises one prayer, That
the last created flunkey had vanished from
this universe, never to appear more!

"And yet truly a man does tend, and must
under frightful penalties perpetually tend, to
be king of his world ; to stand in his world as
what he is, a centre of light and order, not of
darkness and confusion. A man loves power:
yes, if he sees disorder his eternal enemy
rampant about him, he does love to see said
enemy in the way of being conquered; he can
have no rest till that come to pass ! Your
Mohammed can bear a rent cloak, but clouts it
with his own hands, how much more a rent
country, a rent world. He has to imprint the
image of his own veracity upon the world, and
shall, and must, and will do it, more or less:
it is at his peril if he neglect any great or any
small possibility he may have of this. Fran-
cia's inner flame is but a meager, blue-burning
one: let him irradiate midnight Paraguay with
it, such as it is."

"Nay, on the whole, how cunning is Nature
in getting her farms leased ! Is it not a blessing
this Paraguay can get the one veracious man
it has, to take lease of it, in these sad circum-
stances 1 His farm profits, and whole wages,
it would seem, amount only to what is called
'Nothing and find yourself!' Spartan food

and lodging, solitude, two cigars, and a cup of
mate daily, he already had."

Truly, it would seem, as Sauerteig remarks,
Dictator Francia had not a very joyous exist-
ence of it, in this his life-lease of Paraguay!
Casting out of Seven Devils from a Guacho
population is not joyous at all ; both exorcist
and exorcised find it sorrowful ! Meanwhile,
it does appear, there was some improvement
made; no veritable labour, not even a Dr.
Francia's, is in vain.

Of Francia's improvements there might as
much be said of his cruelties or rigours; for
indeed, at bottom, the one was in proportion
to the other. He improved agriculture: — not
two ears of corn where only one grew, but
two harvests of corn, as we have seen ! He
introduced schools, "boarding-schools," "ele-
mentary schools," and- others, on which Eeng^
ger has a chapter; everywhere he promoted
education, as he could ; repressed superstition
as he could. Strict justice between man was
enforced in his law-courts: he himself would
accept no gift, not even a trifle, in any case
whatever. Rengger, on packing up for de-
parture, had left in his hands, not from forget-
fulness, a Print of Napoleon ; worth some
shillings in Europe, but invaluable in Para-
guay, where Francia, who admired this hero
much, had hitherto seen no likeness of him
but a Nilrnberg caricature. Francia sent an
express after Rengger, to ask what the value
of the Print v/as. No value; M. Rengger
could not sell Prints; it was much at his
Excellency's service. His Excellency straight-
way returned it. An exact, decisive man!
Peculation, idleness, ineffectuality, had to cease
in all the public offices of Paraguay. So far
as lay in Francia, no public and private man
in Paraguay was allowed to slur his work; all
public and all private men, so far as lay in
Francia, were forced to do their work or die !
We might define him as the born enemy of
quacks ; one who has from Nature a heart-
hatred of M)(veracity in man or in thing, where-
soever he sees it. Of persons who do not
speak the truth, and do not act the truth, he
has a kind of diabolic-divine impatience; they
had better disappear out of his neighbourhood.
Poor Francia: his light was but a very sul-
phurous, meager, blue-burning one ; but he
irradiated Paraguay with it (as our Professor
says) the best he could.

That he had to maintain himself alive all the
while, and would suffer no man to glance con-
tradiction at him, but instantaneously repressed
all such: this too we need no ghost to tell us;
this lay in the very nature of the case. His
lease tif Paraguay was a ?ije-lease. He had
his " three ball cartridges" ready for whatever
man he found aiming at his life. He had fright-
ful prisons. He had Tcvego far up among the
wastes, a kind of Paraguay Siberia, to which
unruly persons, notyet got the length of shoot-
ing, were relegated. The main exiles, Reng-
ger says, were drunken mulattoes and the class
called unfortunate-females. They lived mise-
rably there ; became a sadder, and perhaps a
wiser, body of mulattoes and unfortunate-
females.

But let us listen for a moment to the Reve-

DR. FRANCTA.

563

n.'nd Manuel Perez as he preaches, "in the
Church of the Incarnation at Assumpcion, on
the 20th October, 1840," in a tone somewhat
nasal, yet trustworthy withal. His Funeral
Discourse, translated into a kind of English,
presents itself still audible in the " Argentine
News" of Buenos Ayres, No. 813. We select
some passages; studying to abate the nasal
tone a little ; to reduce, if possible, the Argen-
tine English under the law of grammar. It is
the worst translation in the world, and does
poor Manuel Perez one knows not what in-
justice. This Funeral Discourse has "much
surprised" the Able Editor, it seems; — has led
him perhaps to ask, or be readier for asking,
Whether all that confused loud litanying about
"reign of terror," and so forth, was not possi-
bly of a rather long-eared nature ?

"Amid the convulsions of revolution," says
the Reverend Manuel, "The Lord, looking
down with pity on Paraguay, raised up Don
Jose Caspar Francia for its deliverance. And
when, in the words of my text, the children of
Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised vp a de-
liverer to the children of Israel, who delivered
them."

"What measures did not his Excellency de-
vise, what labours undergo, to preserve peace
in the Republic at home, and place it in an
attitude to command respect from abroad ! His
first care was directed to obtain supplies of
arms, and to discipline soldiers. To all that
would import arms he held out the induce-
ment of exemption from duty, and the permis-
sion to export in return whatever produce they
preferred. An abundant supply of excellent
arms was, by these means, obtained. I am
lost in wonder to think how this great man
could attend to such a multiplicity of things!
He applied himself to study of the military art ;
and, in a short time, taught the exerciserand
directed military evolutions like the skilfullest
veteran. Often have I seen his Excellency go
up to a recruit, and show him by example how
to take aim at the target. Could any Para-
gueno think it other than honourable to carry
a musket, when his Dictator taught him how
to manage it"! The cavalry-exercise too,
though it seems to require a man at once robust
and experienced in horsemanship, his Excel-
lency as you know did himself superintend :
at the head of his squadrons he charged and
manoeuvred, as if bred to it : and directed them
with an energy and vigour which infused his
own martial spirit into these troops."

"What evils do not the people suffer from
highwaymen !" exclaims his Reverence, a little
farther on; "violence, plunder, murder, are
crimes familiar to these malefactors. The in-
accessible mountains and wide deserts in this
Republic seemed to offer impunity to such
men. Our Dictator succeeded in striking such
a terror into them that they entirely disap-
peared, seeking safety in a change of life. His
Excellency saw that the manner of inflicting
the punisliment was more efncacious than
even the punishment itself; and on this prin-
ciple he acted. Whenever a robber could be
seized, he was led to the nearest guardhouse
(G'M((»v/irt) ; a summary trial took place; and,
straightway, so soon as he had made confes-

sion, he was shot, These means proved effec-
tual. Ere long the Republic was in such
security, that, we may say, a child might have
travelled from the Uruguay to the Parana
without other protection than the dread which
the Supreme Dictator inspired." — This is say-
ing something, your Reverence !

" But what is all this compared to the demon
of anarchy. Oh!" exclaims his simple Reve-
rence,''Oh, my friends, would I had the talent
to paint to you the miseries of a people that
fall into anarchy'! And was not our Republic
on the very eve of this 1 Yes, brethren." — "It
behoved his Excellency to be prompt; to
smother the enemy in his cradle! He did so.
He seized the leaders; brought to summary
trial, they were convicted of high treason
against the country. What a struggle now,
for his Excellency, between the law of duty
and the voice of feeling" — if feeling to any ex-
tent there were! "I," exclaimed his Reve-
rence, "am confident that had the doom of im-
prisonment on those persons seemed sufficient
for the state's peace, his Excellency never
would have ordered their execution." It was
unavoidable ; nor was it avoided ; it was done !
"Brethren, should not I hesitate, lest it be a
profanation of the sacred place I now occupy,
if I seem to approve sanguinary measures in
opposition to the mildness of the Gospel 1 Bre-
thren, no. God himself approved the conduc'
of Solomon in putting Joab and Adonijah to
death." Life is sacred, thinks his Reverence,
but there is something more sacred still: wo
to him who does not know that withal !

Alas, your Reverence, Paraguay has not yet
succeeded in abolishing capital punishment,
then"? But indeed neither has Nature, any-
where that I hear of, yet succeeded in abolish-
ing it. Act with the due degree of perversity,
you are sure enough of being violently put to
death, in hospital or highway — by dyspepsia,
delirium tremens, or stuck through by the
kindled rage of your fellow-men ! What can
the friend of humanity do 1 Twaddle in Exeter-
hall or elsewhere, " till he become a bore to us,"
and perhaps worse! An advocate in Arras
once gave up a good judicial appointment, and
retired into frugality and privacy, rather than
doom one culprit to die bylaw. The name of
this advocate, let us mark it well, was Maxi-
milien Robespierre. There are sweet kinds of
twaddle that have a deadly virulence of poison
concealed in them ; like the sweetness of sugar
of lead. Were it not better to make ;V..<^f laws,
think you, and then execute them strirtly, — as
the gods still do 1

"His Excellency next directed his attention
to purging the state from another class of ene-
mies," says Perez in the Incarnation Church;
"the, peculatina; tax-gatherers, namely- Vigi-
lantly detecting their frauds, he made them re
fund for what was past, and look precautioni,
against the like in future: all their accounts,
were to be handed in, for his examination, oncft
every year."

"The habit of his Excellency when he del;
vered out articles for the supply of the public,
that prolix and minute counting of things ap-
parently unworthy of his attention — had its
origin in the same motive. I believe that ho

664

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

did so, less from a want of confidence in the
individuals lately appointed for this purpose,
than from a desire to show them with what
delicacy they should proceed. Hence likewise
his ways, in scrupulously examining every
piece of artisans' workmanship."

" Republic of Paraguay, how art thou in-
debted to the toils, the vigils and cares of our
Perpetual Dictator! It seemed as if this ex-
traordinary man were endowed with ubiquity,
to attend to all thy wants and exigences.
Whilst in his closet, he was traversing thy
frontiers to place thee in an attitude of security.
What devastation did not those inroads of In-
dians from the Chaco occasion to the inhabi-
tants of Rio-Abajo f Ever and anon there
reached Assumpcion, tidings of the terror and
aifliction caused by their incursions. Which
of us hoped that evils so wide-spread, ravages
so appalling, could be counteracted] Our
Dictator, nevertheless, did devise effectual
ways of securing that part of the Republic.

" Four respectable fortresses with competent
garrisons have been the impregnable barrier
which has restrained the irruptions of those
ferocious Savages. Inhabitants of Rio-Abajo !
rest tranquil in your homes : you are a por-
tion of the people whom the Lord confided to
the care of our Dictator; you are safe."

"The precautions and wise measures he
adopted to repel force, and drive back the Sa-
vages to the north of the Republic; the for-
tresses of Climpo, of San Carlos de Apa, placed
on the best footing for defence ; the orders and
instructions furnished to the Villa de la Con-
cepcion, — secured that quarter of the republic
under attack from all.

" The great wall, ditch, and fortress on the
opposite bank of the river Parana.; the force
and judicious arrangement of the troops dis-
tributed over the interior in the south of our
Republic, have commanded the respect of its
enemies in that quarter."

"The beauty, the symmetry and good taste
displayed in the building of cities convey an
advantageous idea of their inhabitants," con-
tinues Perez : " Thus thought Caractacus, King
of the Angles," — thus think most persons!
''His Excellency, glancing at the condition of
the capital of the republic, saw a city in dis-
order and without police; streets without re-
gularity, houses built according to the caprice
of their owners."

But enough, O Perez; for it becomes too
nasal ! Perez, with a confident face, asks, in
fine. Whether all these things do not clearly
prove to men and Guachos of sense, that Dic-
tator Francia was " the deliverer whom the Lord
raised up to deliver Paraguay from its ene-
mies ]" — Truly, O Perez, the benefits of him
seem to have been considerable. Undoubtedly
a man "sent by Heaven," — as all of us are!
Nay, it may be, the benefit of him is not even
yet exhausted, even yet entirely become visi-
ble. Who knows but, in unborn centuries,
Paragueno men will look back to their lean
iron Francia, as men do, in such cases, to the
one veracious person, and institute considera-
tjons ! Oliver Cromwell, dead two hundred
years, does yet speak; nay, perhaps, now first
legms to speak. The meaning and meanings

of the one true man, never so lean and limited,
starting up direct from Nature's heal, in this
bewildered Guacho world, gone far away from
Nature, are endless!

The Messrs. Robertson are very merry on
this attempt of Francia's to rebuild on a bet-
ter plan the City of Assumpcion. The City of
Assumpcion, full of tropical vegetation and
"permanent hedges, the deposits of nuisance
and vermin,"* has no pavement, no straight-
ness of streets; the sandy thoroughfare, in
some quarters, is torn by the rain into gullies,
impassable with convenience to any animal
but a kangaroo. Francia, after meditation, de-
cides on having it remodelled, paved, straight-
ened— irradiated with the image of the one
regular man. Robertson laughs to see a Dic-
tator, sovereign ruler, straddling about, " taking
observations with his theodolite," and so forth :
O Robertson, if there was no other man that
could observe with a theodolite 1 Nay, it seems
further, the improvement of Assumpcion was
attended, once more, with the dreadfuUest
tyrannies: peaceable citizens dreaming no
harm, no active harm to any soul, but mere
peaceable passive dirt and irregularity to all
souls, were ordered to pull down their houses
which happened to stand in the middle of
streets; forced (under rustle of the gallows)
to draw their purses, and rebuild them else-
where ! It is horrible. Nay, they said Fran-
cia's true aim in these improvements, in this
cutting down of the luxuriant "cross hedges"
and architectural monstrosities, was merely to
sa-^e himself from being shot, from under co-
ver, as he rode through the place. It may be
so: but Assumpcion is now an improved,
paved city, much squarer in the corners (and
with the planned capacity, it seems, of grow-
ing ever squarer;*) passable with convenience,
not to kangaroos only, but to wooden bullock-
carts and all vehicles and animals.

Indeed our Messrs. Robertson Imd some-
thing" comic as well as tragic in Dictatoi
Francia; and enliven their running shriek, all
through this " Reign of Terror," with a plea-
sant vein of conventional satire. One even-
ing, for example, a Robertson being about to
leave Paraguay for England, and having wait-
ed upon Francia to make the parting compli-
ments, Francia, to the Robertson's extreme
astonishment, orders in a large bale of goods,
orders them to be opened on the table there:
Tobacco, poncho-cloth, and other produce of
the country, all of first-rate quality, and with
the prices ticketed. These goods this asto-
nished Robertson is to carry to the "Bar of the
House of Commons," and there to say, in such
fashion and phraseology as a native may
know to be suitable : " Mr. Speaker— Dr. Fran-
cia is Dictator of Paraguay, a country of tro-
pical fertility, and 100,000 square miles m e«
tent, producing these commodities at these
prices. With nearly all foreign nations he
declines altogether to trade; but with the Eng-
lish, such is his notion of them, he is willing
and desirous to trade. These are his commo-
dities, in endless quantity; of this quality, at
these prices. He wants arms for his part.

♦ Perez.

DR. FJRANCIA.

S6S

What say you, Mr. Speaker?"— Sure enough,
our Robertson, arriving at the "Bar of tha
House of Commons" with such a message,
would have cut an original figure ! Not to the
"House of Commons," was this message pro-
perly addressed; but to the English Nation;
which Francia, idiot-like, supposed to be
somehow represented, and made accessible
and addressable in the House of Commons.
It was a strange imbecility in any Dictator ! —
The Robertson, we find accordingly, did no!
take this bale of goods to the bar of the House
of Commons ; nay, what was far worse, he did
not, owing to accidents, go to England at all,
or bring any arms back to Francia at all :
hence, indeed, F'rancia's unreasonable detesta-
tion of him, hardly to be restrained within the
bounds of common politeness ! A man who
said he would do, and then did not do, was at
no lime a kind of man admirable to Francia.
Large sections of this " Reign of Terror" are
a sort of unmusical sonata, or free duet with
variations, to this text : " How unadmirable a
hide-merchant that does not keep his word !" —
"How censurable, not to say ridiculous and
imbecile, the want of common politeness in a
Dictator !"

Francia was a man that liked performance :
and sham-performance, in Paraguay as else-
where, was a thing too universal. What a
time of it had ^his strict man with unreal per-
formers, imaginary workmen, public and pri-
vate, cleric and laic! Ye Guachos, — it is no
child's play, casting out those Seven Devils
from you !

Monastic or other entirely slumberous
church-establishmenis could expect no great
favour from Francia. Such of them as seem-
ed incurable, entirely slumberous, he some-
what roughly shook awake, somewhat sternly
ordered to begone. Debotd canaille faineantc,
as his prophet Raynal says; Debout: aux
champs, aux ateliers! Can I have you sit here,
droning old metre through your nose ; your
heart asleep in mere gluttony, the while ; and
all Paraguay a wilderness or nearly so, — the
Heaven's blessed sunshine growing mere
tangles, lianas, yellow-fevers, raulesnakes, and
jaguars on it! Up, swift, to work, — or mark
this governmental horsewhip, what the crack
of it is, what the cut of it is like to be ! — In-
curable, for one class, seemed archbishops,
bishops, and such like; given merely to a
sham-warfare against extinct devils. At the
crack of Francia's terrible whip they went,
dreading what the cut of it might be. A cheap
worship in Paraguay, according to the humour
of the people, Francia left : on condition that
it did no mischief. Wooden saints and the
like ware, he also left sitting in their niches :
no new ones, even on solicitation, w^ould he
give a doit to buy. Being petitioned to pro-
vide anew patron saint Ibr'onc of his newforti-
fications once, he made this answer: "0 peo-
ple of Paraguay, ho\\i long will you continue
idiots 1 While I was a Catholic I thought as
you do ; but I now see there are no saints but
good cannons that will guard our frontiers !"*
This also is noteworthy. He inquired of the

♦ Rengger.

two Swiss surgeons, wnar then religion was ;
and then added, "Be of what religion you
like, here : Christians, Jews, Mussulmans, —
but don't be Atheists."

Equal trouble had Francia with his laic
workers, and indeed with all manner of work-
ers; for it is in Paraguay as elsewhere, like
priest like people. Francia had extensive
barrack-buildings, nay city-buildings, (as we
have seen,) arm-furnishings; immensities of
work going on, and his workmen had in gene-
ral a tendency to be imaginary. He could get
no work out of them; only a more or less de-
ceptive similitude of work ! Masons, so-
called, builders of houses did not build, but
merely seemed to build; their walls would not
bear weather; stand on their bases in high
winds. Hodge-razors, in all conceivable kinds,
were openly marketed, "which were never
meant to shave, but only to be sold!" For a
length of time Francia's righteous soul strug-
gled sore, yet unexplosively, with the propen-
sities of these unfortunate men. By rebuke,
by remonstrance, encouragement, ofiers of re-
ward, and every vigilance and effort, he strove
to convince them that it was unfortunate for a
Son of Adam to be an imaginary workman;
that every Son of Adam had better make razors
which u-ere meant to shave. In vain, all in
vain ! At length Francia lost patience with
them. " Thou wretched Fraction, wilt thou be
the ninth part even of a tailor? Does it be-
seem thee to weave cloth of devil's dust in-
stead of true wool; and cut and sew it as if
thou wert not a tailor, but the fraction of
a very tailor! I cannot endure every thing !"
Francia, in despair, erected his " Workman's
Gallows." Yes, that institution of the country
did actually exist in Paraguay ; men and work-
men saw it with eyes. A most remarkable,
and on the whole, not unbeneficial institution
of society there. Robertson gives us the fol-
lowing scene with the Belt-maker of Assump-
cion; which, be it literal, or in part poetic,
does, no doubt of it, hold the mirror up to Na-
ture in an altogether true, and surely in a sur-
prising manner:

"In came, one afternoon, a poor shoemaker,
with a couple of grenadiers' belts, neither ac-
cording to the fancy of the Dictator. ' Senti-
nel,'— said he, — and in came the Sentinel ;
when the following conversation ensued:

"Dictator: — 'Take this hribonazo (a very
favourite word of the Dictator's, and which
being interpreted, means 'most impertinent
scoundrel') — 'take this bribonazo to the gibbet
over the way; walk him under it half-a-dozen
times: and now,' said he, turning to the trem-
bling shoemaker, 'bring me such another pair
of belts, and instead of walking under the gal-
lows, we shall try how you can string upon it.'

"Shoemaker: — 'Please your excellency I
have done my best.'

"Dictator :—' Well, bribon, if this 61; your
best, I shall do my best to see that 3'ou never
asain mar a bit of the state's leather. The
belts are of no use to me; bu', they will do
very well to hang you upon tha little frame-
work which the grenadier will show you.'

"Shoemaker: — 'God bless your excellency,
the Lord forbid! I am your vassal, your
3B

566

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

slave: day and night have I served, and will
serve my lord ; only give me two days more to
prepare the belts ; y por d alma dc un triste za-
palero, (by the soul of a poor shoemaker,) I
will make them It) your excellency's liking.'

" Dictator : — ' Off with him, sentinel !'

"Sentinel: — ' Ve?iga, bribon: come along,
you rascal.'

" Shoemaker: — ' Senor Excelentisimo : This
very night I will make the belts according to
your excellency's pattern.'

"Dictator: — 'Well, you shall have till the
morning; but still you must pass under the
gibbet: it is a salutary process, and may at
once quicken the work and improve the work-
manship.'

"Senti-iel: — ' Vamonos, bribon ; the supreme
commands it.'

"Off was the shoemaker marched : he was,
according to orders, passed and repassed un-
der the gibbet, and then allowed to retire to
his stall."

He worked there with such an alacrity and
sibylline enthusiasm, all night, that his belts
on the morrow were without parallel in South
America; and he is now, if still in this life.
Belt-maker general to Paraguay, a prosperous
man; grateful to Francia and the gallows, we
may hope, for casting 'certain of the seven
devils out of him !

Such an institution of society would evi-
dently not be introducable, under that simple
form, in our old-constituted European coun-
tries. Yet it may be asked of constitutional
persons in these times, By what succedaneum
they mean to supply the want of it, then 1 In
a community of imaginary workmen, how
can you pretend to have any government, or
social thing whatever, that were real ] Cer-
tain ten-pound franchisers, with their "tre-
mendous cheers," are invited to reflect on
this. With a community of quack workmen,
it is by the law of Nature impossible that
other than a quack government can be got to
exist. Constitutional or other, with ballot-
boxes or with none, your society in all its
phases, administration, legislation, teaching,
preaching, praying, and writing periodicals
per sheet, will be a quack society ; terrible to
live in, disastrous ^o look upon. 'Such an in-
stitution of society, adapted to our European
ways, seems pressingly desirable. O Guachos,
South-American and European, what a busi-
ness is it, casting out your seven devils ! —

But perhaps the reader would like to take a
view of Dr. Francia in the concrete, there as
he looks and lives; managing that thousand-
sided business for his Paraguenos, in the time
of Surgeon Rengger 1 It is our last extract, or
last view of the Dictator, who must hang no
longer on our horizon here:

" I have already said that Doctor Francia, so
soon as he found himself at the head of affairs
look up his residence in the habitation of the
former Governors of Paraguay. This edifice,
which is one of the largest in Assumpcion,
was erected by the Jesuits, a short time before
their expulsion, as ahouseof retreat for laymen,
who devoted themselves to certain spiritual
exercises instituted by Saint Ignatius. This
structure the Dictator repaired and embel-

lished; he has detached it from the othei
houses in the city, by interposing wide streets.
Here he lives, with four slaves, a little negro,
one male and two female mulattoes, whom he
treats with great mildness. The two males
perform the functions of valet-de-chambre and
groom. One of the two mulatto women is his
cook, and the other takes care of his wardrobe.
He leads a very regular life. The first rays of
the sun very rarely find him in bed. So soon
as he rises, the negro brings a chafing-dish, a
kettle, and a pitcher of water; the water is
made to boil there. The Dictator then prepares,
with the greatest possible care, his nuiie, or
Paraguay tea. Having taken this, he walks
under the interior colonnade that looks upon
the court, and smokes a cigar, which he first
takes care to unroll, in order to ascertain that
there is nothing dangerous in it, though it is
his own sister who makes up his cigars for
him. At six o'clock comes the barber, an ill-
washed, ill-clad mulatto, given to drink too;
but the only member of the faculty whom he
trusts in. If the Dictator is in good humour,
he chats with the barber; and often in this
manner makes use of him to prepare the pub-
lic for his projects; this barber may be said to
be his Oflicial Gazette. He then steps out, in
his dressing-gown of printed calico, to the
outer colonnade, an open space with pillars,
which ranges all round the building: here he
walks about, receiving at the same time such
persons as are admitted to an audience. To-
wards seven, he withdraws to his room, where
he remains till nine ; the oflicers and other
functionaries then come to make their reports,
and receive his orders. At eleven o'clock, the
fd dd fedw (principal secretary) brings the
papers which are to be inspected by him, and
writes from his dictation till noon. At noon
all the oflicers retire, and Dr. Francia sits down
to table. His dinner, which is extremely
frugal, he always himself orders. When the
cook returns from market, she deposits her
provisions at the door of her master's room;
the Doctor then comes out, and selects what he
wishes for himself. After dinner he takes his
siesta. On awakening, he drinks his mate, cixid
smokes a cigar, with the same precautions as
in the morning. From this till four or five, he
occupies himself with business, when the
escort to attend him on his promenade arrives.
The barber then enters and dresses his hair,
while his horse is getting ready. During his
ride, the Doctor inspects the public works, atid
the barracks, particularly those of the cavalry,
where he has had a set of apartments prepared
for his own use. While riding, though sur-
rounded by his escort, he is armed M'ith a sabre,
and a pair of double-barrelled pocket-pistols.
He returns home about nightfall, and sits down
to study till nine ; then he goes to supper,
which consists of a roast pigeon and a glass
of wine.' If the weather be fine, he again
walks in the outer colonnade, where he often
remains till a very late hour. At ten o'clock
he gives the watchword. On returning into
the house, he fastens all the doors himself."

Francia's brother was already mad. Francia
banished this sister by-and-by, because she had
employed one of his grenadiers, one of the

DR. FRANCIA.

667

public government's soldiers, on some errand
of her own.* Thou lonely Francria !

Francia's escort of cavalry used to " strike
men with the flat of their swords," much more
assault them with angry epithets, if they
neglected to salute the Dictator as he rode out.
Both he and they, moreover, kept a sharp eye
fur assassins ; but never found any, thanks
perhaps to their watchfulness. Had Francia
been in Paris ! — At one time, also, there arose
annoyance in the Dictatorial mind from idle
crowds gazing about his Government House,
and his proceedings there. Orders were given
that all people were to move on, about their
affairs, straight across this government espla-
nade; instructions to the sentry, that if any per-
son paused to gaze, he was to be peremptorily
bidden, Move on ! — and if he still did not move,
to be shot with ball-cartridge. All Paraguay men
moved on, looking to the ground, swift as pos-
sible, straight as possible, through those pre-
caricus spaces; and the affluence of crowds
thinned itself almost to the verge of solitude.
One day, after many weeks or months, a human
figure did loiter, did gaze in the forbidden
ground : " Move on !" cried the sentry, sharply ;
—no effect: "Move on!" and again none.
Alas, the unfortunate human figure was an In-
dian, did not understand human speech, stood
merely gaping interrogatively, — whereupon a
shot belches forth at him, the whev/ing of
winged lead; which luckily only whewed, and
did not hit! The astonishment of the Indian
must have been great, his retreat-pace rapid.
As for Francia he summoned the sentry with
hardly suppressed rage, " What news, Amigo .<■"
The sentry quoted " your Excellency's order;"
Francia cannot recollect such an order; com-
mands now, that at all events such order
cease.

It remains still that we say a word, not in
excuse, which might be difficult, but in ex-
planation, which is possible enough, of Fran-
cia's unforgivable insult to human science in the
person of M. Aime Bonpland. M. Aime Bon-
pland, friend of Humboldt, after much botanical
wandering, did, as all men know, settle himself
in Entre Rios, an Indian or Jesuit country close
on Francia, now burnt to ashes by Artigas ; and
there set up a considerable establishment for
the improved culture of Paraguay tea. Botany?
Why, yes, — and perhaps commerce still more.
"Botany!" exclaims Francia: "It is shop-
keeping agriculture, and tends to prove fatal to
my shop. Who is this extraneous individual?
Artigas could not give him right to Entre Rios ;
Entre Rios is at least as much mine as Arti-
gas's ! Bring him to me!" Next night, or
next, Paraguay soldiers surround M. Bon-
pland's-tea establishment; gallop M. Bonpland
over the frontiers, to his appointed village in j
the interior; root out his tea-plants; scatter
his four hundred Indians, and — we know the
rest! Hard-hearted Monopoly refusing to
iisten to the charinings of Public Opinion or
Royal-Society presidents, charm they never so
wisely! M. Bonpland, at full liberty some
lime since, resides still in South America, —
and is expected by the Robertsons, not alto-

gether by this Editor, to publish his Narrative,
with a due running shriek.

Francia's treatment of Artigas, his old enemy,
the bandit and firebrand, reduced now to beg
shelter of him, was good; humane, even dig-
nified. Francia refused to see or treat with
such a person, as he had ever done; but
readily granted him a place of residence in the
interior, and " thirty piastres a month till he
died." The bandit cultivated fields, did chlari-
table deeds, and passed a life of penitence, for
his few remaining years. His bandit followers,
who took to plundering again, says M. Rengger,
"were instantly seized and shot."

On the othf r hand, that anecdote of Francia's
dying father — requires to be confirmed ! It
seems, the old man, who, as we saw, had long
since quarrelled with his son, was dying, and
wished to be reconciled. Francia " was busy ;
— what was in it 1 — could not come." A second
still more pressing message arrives: "The
old father dare not die unless he sees his son;
fears he shall never enter heaven, if they be not

reconciled." — "Then let him enter !" said

Francia; "I will not come!"* If this anec-
dote be true, it is certainly, of all that are in
circulation about Dr. Francia, by far the worst.
If Francia, in that death-hour, could not for-
give his poor old father, whatsoever he had, or
could in the murkiest, sultriest imagination be
conceived to have done against him, then let
no man forgive Dr. Francia ! But the accuracy
of public rumour, in regard to a Dictator who
has executed forty persons, is also a thing that
can be guessed at. To whom was it, by name
and surname, that Francia delivered this extra-
ordinary response? Did the man make, or
can he now be got to make, affidavit of it, to
credible articulate-speaking persons resident
on this earth 1 If so, let him do it — for the
sake of the psychological sciences.

One last fact more. Our lonesome Dictator,
living among Guachos, had the greatest plea-
sure, it would seem, in rational conversation,
— with Robertson, with Rengger, with any
kind of intelligent human creature, when such
could be fallen in with, which was rarely. He
would question you with eagerness about the
ways of men in foreign places, the properties
of things unknown to him ; all human interest
and insight was interesting to him. Only per-
sons of no understanding being near him for
most part, he had to content himself with
silence, a meditative cigar and cup of mate.
0 Francia, though thou hadst to execute forty
persons, I am not without some pity for thee!

In Jhis manner, all being yet dark and void
for European eyes, have we to imagine that
the man Rodriguez Francia passed, in a re-
mote, but highly remarkable, not unquestion-
able or inquestioncd manner, across the
confused theatre of this world. For some
thirty years, he was all the government his
native Paraguay could be said to have. For
some six-and-twenty years he was express
Sovereign of it ; for some three, or some two
years, a Sovereign with bared sword, stern as
Rhadamanthus : through all his years, and

♦ Rengger. _

* Rolmrtson.

568

CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

through all his days, since the beginning of
him, a Man or Sovereign of iron energy and
industry, of great and severe labour. So
lived Dictator Francia, and had no rest; and
only in Eternity any prospect of rest. A life
of terrible labour; — but for the last twenty
years, the Fulgencio plot being once torn in
pieces and all now quiet under him, it was a
more equable labour : severe but equable, as
that of a hardy draught-steed fitted in his har-
ness; no longer plunging and champing; but
pulling steadily, — till he do all his rough miles,
and get to his still lumic.

So dark were the Messrs. Robertson concern-
ing Francia, they had nbt been able to learn

in the least whether, when their book came
out, he was« living or dead. He was living
then, he is dead now. He is dead, this re-
markable Francia; there is no doubt about it:
have not we and our readers heard pieces of
his Funeral Sermon ? He died on the 20th of
September, 1840, as the Rev. Perez informs
us; the People crowding round his Govern-
ment House with much emotion, nay, "with
tears," as Perez will have it. Three Excel-
lencies succeeded him, as some "Directorate,"
'^ Junta Gubcrnativa," or whatever the name
of it is, before whom this reverend Perez
preaches. God preserve them many years.

THE END.

A'

■^ ,

. "'o'.

>^C'\,.

„ %.

•^^

• 0'

/• -',

'p

e>

""-^J

o^- -

•;■ ^

^%

■■>,

\- <! > '^ " /

..^:^''%

-xV\'

v-^

' I

"^/

.^^''-> s^ -^r

b, '''

•>'^ V

^-^ ^^. .-^. ^

.A- -Ci ■ ,. , - A^ ^

\v »/> • « I ' 1^ \ "^ ■' I -^

'> r^^

.0-' '^> ^ ^<,'«-

,A^'

<../

» «

^ '^

1^^

'A 0^

■^- ,A

.- .^^^^■\

/

s

/

''>■ 0^-

V ^

V

4 9^

>. '^^ - ..vS^'''^

0 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process.
^, ^ . , ^ ' Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide

CL' <-■ \ ^-c-i''-^ p^? Treatment Date: March 2009

PreservationTechnologies

•;>, ,A , .C,- A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION

■y^ <\^ - .!■ ^. 111 Thomson Park Drive

r - Cranberry Township, PA 16066

C,'' '-Cp - (724)779-2111

^^^ ■<>,

V"^

%.,^'

.,r%.

' 1) •

J ». ''

"^-';

"^v-

0^

,N^'

^r.

:/

0 'o. o.\V

.x^-^-^.

■^^

■>'^ s*-

.-^'

. ^

o>

■C- A-V

.A\^'

^^^■

-%•

- '^ »^

3.0 -r

'

%:

N "

'■■'__

%

.^^'

X^ -7-^

,0-

^

-^^'%, w.,...

V-

■^^. <^ ■

xx^^'

a'

"b

■*''
V^^

>

^ y"

\^

-^c*-.

1

-0'

'-t

./■

.^■^'

■'■■r..

V

■ 0 . V *

:C^'

C^^

'^^

0^

^^

C^

r-

;<=/

»

<<•
V

■^^-.v

N^^

0^

■■^<>. -^"^

■ ■^^

\^ /-^

,-0-

X^^